Conversation

I've noticed that consciousness recedes when I'm deep in a coding phase, many back-to-back days in flow. My mind narrows to tunnel-vision, fixated on the software and its issues. My sense of self shrinks; non-code ideas cease to arise; I get less curious; writing yields little.

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Andy Matuschak

@andy_matuschak

Oct 18, 2020

It's an odd feeling: flow is experientially satisfying, but the creeping self-abnegation is worrying. I also notice it takes quite a while to "reset" from this phase, to start hearing myself think again, to feel like less of an automaton.

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Alex J Burke

@alexjeffburke

Oct 24, 2020

I was super grateful when I read this because it’s crystallised something I’ve felt, and is why I’m no longer sure about staying in the industry at least on the engineering side. Extended periods withoit fully clearing out can snowball badly. Honest Q, how do you manage to reset?

Andy Matuschak

@andy_matuschak

Replying to

@alexjeffburke

The main thing for me seems to be to get my head out of tiny details and abstraction. Nature seems to help recapture a sense of expansiveness. Meditation. Also time with anything that triggers my sense of wonder. A week or so has usually been enough for me to reset.

1:45 PM · Oct 24, 2020TweetDeck

Replying to

Thank you so much. Share the same when it comes to nature, reminds me there’s this huge world out there. But that self-abnegation, as you put it, is a really scary thing. Curious if it is unique to what is required of us or whether it happens with other fields