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The Human Mind--So Annoying! · Armstrong & Getty One More Thing

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: The human mind so annoying. It's one more thing I'm
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: one thing.
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  Speaker 2: I know mine is.
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  Speaker 1: You've said this many times over the year years. I
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: hope at some point humankind can do this. Maybe we
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: can with neurallink or AI or something like that. You've
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: said before that if you could live in someone else's mind.
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  Speaker 2: It's the most terrifying thing you could ever do.
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  Speaker 1: And I wonder, I wonder, I wonder how much similarity
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: there would be and how much it would be, like
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: this is what you think about because there are you know,
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  Speaker 1: obviously there are things that you know. We all have
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  Speaker 1: friends and family. We know the things that they're interested
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  Speaker 1: in and think about that you never think about, just
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  Speaker 1: like surface level, you know, like you think about golf
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  Speaker 1: a lot. Probably I never think about golf, So would
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  Speaker 1: just be interesting just that stuff like that.
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  Speaker 3: So this is so a stone our conversation. But I
• 1:01
  Speaker 3: love this sort of conversation. If you were not only okay,
• 1:06
  Speaker 3: so you're inside their head, you would be feeling what
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  Speaker 3: they feel as well or stream sense years.
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  Speaker 1: And that's sort of that's why I say mine instead
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  Speaker 1: of brain, allthough I supposed to be the same thing,
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  Speaker 1: but just yeah, yeah, yeah, it's the the way they
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  Speaker 1: you know, fully, fully perceive life on a daily basis
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  Speaker 1: as someone else, would be the most fascinating thing in
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  Speaker 1: the world. Like if you got at the end of
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  Speaker 1: the day and thought, God, I want to be an example.
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  Speaker 1: I'll use this as an example. You didn't think about
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  Speaker 1: sex at all today or something like that.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, but obviously, he says, reaching for the bong. So
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  Speaker 3: I would still retain my own consciousness. You'd have to
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  Speaker 3: be aware that I was being a tourist.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: It gets very complicated, very fast.
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  Speaker 2: But I don't know we can handle it.
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  Speaker 4: I would want to live in a man's brain for
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  Speaker 4: a day, just any guys, because you guys think so
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  Speaker 4: much different. Like, for example, if I say, hey, if
• 2:03
  Speaker 4: you're sitting there quietly, say hey, what are you thinking about? Nothing?
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  Speaker 1: That doesn't exist in my world. It doesn't exist in
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  Speaker 1: anybody's world. It's impossible to think about nothing. But it's
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  Speaker 1: but it's uh, but yeah, there's probably different levels of focus.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah right, right, I think, well, I don't want to
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  Speaker 1: get off on this because I have a specific agenda
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  Speaker 1: here that I'm setting up for.
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  Speaker 2: So I knew he had agenda.
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  Speaker 4: It always does.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, So Uh. For instance, I am not a warrior
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  Speaker 1: almost at all. I I'd probably be better off if
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  Speaker 1: I was more of a warrior tea I don't. I
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  Speaker 1: just don't worry about things. And I, uh, my son
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  Speaker 1: has picked that up and now watching it in someone
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  Speaker 1: else where, I think, how do I get you to
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  Speaker 1: worry more? You should be worried more about this. You're
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: not worried at all. I'm like that, So he got
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  Speaker 1: that for me. I'd be better off if I worried more.
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  Speaker 1: But I just don't worry about things. But I am
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  Speaker 1: a and this is probably worse then be like, I
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  Speaker 1: know warriors to the point of it's awful. I won't
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  Speaker 1: say who it is. But somebody I've known my whole life,
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  Speaker 1: which might be a hint, divulged to me the other
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  Speaker 1: day what a worrier they are, and they worry about
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  Speaker 1: everything all the time, and it sounds like just a
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  Speaker 1: tortuous way to live, to worry.
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  Speaker 3: I'm definitely closer to that side. I've tried to get
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  Speaker 3: better about it.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, Well, this particular person just worries about so many
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  Speaker 1: things that are relatively mundane or the chance of that
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  Speaker 1: happening is so incredibly low. I can't imagine why you'd
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  Speaker 1: ever think about it.
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  Speaker 4: But that's me.
