Game in the Brain

When I do my Chinese Exercises 80% of the time is WILLING myself to do chinese. Many times it takes A LOT OF TIME (about 0.8 to 2minutes per word) to finish my Chinese exercises. And Its something I should stop bashing my head into and thinking about it better. 

If you take out the Material and Data Handling of a TASK, and get to the Touch Time, and you find out that your only Transformative action is litered with distractions – That distraction is ATTENTION HANDLING – Aka Concentration. 

Now take Handling and imagine your attention as Resources your brain has to HANDLE and you realize that despite our best efforts and wishes our mind is its own creature and it has its ways. That understanding its ways is how we better make it work for US.

To know that our Mind is its own Creature can be empowering or disempowering. Remembering we have some Willpower, a tiny amount of mental resources that need to deal with CONSTRAINTS. What are the constraints? Well the lack of a smooth neural program or process. Smoothening the Process so a SKILL is formed is the challenge and where most of the time will be spent. 

That tiny Part of you that you can easily move around and control, vs all the voices, feelings, anxiety, thoughts, and distractions needs to have a PLAN. A plan that can be reworked to adapt and align these resources for what will be SKILL and FLOW.

Sometimes that Tiny part feels powerful, it is when there is a LOT of resources it can muster. In skills, Knowledge and Confidence – that tiny amount of will is able to Move that large mental muscle in all sorts of directions and control. 

Meditation and Breathing

I notice Breathing is a key element in mustering attention and mental resources. I notice more and more how often my breathing is irregular and slows down as Mental resources are diverted. I realize that its a Conscious effort to steady my breath when stimuli is overwhelming. So the more I practice this mental muscle the more situations I can trigger my breathing to normalize and give my brain the resources it needs. Its a weird evolutionary program when we need to stop breathing to adjust our minds. 

Meditations is linked to breathing particularly Mindfulness, the ability to flex Attention the way we Flex and Stretch our muscles. I have a back injury that requires me to do sciatica stretches everyday (10mins) and without it, in a day or two my back pain returns. I think this is how meditation is supposed to work – it flexes our attention and perception the way stretching does.  

My mind being inflexible its harder to expand and focus my perceptions. I need to do that more and find time to do that. Although in Running I tend to do that a lot: as I feel my legs and constantly scan my body for early signs of injury. 

Focal Points and Mantras 

Focal Points, Mantras, and even Distraction Catches. My Notebook is a distraction catch and a Focal Point. My writing of Tasks and lists is a FOCAL point exercise to carefully think through an activity and align my mental resources to anticipate and react to what will happen next. 

Mantras, Prayers, and other Such Focal POints do that as well. For my Chinese, doing it so early in the morning, its HARD to create such a focal point. I plan to use my notebook more and more the “PLAN” or write down what I am going to do. 

Quieting the other Parts of the Mind

Music does that for me when I exercise, the pain and the anxiety is quieted and doesnt interfere with what needs to be done. I guess I really do have a GOOD memory – but its become a curse with anxiety and negative emotions. I think i’m on a very thin surface where my problems easily rise past the ego barrier.
Music, Writing, and Exercising Physical Trained responses Quiets that. Its like Inertia – or a Gravity well – drawing mental resources naturally into something that is not destructive.

Mental/Psychic Inertia and Control

Do not mistake inertia/momentum as control. Particularly the momentum of a course of action.
Like in running, sparring, or the physical activity – being unable to redirect inertia is loss of control.
Once we know the baseline of our will power there is a lot we can do to manage it and hack some ways to improve.

When I’m running my acceleration and deceleration  and then sensing carefully for weakening is what I look for. It reminds me that I’m over my limit, that I’ve pounded my joints and bones far more than they’re able to recover from.

Do you remember when you played a Reflex Computer Game and you tried doing the same action again and again without trying to consider that maybe that after X many tries it really wont work?  That locked mental state is the Inertia that I am also worried about. As well as social inertia, what behaviors and interactions I’m flowing with and what control I can exert in it.

Knowing that as I lose more and more control I need to Identify the Inertia / Momentum and have a plan or a Conditioned response. The more and more I create that INTERNAL LANGUAGE (like the conditioning I do in SRS for Chinese) the more my body and mind shifts to its necessary stances and mindsets to slow down the inertia and get it under control.

Everyone’s Circumstance

Now that you can see my Model of Control and Handling, I’ve broken down interactions into some general categories: Transactional and Relationship. Transactional is for those One time or Non-Ongoing Concerns that we have to take at Face Value. For transactional “relationships” we can’t know and can only make a Surface level call.
For DIALOGUES, saved for friends and more than transactional relationships, we learn the circumstance and challenges of a person. We know why they have to make those choices they’ve made and have that PDC/SA cycle with that person. (heavily influenced by Girl’s Guide to PMing regarding Delegation. And I pretty much Agree – DIALOGUE or TRANSACTION. Once these two mental models are accepted our expectations and control of our behavior can be better planned out. (Example If transactional then do X, if dialogue then do Y). 

Types of Relationships
Transactional = Face Value
Dialogue = Continuous Updating Understanding

Hope this helps you, either make a better Model for Will, Skills, Emotions, Situations in Games or in Life where as you have a way to plan out and anticipate challenges and the action needed to produce more desirable results.