There, I’ve said it, and probably pissed off a bunch of people in the process. But I get it, it was a blow to my ego when I truly realized it too. I would definitely list “effective multitasking” or something of the sort on my resume.
But that’s not what it is.
The human brain can literally only consciously focus on one thing at a time – this is a fact. Science has shown this – repeatedly.
If that is true, how can anyone be good at multi-tasking?
Easy. They’re not.
…
Has ample time passed? Can you resume logical thought at this point? Ok good.
What they are good at is switching between tasks. Meaning, they can “switch gears” easily, or even instantly, which makes them seem like they are multitasking to everyone else, because many people can’t change their thought process or focus that quickly. The person in question may even believe that ‘multitasking’ is a skill that they’ve developed, but that is incorrect. They’ve actually developed, for whatever reason, a high-speed mental adaptability paired with a rockin short term memory.
So yeah. Random neurobiological thought of the day, or something.
i dislike autocorrect in certain situations. Historically, i have a habit of not capitalizing “i” when writing in a non-professional capacity. i don’t know if this is a subconscious attempt at murdering my ego, but in my personal writing, a capital i was never a thing, really, especially in my days of handwritten journaling. MS Word is notorious for fixing that on me, and i got to a point where i just stopped reversing the correction. But truth be told, i miss that as a style in my writing.
So, as of today, i am rising up with my army of one against the suppressive technology of forced grammatical correctness.
This is a ridiculously hard question for me to answer.
My brain jumps from thing to thing. Constantly. I can focus on tasks and such, if need be, but when I do that, it feels like I think faster to compensate for the lack of jumping around. The energy has to go somewhere, right?
In any case, if someone asks this question, chances are I’m not knee deep in spreadsheets, so my mind is functioning within its normal parameters. This, of course, meaning that my thoughts are playing leapfrog while tossing a ball amongst themselves randomly. It could be anything from physics, a social experience I recently had, elephants, philosophy, a ridiculous situation at work, how a particular machine works, or anything and everything outside and between. Or some rapid succession of any combination of the above.
If they interrupt a thought, how can I answer not knowing what the complete thought actually was? If they do happen to ask between thoughts, do I answer with the most recent one, or do I try to figure out a theme in the last couple of thoughts? Or do I think about the last few and choose the one least likely to result in uncomfortable questions about where that thought came from? I mean, not many people sit around thinking about elephants, but sometimes, they just pop into my head.
9 times out of 10, I’ll simply say “nothing” or “lots of things”, and that is generally satisfactory.
Tell us about your first day at something — school, work, as a parent, etc.
The first day of anything can be the start of many things – a lesson, an adventure, a whole other life. My first day story is the start of a transformation from a position of dire necessity to a job where I thrive, learn regularly, and love what I do.
It was a cold, wet day in February. Flurries still fell, though the brunt of the storm had passed overnight. I was up early – I had to be at my new job through the temp agency at 8am. I was nervous, but not normal first day jitters. I had to do well. I needed this job. I had been unemployed for over a year, and my husband had just been laid off. It was do or die time.
My husband dropped me off at the entrance, wished me luck and went off to do his thing for the day. I walked in, confused by the lack of anyone in the front office. I finally found one of the guys from the warehouse, and told him who I was looking for and that it was my first day. “I dunno anyone by that name.” He furrowed his brow. “Hold on.” He ran off, and returned a few minutes later with someone who proceeded to tell me that I was looking for the company on the other side of the building. Oh, ok. Time check – 5 minutes before I’m late. Got it. I thanked them, walked out, and started walking around the building. I walked. And walked. And walked. Seems an industrial building with 150,000 square feet has a bigger footprint than I thought.
A few minutes later, I walked into the correct office, late and well-chilled. I was grateful for the warmth in the office, but soon wound up regretting that I wore a sweater. The ladies in the front each had a space heater and their small office started to feel like a sauna as I awaited the person who would give me more info on the job. In a whirlwind of information, I was given a computer login, tattered notebooks of handwritten instructions, a few product books, and some high-speed training on the multi-line phone system. I left that day exhausted and overwhelmed.
15 years and a remodel later, the building is still vast, but far less intimidating than it was that first day. In my time with this company, I have worked in 5 different departments, learned SQL, and earned my CPIM credential. Certainly not what I was expecting when I walked in, but something I am grateful for. I joke that my job title should be “Professional Problem Solver”, because that is essentially what I do every day – I solve problems and find ways to make people’s job easier and them more effective at doing it. I love it.
I always thought that a philosopher was a person who had wisdom. I have recently realized that that’s not necessarily the case. A philosopher is actually someone who loves or seeks wisdom, and reading the works of such authors as Socrates, Plato, Russel, Nietzsche, Locke, and the sort, are really just looking through a window to their minds as they were on the hunt for wisdom in their own lives.
I am, in fact, a philosopher – not a “philosopher (of sorts)” as it says in my current definition.
I wrote this post a while back, and I just realized something. Third person takes the meaning out of things. The emotion.
I asked in the post what this habit stems from, and the answer is now so clear. People speak about themselves in the third person sometimes to shield themselves from the emotions and meaning behind what they are talking about. They don’t realize at the time that that’s what they are doing, but still. Think about it…
Is it easier to say, “He feels overwhelmed because of X, Y, Z” or “She feels isolated because of A, B, C” or to say that you, yourself feel some way because of some circumstance?
Our brains can manipulate our use of language on a subconscious level in an effort to protect us, or itself.
Pretty much anything science related. If it involved the inner workings of anything, I was in. Biology, chemistry, physics, and any subset of those three, didn’t matter. Earth science was cool too, but not as utterly fascinating.
In any case, I don’t know that anyone “needs” time. Time just is…. You can’t have any more or less than your life allows. 24 hours a day, 365 days a year for however many years you live. The measurement and perhaps experience of time may simply be a human construct, but it does exist and is the same for everyone and everything. Relatively speaking, of course.
Could I use more time? Or the ability to stop time for the world while I sort some shit out? Absolutely. But I can’t really need more of something that perpetuates itself. Time is there, regardless (unless you are a photon, apparently). What matters is how you use it.
If you feel that you need more time, examine how you are spending this insanely valuable currency, and adjust that to fit the real priorities.
I have been thinking. Is anything truly random? Even those things that seem random have some sort of antecedent cause. Thoughts, events…. even if we don’t realize it, there is something that caused it.
For example, I have the ‘Random Thought of the Day’ section on my site. But each and every one of those thoughts had some kind of thought that inspired it, and therefore, is not truly random. It’s random to other people because they are not in my head and have no idea what I’ve been thinking about. It’s possibly even random to me because I’m not aware of what my subconscious mind is thinking about or processing, and that randomly interjected thought could very well be caused by relationships or events that have been simmering in the background all along.
This brings back the idea of determinism, which I have already said is not something that I can put stock in, but this whole randomness thought process is interesting either way, especially when it comes to thoughts. I don’t know if any of our thoughts are truly random, now that I think about it.
Now, I will not be changing my site or my daily blurbs of “random thoughts” because to a third party, they are random. So I’m not lying, it’s just a matter of frame of reference.
I find myself thinking about random number generators now, too. How does that work, and could that be considered something that truly is random? And is it only truly random because there is no human thought involved? Because, I can pretty much guarantee that when someone says “pick a random number” to another person, there is definitely a thought process behind it, conscious or not.
A Peculiar Cerebral Tangle 