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  Speaker 1: We don't choose to these things and the how much
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  Speaker 1: we can correct them. I do not know. That's what
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  Speaker 1: I've been working on because I'm a perseverator on things
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  Speaker 1: that have already happened. There's no point in thinking about
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  Speaker 1: things that have already happened.
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  Speaker 2: And Derek Guya makes up words. What was that word?
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  Speaker 1: Focus on and keep repeating over and over and over
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  Speaker 1: on your your head, never heard it. You can't stop
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  Speaker 1: replaying the tape on things that have already happened that
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  Speaker 1: were you know, usually bad, always bad things. You know,
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  Speaker 1: what could have have done? Different? Different? Why did I
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  Speaker 1: do that? You know? That sort of thing that I do.
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  Speaker 1: I don't, at least worrying about future things, even that
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  Speaker 1: though it could be tortures. Every once in a while,
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  Speaker 1: you're gonna stop something bad from happening by worrying all
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  Speaker 1: the time. My thing is never going to do any good.
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  Speaker 1: That's done and gone. There's no point in thinking about
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  Speaker 1: that now.
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  Speaker 4: See, I identify with both of those I do. I
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  Speaker 4: do both. Yeah, me to a really almost pathetic level.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, I have a sense of humor about it. To
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  Speaker 3: your assertion slash question that you can probably manage it
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  Speaker 3: within a certain percentage. You can get like twenty percent
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  Speaker 3: more relaxed or twenty percent more forgiving of yourself, but
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  Speaker 3: you probably can't change that set point completely.
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  Speaker 1: So I've got a certain instance in my fairly recent
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  Speaker 1: life that was quite devastating, and you know, I won't
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  Speaker 1: be specific about it, but that I have really hard
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: trouble not thinking about a lot every day. And so
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  Speaker 1: I went to my uh, you know, my favorite therapists,
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  Speaker 1: my chatbots for some advice on what to do here,
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  Speaker 1: and some of this stuff I thought was really interesting
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  Speaker 1: about the practical shift and the thinking. We get some
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  Speaker 1: sort of I'm gonna call it a sick pleasure. The
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  Speaker 1: chatbots didn't call it a sick pleasure, and that's probably
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  Speaker 1: the wrong term, but we're getting some benefit out of it.
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  Speaker 1: You know, Fear is a is a is a hit
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  Speaker 1: to the brain in the same way that excitement or
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  Speaker 1: joy is a hit to the brain. You're getting some
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  Speaker 1: hit to the brain from staying on these things that
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  Speaker 1: you like the or or maybe likes the wrong word.
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  Speaker 1: You've gotten so used to you can't imagine not having
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  Speaker 1: that feeling that seems to be what happens, and so
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  Speaker 1: we get stuck in that mode. Uh, and so you
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  Speaker 1: gotta you gotta like find a way to get past that.
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  Speaker 1: I'll just read what the the chatbots said, digging through
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  Speaker 1: lots of psychological research.
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  Speaker 2: On this sort of stuff.
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  Speaker 3: Your chat pot doesn't look like an anime school girl,
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  Speaker 3: does it.
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  Speaker 2: You don't have those thing? Yeah?
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, I went more with a French Maid, but I
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  Speaker 1: spoll the Hey, it's a classic. The practical shift is
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  Speaker 1: to have other things worth thinking about. I feel like
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  Speaker 1: I was taught in psych one oh one in college,
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  Speaker 1: which was probably crap. I mean that was fifty years ago,
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  Speaker 1: forty five years ago. They probably decided that was all crap.
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  Speaker 1: I brought up to Uh. My wife was a psychology
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  Speaker 1: major years later because she was younger than me, and
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  Speaker 1: I brought up the idea of something that I learned
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  Speaker 1: in psychology once and she burst out laughing, what they
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  Speaker 1: taught you?
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  Speaker 3: What?
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  Speaker 4: Yeah?
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  Speaker 1: So I wonder if everything, but anyway, one thing I
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  Speaker 1: learned in psych class, uh was fun stopping Like you
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: get negative thoughts and you try to stop them. And
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  Speaker 1: at least this advice current advice from this chatbot was
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  Speaker 1: that never works. Thought stopping is not something that you
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  Speaker 1: can do. It's it compared it to trying to hold
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  Speaker 1: a beach ball underwater. The further you push it down,
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  Speaker 1: the harder it tries to get back up. And thought
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  Speaker 1: stopping doesn't work. You have to think about something different
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  Speaker 1: as soon as the thought. As soon as the thought
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  Speaker 1: comes into your head. You don't try to push it away. No,
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  Speaker 1: focus on a different thing is the only way you
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  Speaker 1: can deal with it.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's yeah, Okay, that's a little quibblesome by the chatbot.
