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I know the secret to the quiet mind but wish I’d never learned it

theatlantic.com

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Re: I know the secret to the quiet mind but wish I’d never learned it

#41

Post by DoreenMichele »

teh_infallible wrote: post #39
throwaway205826 wrote: post #13

A few years ago I got some kind of brain illness. Doctors were unable to come up with a strong diagnosis, which is apparently quite common for such cases. One of the effects of the illness was that I essentially became stupid. I couldn’t focus on anything (even trivial activities like watching television), I couldn’t compose emails, I would get disoriented easily. It was absolutely terrifying not knowing whether or n…

I honestly believe that the dumbest software developer is smarter than the average doctor. Look at how they prescribe drugs for the side effects of other drugs. Imagine coding a software patch to fix a bug introduced by another patch.

That's at least partly about how medicine gets monetized.

Imagine a world in which you got paid for patches instead of being paid by the hour. Patches on patches would likely proliferate.

Re: I know the secret to the quiet mind but wish I’d never learned it

#42

Post by lrem »

skadamou wrote: post #30
throwaway205826 wrote: post #13

A few years ago I got some kind of brain illness. Doctors were unable to come up with a strong diagnosis, which is apparently quite common for such cases. One of the effects of the illness was that I essentially became stupid. I couldn’t focus on anything (even trivial activities like watching television), I couldn’t compose emails, I would get disoriented easily. It was absolutely terrifying not knowing whether or n…

I'm so sorry this happened to you and I'm glad you are starting to feel at least somewhat back to your old self. I definitely understand where this opinion of docs is coming from as there are definitely some incompetent docs out there but don't you think that your opinion is largely based around an anecdotal experience that is probably pretty abnormal? Medicine as a field is still pretty unscientific in a lot of ways…

Idiots is the wrong word. They've achieved a state of the art knowledge. An idiot wouldn't get there. The problem is, most of them stopped at that. And state of the art moved on.

Re: I know the secret to the quiet mind but wish I’d never learned it

#43

Post by mensetmanusman »

A family member last year had a psychotic episode that lasted a couple months where they lost contact with reality and became a different person (undiagnosed schizophrenia).

After their care, they said the hardest thing is understanding who they were, and who they are now (since the medication does change their personality somewhat).

Re: I know the secret to the quiet mind but wish I’d never learned it

#44

Post by sergiomattei »

tux1968 wrote: post #31
qwerty456127 wrote: post #18

> Of all the injuries we suffered, mine is the worst. My brain injury has shaken my confidence in my own personality, my own existence. I don't exist. That's the secret. This concept took me years to grok but now I know.

I have good news for you. Ignoring the small chance that you're actually a figment of my imagination, I can confirm you actually do exist.

I can confirm your existence and the parent's existence.

Re: I know the secret to the quiet mind but wish I’d never learned it

#47

Post by kevinmgranger »

teh_infallible wrote: post #39
throwaway205826 wrote: post #13

A few years ago I got some kind of brain illness. Doctors were unable to come up with a strong diagnosis, which is apparently quite common for such cases. One of the effects of the illness was that I essentially became stupid. I couldn’t focus on anything (even trivial activities like watching television), I couldn’t compose emails, I would get disoriented easily. It was absolutely terrifying not knowing whether or n…

I honestly believe that the dumbest software developer is smarter than the average doctor. Look at how they prescribe drugs for the side effects of other drugs. Imagine coding a software patch to fix a bug introduced by another patch.

> Imagine coding a software patch to fix a bug introduced by another patch.

This happens all the time.

Re: I know the secret to the quiet mind but wish I’d never learned it

#48

Post by blowski »

tyingq wrote: post #17
adamrezich wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the attention economy demands it, as long as it reigns supreme we'll never be free from this dumb shit

It's not really new. https://www.google.com/search?q=yellow+journalism+headlines&...

Exactly! While most click bait has interesting titles, not all interesting titles are clickbait. So many people seem to want headlines to be merely an 80 character summary of the article. That’s fine on articles of news - “so and so has died”, “Country declares war on Country Y”. Or in tutorials. But in pieces of writing we are reading mostly for leisure there’s no reason for it to have such a matter-of-fact title.

For me clickbait is hyper-sensationalised, usually misleading, and typically the article doesn’t deliver what the title says it will. None of those three attributes are true of this title or article.

Re: I know the secret to the quiet mind but wish I’d never learned it

#49

Post by thrwawy06182021 »

throwaway205826 wrote: post #13

A few years ago I got some kind of brain illness. Doctors were unable to come up with a strong diagnosis, which is apparently quite common for such cases. One of the effects of the illness was that I essentially became stupid. I couldn’t focus on anything (even trivial activities like watching television), I couldn’t compose emails, I would get disoriented easily. It was absolutely terrifying not knowing whether or n…

I also am suffering from something similar. I have the working theory it's from extreme burnout but do not know for sure. I would tremendously appreciate if you shared what you found to help?

Re: I know the secret to the quiet mind but wish I’d never learned it

#50

Post by caconym_ »

megablast wrote: post #9

Cars are so incredibly destructive to society, in so many ways. But most people are so blasé about them.

Does anyone else feel like it's almost always a pickup truck? This article^[1] that I found a while back claims occupants of a car are 2.5 times more likely to die in a collision with a pickup truck than another car.

It's an atrocity, and it's insane to me that it's almost totally absent from the public discourse.

^[1] https://www.iihs.org/topics/vehicle-size-and-weight

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