When the brain stops trying to solve the problem

hm. i cannot do anything creative, so don't know about such blocks. programming is mostly mechanical activity for me: take my knowledge, and apply it. if i can't code something, it means that i don't have enough knowledge, and i have to go reading articles and books (it is usually obvious what you don't know).

but i guess that with things like mapping it is very different, because it is not mechanical anymore…

That happened to me when I was trying to compile EDGE 1.35 on windows, for windows. In the end I just gave up.

Was iritating because I could compile 1.27 through 1.29, but after that... brain gave up.

ketmar, I described a situation which can result in "X's block". Yes the team was defective, but that's only one way the problem can trigger. And let's not forget about your attitude about supporting Dehacked/whatever: you choose the problems you work on, not work on the problems of someone else's choices. And the "X's block" happens when you need to achieve the task desperately, and that task has deadline or other constraints, that you can't just walk away from it and say "another time" or "I don't give a fuck about this, let it burn in hell". Cause otherwise you don't have a block, you just switch to another task.

The situation I described is sitting on the given task you can't throw away but that you can't progress either. You keep telling yourself "I need to solve this" but your brain is not really trying to solve it, it's in slumber, and only wakes up every few hours to say to itself "I need to solve this" and "why I am not solving it?" and goes to slumber mode again.

ketmar, there is another way to have problems you can't walk away from: when what you need is something only you can do, and it won't wait forever till you do it. In this case, the block may not happen as you will simply procrastinate on playing games or whatever, hoping the worst doesn't occur in reality, but is that really a wise thing to do?

In other words, I still think the problem is worthy to be more acknowledged than it is right now, and that to solve it would be a great thing to do.

p.s. Isn't the very concept of job intended to be something you hate rather than something you love? xD

Also, think of this kind of topics as attempts to contribute to the world at large, or a prelude/experiment with what may eventually become such. It's not me asking for help for myself, I'm inviting everyone to contribute thoughts that could be useful to people outside of the board as well, if said people were to somehow dig this topic, or if I rehash all these thoughts later and publish them or otherwise communicate to a larger audience.

Because some people are inclined towards empathy, and thus do things that not necessary result in solely their own benefit. Not out of obligation, but because they realize they can provide something to others who can't provide it to themselves.

Don't take it as if you were somehow worse because you disagree. I simply think the world would have been a better place if more people realized this disparity that exists between people, and acted - when capable (important!) - upon it by helping these directly rather than by preaching, proselytising and spearheading political movements acting in the name of one cause or the other. By disparity in power, I don't mean a disparity rooted in someone's group or "assigned at birth" identity (the only one that "woke" movement takes care to notice), but just plain objective disparity which is observable to anyone without political lenses grown over their eyes.

P.S. And I will never advocate (unlike the "woke" zombies) to take away from those people who have little to give in reality. I'm talking about fairness from humanistic perspective, not from political one. Somehow these prove to be at odds with each other in practice, as I've observed in real life in the actions, speech and attitudes of activists of the LGBTQ+ group I was involved in.

That point of view is speculative, though. The question is how virtue (not just that of empathy, but any virtue) is or can be cultivated, and perhaps the vulnerability at some preceeding point in life and the need for being accepted by others as well are prerequisite to its development. Also notice how it is not necessary about feeling better and more important, the self-esteem can be low instead of high, and the actions are thus driven by trying to raise it towards rather than above the norm. Ultimately, one selflessly serving other people may be actually a vulnerable person and not full of hubris. Both options, in fact, are possible.

There also appears to be a difference between internalized moral values and moral values obeyed out of fear. The internalized ones may have once belonged to the second category, but eventually became the part of one's identity.

And even if it was as you say, what's bad about actual good things resulting from such motivation?

it is more-or-less what zoopsychology tells us. it is especially true about people with low self-esteem, because they're basically trying to buy some external respect with their actions (which is dishonest from my PoV, and i value honesty a lot — because it makes social interactions much easier).


i'm still waiting to see such people, tho. if you will talk with them long enough, you will eventually realize that they're full of "holier than thou" attitude. i've seen no exceptions so far.


it's about ethics and morality, amirite? ;-)


because usually people with such wrong motivations immediately start behave as assholes when they gain even a small power. they don't have to buy respect anymore, instead they can command to respect them. and respect is all they actually wanted from the very beginning.

or even worser, they start to forcing their views and way of living onto others, "for their own good". this is an asshole squared.


p.s.: it seems that i failed my attempts to make it softer… ;-)

yes, you are right here. there is the fact, and then my views regarding that fact. i didn't separated them good enough, tho, mea maxima culpa. ;-)


they dishonest to themselves, first and foremost, by failing to admit their real problems. it's not healthy.


but… i really am. ;-) this (being "moral") is one of the games i don't want to play.


it's one of the things that is hard to understand without understanding "marxism" (it's not a right word, but we don't have anything better, sadly) as a whole. it may be better understood if i write it like this: "don't demand from people more than they are willing to give, and don't give them more than you are willing to give. and do nothing 'for their own good' without asking them first."


looks like it. try to imagine me smiling as i'm writing my responses (because that's what i'm actually doing). not sarcastically, or something like that, just smiling because i'm enjoying our conversation. i'm not demanding from you to agree with me (see the quote above ;-), i just want to see how you will defend your points, to learn something new. that is, i don't want to "win" here, it doesn't matter, i just want to hear what you have to say. oh, and provoking you a little too, but it's not of a bad will.