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  Speaker 3: It's right, But I mean, I like I used to
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  Speaker 3: for a very fairly brief period of my life, maybe
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  Speaker 3: five ten years, I had a terrible fear of flying,
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  Speaker 3: just imagining the worst over and over again. And I
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  Speaker 3: finally engaged in thoughts stopping stop thinking about that, and
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  Speaker 3: then obviously you have to move on to something else.
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  Speaker 1: But and that works for you, I've not had any
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  Speaker 1: success with that. Maybe it's because I didn't follow it
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  Speaker 1: up with think about something else, which might is probably
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  Speaker 1: the key part. I just it's kind of like the
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  Speaker 1: old joke of don't think about a blue elephant. Don't
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  Speaker 1: think about a blue elephant, don't think about a blue
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  Speaker 1: eve and you you know, you know what happens there.
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  Speaker 3: And you must remember I have a mind like a
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  Speaker 3: steel trap as well.
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  Speaker 1: You know, don't think about X. Don't think about X.
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  Speaker 1: Stop thinking about X's is thinking about X. So that's
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  Speaker 1: the trap that I get into. Where there's empty space,
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  Speaker 1: your mind always fills it with something and has to.
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  Speaker 1: You've reinforced with your brain over and over over again,
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  Speaker 1: these thoughts that give some reaction in your brain that
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  Speaker 1: you're tethered to. Whether it's a positive feeling or a
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  Speaker 1: negative feeling, you're tethered to that feeling. That's your normal part.
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  Speaker 1: Your brain wants to pull you back to what it's
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  Speaker 1: used to, no matter what it is, which is troubling,
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  Speaker 1: a troubling thought. If you're you know, you got trauma
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  Speaker 1: in your life, or you grow up in a household
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  Speaker 1: where everybody this is probably why people are like this.
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  Speaker 1: If you grew up in a household I didn't, thank God,
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  Speaker 1: where everything was always stressful and fearful, your brain pulls
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  Speaker 1: you back to that because that is what it's decided.
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  Speaker 1: It's kept you alive this long. It's gotta be working.
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  Speaker 1: Let's keep doing it even if it's bad for you.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: I had a good friend who discovered that about himself.
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  Speaker 3: It really freed him.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I'm kind of having this occurrence to me.
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  Speaker 1: I don't have something that major, but I have always
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  Speaker 1: focused on these big negative things that happen in my life,
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  Speaker 1: and he just can't stop thinking about him, and they're
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  Speaker 1: not doing me any good. So what you need to
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  Speaker 1: do is you need to give your thoughts somewhere to go,
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  Speaker 1: something else to think about, and you know, you just
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  Speaker 1: choose a couple of things that you're gonna focus on.
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  Speaker 1: And for me anyway, instead of stop, go away, I've
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  Speaker 1: got to immediately fix up. No, we're gonna think about
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  Speaker 1: this like learning a new piano piece or whatever the
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  Speaker 1: hell is. I'm going to start thinking about, you know
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  Speaker 1: what really works for me, picturing smiting my enemies. Oh
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  Speaker 1: there you go, so satisfy that there you go. Yes,
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  Speaker 1: I've known people who's who's whose focus is that revenge
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  Speaker 1: on people that have wronged them, family members or whatever.
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  Speaker 1: That's all they think about. That's their happy place. Happy
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  Speaker 1: place is the wrong word. Comfort zone. That's their normal zone.
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  Speaker 1: And your brain normal your brain pulls you back to
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  Speaker 1: your what you've been doing your whole life, even if
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  Speaker 1: it's bad for you over and over and over again.
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  Speaker 1: That's that's a fascinating thought. So maybe some of you
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  Speaker 1: think I don't have any what I would consider negative
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  Speaker 1: regular thoughts that are holding me back good for you.
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  Speaker 1: But I do, and I've just got a I don't know.
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  Speaker 1: I don't know what my focus is gonna be par cheesy,
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  Speaker 1: I don't know. I need to come up with something.
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  Speaker 3: That A fascinating game of chance, end strategy jank are cheesy?
