Hello dear reader. Thank you for giving me this little nugget of trust and opening my writing.
God, it’s been a while. What I am doing in your inbox?
I haven’t written anything in a while but from time to time I feel an urge to write.
In this piece, I want to talk about the tug-of-war between the commander and explorer in the mind. For some people, it’s almost like schizophrenia. Two separate personalities cohabiting. One is the rational planner who manages life, makes decisions, and meets others’ expectations. The other is the explorer who just wants to live, experience, not worry, and have fun.
I have this condition.
For a short period last year, I tried to do both building web applications and investing on the one hand, and writing, making videos & being creative on the other hand.
Around October last year, I realized I could not cope with both creative and technical activities. It wasn’t just about a lack of time. It is difficult to go from one state of mind to another.
To be creative, I find that I need to consume the creative work of others. On days when I spent most of my time focused on coding, my mind would become very mechanical. There would be few sparks of inspiration or playfulness and not much substance to work with to communicate something interesting or stimulating to others.
At the same time, when I devoted my time to creative work, I never saw meaningful results that could imply I could do these activities in the long term. It is not my wish to guide the activities by the corrupting arrows of profit and popularity. But the commander shows up often enough and interrupts the creative mind, even when it has become comfortable enough with silence.
Sometimes having options is a bad thing. I can learn complicated things and do complicated things. To me, this is always a matter of time and effort intensity. I also sincerely believe this is the case for anyone on this planet. We are just lucky/unlucky to have uncovered some shortcuts, methods, or intuitions about how to do it.
Having the option to do complicated things, the commander in me often longs for cognitive stimulus and objective-driven activities.
But typically within a few weeks, the explorer comes back and asks the command whether he is enjoying life, whether he is living (the commander doesn’t like the ill-defined term living!).
Both demons are on each shoulder and tease each other within weeks of seeing the other dominate.
But instead of demons, I should talk about programs. This is what they are.
Programs that my mind has implemented and keeps running. Why mainly these two programs? Perhaps out of comfort. Maybe they are easily accessible in my short-term memory!
You would think that knowing this fact is kind of enlightening. Listening to Joscha Bach you understand that the mind is just creating these narratives, including the self all the time.
It’s all good Joschi (I hope I can call you that if you ever read this!). But I do not see the transcendence you talk about by knowing this and going beyond agency over our future.
There is always a default narrative we have to be in unless we are in some meditation state that resembles being a vegetable of blood and flesh in Tibet.
Another issue with understanding the various narratives we tell ourselves is that we can suddenly see other people playing that one record that defines them without being aware of it, without being aware that at any moment, they can choose to play another narrative. It doesn’t take anything special. Go to the jukebox machine, select the record, and play.
The trick you see is to consider that it is perfectly fine to have this ability, so long as we don’t dilute ourselves out of a few specific narratives. If we become detached from all narratives, I think we become ghosts. This is a little bit like the Immortals in Borge’s short story.
Is that what you mean by transcendence Joschi?
I don’t think so, because you seem enlightened yet you stick to the one or two narratives of the Self that define you as a known Cognitive Science thinker and another one that is probably the private Joscha. I don’t see evidence of ghost-like behavior.
Oh, I forgot to mention that I’m trying a semi-nomadic lifestyle. I have been to Bangkok for a week, and now I’m spending 4 weeks in Vietnam and will pass by Phuket for 10 days after that.
Partly, this piece was triggered by someone close to me who said they hoped I would find what I was seeking.
I tried to explain that there is nothing to find, just a large number of stimuli (sensorial and social) that can be enjoyable but not required to live a good life.
I did not expect my mental state to be different. The same two programs are running on the other side of the planet.
But the explorer has become a little sneakier.
He can also plan so that the planner cannot take too much control.
You're back!! I missed you, Alex! It's good to see you traveling the world and enjoying your time right now 🤗
I have found myself in a similar place as I started doing more intense consulting work last year. The commander absorbed all the sunlight and water, leaving my explorer withering in its shadow. I only felt it emerge during a weeklong escape to the California redwoods.
Thank you for sharing this. You've inspired me to prune the commander and make room for more exploration.