Oh come on VD, don't be like that.

You over-analyze stuff too much sometimes. And tend to see everything as either black or white binary extremes.

I think you are so used to posting your enormous philosophical stream-of-conciousness threads almost like a diary/blog post, and usually no one replies. So when they do (as happened here) you took it as a personal attack.
I doubt that was Ketmars intent: he took the time to read it and then posted his opinion: that's all.

It happens a lot these days that people are so ego-invested in their beliefs that a criticism of their idea is seen as a personal attack.

It went off-topic? Sure, but that's what conversations often do.



Anyway, can't we all just be not-enemies? 😉

That sounds familiar, have an exciting idea about a new coding project, then later it becomes a chore for some reason. My mind is in the "I really need to work on this, it will be great if I finish it" but everyday that passes that I realized I haven't worked on it, becomes more pressing. Because of the constant reminder that I am failing to work on it, it's a negative stimuli now, and I become avoidant of it. This happen especially in things that have a deadline and my mind switch from "I'd LOVE to work on this shit" to "I MUST finish this thing".

Which usually ends up me not coding either this or any other ideas piled in the big list of "Dream Projects". It might end up in periods I don't want to code at all but just watch youtube or play vidya. So, an alternative solution would be to grab anything, just about anything, even outside the main project, make it a hobby to code for half an hour, even some of the Dream Project ideas, or just algorithm exploration (some wild idea I wanted to try with code optimization or alternative algorithm, but it's not part of a big project but a tiny code maybe). Just to keep the ball rolling. The disadvantage of that method though, I jump from project to project and I can never focus on a big project. I am wondering about people who worked in enormous project, like working on an emulator or game engine for 3 years or something. I never worked on such big things, and usually the demoscene stuff I am working are much smaller hacky projects, rather than a big focused project (I think the biggest project I've work is OptiDoom on 3DO, and that was gradual, working for few months, abandoning the project for half a year, then coming back and trying little ideas (but never focusing on truly optimizing the engine at it's core, just coding gimmicks or small optimizations)). At least it's better than stop coding at all, it's better to keep the ball rolling with other random code, approach coding as an art (in the same way a painter would do random stuff on their canvas spontaneously) rather than a chore. The idea of "MUST finish this and not do anything else" sometimes blocks you.

Another thing I do that doesn't have to do with this phenomenon but general habits is, start your day by coding something instead of opening youtube or whatever you do. As I also have a real job, I remember that I was anticipating when it's over and I go back home to continue working on my current projects. Of course it's not easy to continue working after your work, even if it's your beloved coding project. But when I come back, I might make something to eat, because I am eating the habit says watch youtube while you eat, etc. I end up in a pleasurable state and leaving that and going back to code feels less pleasurable. It's also dopamine levels, doing the pleasure first (even 5 minutes twitter, which I removed my account), then it feels much harder to go back to the less dopaminogenic code focus (but it might be more serotonin or something when you end up convincing yourself to work and finish something). So, at some point I had a habit that said "No matter what you do, the first few minutes, even 10 minutes, should be opening the compiler and look back at your project, try to write something". I told the technique to a programming  friend of mine and he said "You saved me with that, I am more productive by the time you told me!". Now here is what happens with miraculous techniques. It saved me at the beginning, but then it also become a predictable habit, so it didn't work in the long run for some reason. I really do have periods where I just don't want to do anything anyway and other periods of extreme coding focus.

So, if you get block:
- code anything without having a plan like a painter, even not in the main project but on some other idea you wanted to try or old code you left abandoned. It helps to nostalgically look at your old repositories on github or whatever, read parts of your code and wonder how you wrote that, take away your mind from "MUST finish this right now" but "MMmmmm Code!"
- make a habit to write any code for few minutes or half an hour before starting anything else. If the pleasure starts before the code, it distracts you and you don't want to switch. I said about coding after coming back from work before doing anything else. I some days tried it in the morning, before going to work not watch youtube, but code few lines or something. It ends up me fixing something in the code or finding a bug that scared me, committing one little change, and feeling better and more anticipation to come back and continue in the evening.

Not that I ever solved the blocking problem, it's suggestions that sometimes work if you get into their philosophy. But I still have not worked really focused for long periods on a really big great project (even if I have dreams and ideas about many of them), it was always small hacks and projects that stay dormant. Oh, a thought about big projects I have, similar to "break it into little parts",. the enormity of a project idea makes it intimidating, so yes you could work on it like it was much smaller. So you think of a big tool that does a lot of things, because the ideas flow and you think I'll do this and that and it will be amazing. Make/plan for a much smaller version of the tool that makes it very basic. So another way is to plan a much smaller version of your vision, so it looks like a much simpler project that you could finish earlier. Then you can build upon that and expand.