Clutter, headaround, Buddha
Jan. 25th, 2007 09:34 amIn the transhumanist communities, "headaround" is a hypothetical metric of how much load one brain can handle. Most of us know this feeling: some intellectual endeavor requires significant mental resources, and for a time it might require more than we can give it, or it might require some time for the subconscious to nibble away at the edges of the problem, abstracting or absorbing enough of the challenge such that we finally "get it." Individuals have different headarounds, and may have different strategies for achieving headaround for any specific problem. One of the big definitions of "expertise" is having a very large toolbox of strategies for achieving headaround, and for having an excellent filter for rapidly discarding strategies that won't get you there. Headaround is not the same thing as "understanding"; headaround is a (again, hypothetical) metric of how much complexity a mind can understand for any given problem.
For example, the really super chess players are often stereotyped as being a little weird: it may be that they've dedicated so much grey matter to having a headaround for chess that they've actually crowded out some capacity for social interaction.
So, think of headaround as a circle on the floor of the biggest room in your house. And imagine your clutter there with you on the floor. Because clutter is a part of your intellectual process. It is a sign of things percolating, of items parked for future perusal, of promises to yourself (good promises, really!) to strike out in new creative directions once you've fulfilled your existing creative promises. You have only so much organic headaround: offloading it onto paper and hard disk and tape recorder is a good plan. Instead, you keep pointers to these offloaded activities, and perhaps pointers to pointers. Ultimately, it comes down (for me at least) to a single notebook, and a to-do list of everything to be finished this week, and a wish list of everything to be finished eventually. The notebook isn't complete, of course; it would be humanly impossible. Scratching through the clutter, I may find precious ideas captures contained nowhere else in my clutter.
There are two problems with this plan. The first is paranoia: constantly sifting through the clutter to make sure I haven't lost anything. And I have learned to accept that even ideas, even new, shiny, beautiful ideas will get lost. I'm saddened by that fact, but it is a fact and I must live with it.
The other is that the circle in only so large. In truth, there are two circles: the organic and the static, the stuff within my skull, and the stuff within the clutter. Some stuff will eventually fall outside the outer circle: some stuff, even if I can see it, is stuff I will never have the time or energy or will to wrap my head around. I could move the circle in that direction toward that shiny goal, but then stuff behind me would fall out.
One of the lessons in happiness is the Buddhist-like "Do not want what you have not got." I think this works mostly for creative people because what they want they already have: the power to create. And I think this is why Buddhism ultimately fails creative people in some other sense: letting go of suffering means letting go of attachments, and that means making the circles, both of them, smaller. I doubt that will make creating any more intense, worthwhile, valuable-- or happier. The mind is such a preciously powerful thing, I can't see the benefit to letting it whir, doing nothing.
This is just a simple meditation on a simple fact: you and I are limited human beings. Even if we were to live a thousand years there are dreams waiting today on our desks and in our dayplanners that will never get done: they will be crowded out by other dreams that we will, for whatever reason, deem more worthy of our time and effort. And it's okay to be saddened by that fact-- for a moment. Then it's time to move on, pick up your pen, and let the ink flow once more.
For example, the really super chess players are often stereotyped as being a little weird: it may be that they've dedicated so much grey matter to having a headaround for chess that they've actually crowded out some capacity for social interaction.
So, think of headaround as a circle on the floor of the biggest room in your house. And imagine your clutter there with you on the floor. Because clutter is a part of your intellectual process. It is a sign of things percolating, of items parked for future perusal, of promises to yourself (good promises, really!) to strike out in new creative directions once you've fulfilled your existing creative promises. You have only so much organic headaround: offloading it onto paper and hard disk and tape recorder is a good plan. Instead, you keep pointers to these offloaded activities, and perhaps pointers to pointers. Ultimately, it comes down (for me at least) to a single notebook, and a to-do list of everything to be finished this week, and a wish list of everything to be finished eventually. The notebook isn't complete, of course; it would be humanly impossible. Scratching through the clutter, I may find precious ideas captures contained nowhere else in my clutter.
There are two problems with this plan. The first is paranoia: constantly sifting through the clutter to make sure I haven't lost anything. And I have learned to accept that even ideas, even new, shiny, beautiful ideas will get lost. I'm saddened by that fact, but it is a fact and I must live with it.
The other is that the circle in only so large. In truth, there are two circles: the organic and the static, the stuff within my skull, and the stuff within the clutter. Some stuff will eventually fall outside the outer circle: some stuff, even if I can see it, is stuff I will never have the time or energy or will to wrap my head around. I could move the circle in that direction toward that shiny goal, but then stuff behind me would fall out.
One of the lessons in happiness is the Buddhist-like "Do not want what you have not got." I think this works mostly for creative people because what they want they already have: the power to create. And I think this is why Buddhism ultimately fails creative people in some other sense: letting go of suffering means letting go of attachments, and that means making the circles, both of them, smaller. I doubt that will make creating any more intense, worthwhile, valuable-- or happier. The mind is such a preciously powerful thing, I can't see the benefit to letting it whir, doing nothing.
This is just a simple meditation on a simple fact: you and I are limited human beings. Even if we were to live a thousand years there are dreams waiting today on our desks and in our dayplanners that will never get done: they will be crowded out by other dreams that we will, for whatever reason, deem more worthy of our time and effort. And it's okay to be saddened by that fact-- for a moment. Then it's time to move on, pick up your pen, and let the ink flow once more.
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