da da da da da da da feelin' groovy
One thing I'm really bad at is taking advice. I think it's because of two things, although I could be wrong, but I'll never know, because people can't really convince me of things about myself, as will be explained shortly.
Thing number one: I'm a very introspective person. I do a lot of meta-thinking. I think about how I work. So I end up having a good sense of who I am and what I'm like-or so I think. But:
Thing number two: I have very little control over how I think and act. I think (here we go again) it's because of the ADHD. I don't have the focus to change my behavior, because I'll forget about focusing on it, so I can't even get the repetitive thing going for behaviorism to work. But so I'm bad at changing how I think and act about stuff. And that includes changing how I think about how I think. It manifests itself as being always really stubborn. It's this whole recursive shit where, basically, people tell me stuff and even if I acknowledge it as true, I can't really do anything about it, can't internalize it. At least not specifically. I can sort of peripherally work at it. I don't know. Again, it's this self-reinforcing thing-I would work at trying to internalize people's advice, but that's changing the way I think. It's not even being too smart for my own good-even if I was an idiot and didn't have any ideas about how I am, I wouldn't be able to change it. Or would I? Damn, this is hopeless. Maybe. I don't even know anymore. It makes me feel hopeless about changing it. Which is self-reinforcing, but...I would have to break out of the unable-to-change-how-I-think belief, which would be tearing down this whole multi-layered fabric of my mind. Would that be good? Bad? I have no idea if it's even possible, and doubt it (although that's not a helpful attitude-but what can I do about it?)
Ok, the point is that it's not necessarily a cycle-a cycle is something that you can break out of. It might be recursive-that is, a basic property that gets applied to itself over and over-which would be something I can't break out of. I think what I'm saying is that just because it's self-defeating doesn't necessarily mean it's not real. Something that some people tend to forget is that my brain isn't like a normal brain, and so to assume that I am capable of doing everything that someone with a more normal brain (or more normal in certain ways) is not necessarily a good assumption. I am not capable of just willing myself or even being assisted to do certain things (like, for example, focus-no matter how much I try, no matter what kind or number of psychologists I see, I will never be able to focus on things like a normal person).
Maybe I need to Gödel number my thoughts. Then perhaps I could unravel the loops.
On another topic, did you know that ravel is both a synonym and an antonym of unravel?
You might ask: how do you ever change? The answer is, basically, change my environment. If I change my environment such that it will elicit from me the kind of behavior I want, I can get myself to get into those habits instead. However, the change in environment for lots of things can be very hard to bring about.
Someone has also asked, in respect to me being mostly not in control of my actions, "Well, I have to believe you have some control over your behavior, otherwise why aren't you out killing and raping people?" This question actually usually gets asked of atheists about morality without god, but the answer is a little different: it's because I couldn't if I wanted to-I am how I am, and who I am is not a murderer or a rapist.
My inability to readily change myself is also not depressing to me-because if it was, then that truly would be a cycle.
Thing number one: I'm a very introspective person. I do a lot of meta-thinking. I think about how I work. So I end up having a good sense of who I am and what I'm like-or so I think. But:
Thing number two: I have very little control over how I think and act. I think (here we go again) it's because of the ADHD. I don't have the focus to change my behavior, because I'll forget about focusing on it, so I can't even get the repetitive thing going for behaviorism to work. But so I'm bad at changing how I think and act about stuff. And that includes changing how I think about how I think. It manifests itself as being always really stubborn. It's this whole recursive shit where, basically, people tell me stuff and even if I acknowledge it as true, I can't really do anything about it, can't internalize it. At least not specifically. I can sort of peripherally work at it. I don't know. Again, it's this self-reinforcing thing-I would work at trying to internalize people's advice, but that's changing the way I think. It's not even being too smart for my own good-even if I was an idiot and didn't have any ideas about how I am, I wouldn't be able to change it. Or would I? Damn, this is hopeless. Maybe. I don't even know anymore. It makes me feel hopeless about changing it. Which is self-reinforcing, but...I would have to break out of the unable-to-change-how-I-think belief, which would be tearing down this whole multi-layered fabric of my mind. Would that be good? Bad? I have no idea if it's even possible, and doubt it (although that's not a helpful attitude-but what can I do about it?)
Ok, the point is that it's not necessarily a cycle-a cycle is something that you can break out of. It might be recursive-that is, a basic property that gets applied to itself over and over-which would be something I can't break out of. I think what I'm saying is that just because it's self-defeating doesn't necessarily mean it's not real. Something that some people tend to forget is that my brain isn't like a normal brain, and so to assume that I am capable of doing everything that someone with a more normal brain (or more normal in certain ways) is not necessarily a good assumption. I am not capable of just willing myself or even being assisted to do certain things (like, for example, focus-no matter how much I try, no matter what kind or number of psychologists I see, I will never be able to focus on things like a normal person).
Maybe I need to Gödel number my thoughts. Then perhaps I could unravel the loops.
On another topic, did you know that ravel is both a synonym and an antonym of unravel?
You might ask: how do you ever change? The answer is, basically, change my environment. If I change my environment such that it will elicit from me the kind of behavior I want, I can get myself to get into those habits instead. However, the change in environment for lots of things can be very hard to bring about.
Someone has also asked, in respect to me being mostly not in control of my actions, "Well, I have to believe you have some control over your behavior, otherwise why aren't you out killing and raping people?" This question actually usually gets asked of atheists about morality without god, but the answer is a little different: it's because I couldn't if I wanted to-I am how I am, and who I am is not a murderer or a rapist.
My inability to readily change myself is also not depressing to me-because if it was, then that truly would be a cycle.