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The Top Idea in Your Mind

paulgraham.com

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Re: The Top Idea in Your Mind

#161

Post by c00p3r »

This is very big idea - life is shaped by our mind, but what is shaped our mind? (behavior, which influences mind through body because they're two sides of a coin)

But how to control the mind? There are tens of techniques, from caring a beeper to write a diary every night. You need some kind of exceptions, interruptions, to catch yourself sweeping away into day-dreams and to return to the concentraction on the proper subject.

Many people will disagree, but meditation technique offers very efficient solution, like returning to posture and breathing when mind starts to wander. It is not like you must convert to Buddhism, it is about understanding how the mind works.

So, it is just a mater of a regular practicing, which will develop a new habit of observing where your mind is wandering about, so you could make any corrections.

This technique works perfectly for most of stresses, anxiety and obsessive neuroses, so it could help to concentrate on a proper subjects also.

Re: The Top Idea in Your Mind

#162

Post by nagrom »

"(I hear similar complaints from friends who are professors. Professors nowadays seem to have become professional fundraisers who do a little research on the side. It may be time to fix that.)"

There are too many words in that second sentence. I work in academia, and I know of very few professors who have any time to do research whatsoever. What's more, modern professors tend not be the people who were great at research - they're organisers, politicians and project managers.

I've often wondered about the similarities between a research leader and a start up founder, especially highly technical start ups. I have the greatest respect for anyone who can continue to write top quality advanced code and employ people, raise money, market and network. The individual tasks aren't so hard, but the combination is a killer.

Re: The Top Idea in Your Mind

#163

Post by david927 »

Robin_Message wrote: post #160
TotlolRon wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now imagine you are me and this is the sugar-coated version of your story: http://www.totlol.com/t/story

I read that story a while back, and it sucked. I empathise with your anger and sympathise with your loss. But I am trying quite hard to write a comment to say there is another way, and it is better. > you can try and hurt them twice, no matter the cost. Culture choice. In trying to hurt them twice, can you hurt them for what it costs you to do so? Or do you just have to pay that cost out of pocket? And if you hurt th…

If a strategy doesn't work, stop it. Don't hide behind the words "cultural choice" because they won't protect you from the consequences.

A culture that lives by eye-for-an-eye is a culture that's going to find itself constantly oscillating between victim and executioner.

I remember once watching three kids. Kids A and B would build a tower of blocks and Kid C would knock it down. Kids A and B would be devastated, wailing terribly. While Kid A was crying Kids B and C would build another one. Kid A would lift up his head, see it, and knock it down. Kids B and C are then crying, and then Kids A and C start building a new one, and Kid B would knock it down. This would go on and on, with each child knocking down the tower in turn, and the other two crying inconsolably about it.

You are not your culture. Your choice is up to you.

Re: The Top Idea in Your Mind

#164

Post by thailandstartup »

c00p3r wrote: post #161

This is very big idea - life is shaped by our mind, but what is shaped our mind? (behavior, which influences mind through body because they're two sides of a coin) But how to control the mind? There are tens of techniques, from caring a beeper to write a diary every night. You need some kind of exceptions, interruptions, to catch yourself sweeping away into day-dreams and to return to the concentraction on the proper…

Yes, I've found that it is possible to change the 'top idea' in my mind, just by noticing that I am thinking of it, and choosing to not think, or think of something else in that moment. This seems to cause thinking about it to occur less frequently.

Re: The Top Idea in Your Mind

#165

Post by alex1 »

In the 9th paragraph:

"Try to get yourself into situations where the most urgent problems are ones you want think about."

Should be:

"Try to get yourself into situations where the most urgent problems are ones you want to think about."

Right?

Re: The Top Idea in Your Mind

#166

Post by dkersten »

johnfn wrote: post #107
OoTheNigerian wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These days, the ground state of most people is aimless browsing, Facebook and Twitter. Unfortunately,I am becoming most people and that has to stop now.

I challenge you to follow up on it. Block them. Let me give you some anecdotal background story... I realized this was happening to me a few months ago - that I was wasting more and more time just surfing Facebook or Twitter and so forth. So I started adding websites to my /etc/hosts file. (That is, my computer now blocks me from accessing these websites, unless I edit a file, and then restart). It started with Reddi…

I spend more time browsing HN than any other site.. I guess this means byebye HN? :'(

Re: The Top Idea in Your Mind

#167

Post by Charuru »

michael_nielsen wrote: post #4

A very closely related idea is that most people have a "ground state": an activity that they naturally gravitate toward when nothing else intervenes. For many people, their ground state is shopping, or talking with friends, or watching tv. Nothing wrong with any of these. For some people, their ground state is aimless coding, or writing, or drifting around some community (e.g., the community of actors, or musicians,…

My ground state is Hacker News. I'm not sure if that's a good or bad thing.

Re: The Top Idea in Your Mind

#168

Post by levesque »

johnfn wrote: post #107
OoTheNigerian wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These days, the ground state of most people is aimless browsing, Facebook and Twitter. Unfortunately,I am becoming most people and that has to stop now.

I challenge you to follow up on it. Block them. Let me give you some anecdotal background story... I realized this was happening to me a few months ago - that I was wasting more and more time just surfing Facebook or Twitter and so forth. So I started adding websites to my /etc/hosts file. (That is, my computer now blocks me from accessing these websites, unless I edit a file, and then restart). It started with Reddi…

Aaannd done.

For the past few months, whenever I got stuck on a problem, I almost instantly stopped thinking about it and switched to a reddit tab, instinctively. I do not know why I did that, but it certainly slowed me down. Perhaps I'll become super productive and finish my thesis in the next week (unlikely :D).

Re: The Top Idea in Your Mind

#169

Post by polynomial »

johnfn wrote: post #143
portman wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"edit a file, and then restart" Our of curiosity, what operating system do you use? On Windows, hosts entries take effect immediately. No need to restart.

Ubuntu. I could be wrong though - I read it somewhere and never tested it out.

Wait, you restart your whole system anytime you edit /etc/hosts ?

Re: The Top Idea in Your Mind

#170

Post by dfranke »

I think most people have one top idea in their mind at any given time.

I'm not so sure this is true. It's true of me; it may be true of you; it's probably true of most HN readers. However, non-geeks who know me well enough to observe this of me think it's weird, which leads to me to think it's not true of people in general.

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