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  Speaker 1: Uh AnyWho? I don't know if that was of any
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  Speaker 1: use to anyone.
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  Speaker 2: No, I think it. I think it is. I absolutely.
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  Speaker 3: I am a firm believer that if you're conscious of
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  Speaker 3: your consciousness you can do better. You have at least
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  Speaker 3: be aware of the things you're thinking and name of them.
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  Speaker 3: I'm a big fan of that, because once you do that,
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  Speaker 3: it's there's so much that's not inevitable neurologically, it's just
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  Speaker 3: habit or a comfort zone.
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  Speaker 1: Almost tons of stuff that we think is exactly what
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  Speaker 1: you said, it's not inevitable. It's just a habit, and
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  Speaker 1: maybe a very bad habit that we developed a very
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  Speaker 1: very very long time ago, and then we just hang onto,
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  Speaker 1: which is really weird that we do that to ourselves.
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: I had another point I was gonna make. Oh, so,
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: the thing that the chatbot said, based on the recent
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: psychology is it's gonna feel really weird and contrived for
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  Speaker 1: quite a while. That whenever you have these thoughts, you say, Okay,
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  Speaker 1: time to think about whatever it is I'm gonna choose
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  Speaker 1: to think about, and I better come up with something soon.
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  Speaker 1: It's gonna seem contrived and forced. But over time your
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: mind will start to say, well, I guess he's not
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: interested in that anymore. Let's switch over to this. I
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: hope that's what happens.
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  Speaker 4: Wow. Okay, I've been a little eye rolling through this
• 12:05
  Speaker 4: podcast because I have zero control over that. Like, whenever
• 12:08
  Speaker 4: I've tried to do the whole, don't think about it,
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  Speaker 4: think about something else that almost like magnifies it.
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: More, right, right, And I think that's why it said
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  Speaker 1: it's gonna seem contrived and forced and pointless for quite
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: a while. But I love the idea of the brain
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  Speaker 1: finally saying well, I guess we're not thinking about this anymore.
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  Speaker 1: Let's shift our attention over here.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: I remember in your early days of thinking about alcoholism.
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: I remember you use the phrase you're trying to fix
• 12:33
  Speaker 3: your brain with your brain, yeah, which obviously fascinated by
• 12:36
  Speaker 3: that notion.
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  Speaker 2: It's not impossible, but.
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  Speaker 1: It's a it's a task the human mind does have
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: the ability. We all sense this. I think to almost
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: think about it as a separate thing, like which is
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: weird it's function you mean, or like it's like it's
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: two things at once, the fixing your brain with your brain.
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: I mean, I'm talking right now about something my brain.
• 13:02
  Speaker 3: Does, right or I should be talking about something my
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: brain's doing right now, yeah, yeah.
• 13:08
  Speaker 4: And then thinking about this and thinking about something else
• 13:11
  Speaker 4: at the same time.
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: I'm really, really I got so excited about this last
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: night because I've been doing this my whole life without
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: even really noticing it. And I started having these conversations
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: with different chatbots to like nailed on, isn't this what
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: everybody does? And they were like, no, second, not what
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: everybody does all the time, Like I don't have to
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: live this way. I can let not do this. This
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: is an option. I'm almost thrilled about this idea of
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: starting a new path of trying to switch to something else,
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: which I've I've done, We've all done, We've all had
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: things we don't want to think about, and you try
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: to change it, but it doesn't necessarily work all the time.
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: I like the idea that if you keep doing it,
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: keep doing it, your brain decides, all right, enough of that.
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: Apparently we're done with that chapter. The door on that one,
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: and move on.
• 14:01
  Speaker 4: Good Jack getting rid of the RBF changing his brain.
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm gonna be perfectly fixed by the time I'm
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: eighty eight and died.
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: Personal development, Who are you?
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: I'll be just great on my deathbed. That last five minutes,
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: I'll be a joy to be around.
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: Perfect man. Jax becomes so likable.
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: Oh oh oh the death rattle.
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: That's too bad. And I lost track of the podcast
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: about two minutes ago. I was thinking about in and
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: out Burger.
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: I just haven't I've been thinking.
• 14:34
  Speaker 4: About damn it, Michael.
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: Now that now you may hungry the focus to a
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: big mac. Well, I guess that's it. There's the death rattle.
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: That's hilarious.