Thursday, June 16, 2016

redirection

I started listening to Scarcity again.  I've got it on audio book, so I can go back through the thing whenever I feel like it.

I think I'm beginning to understand something.  I was going to call this post the Kansas City shuffle, but I wasn't sure if that was correct.  So I decided to call it redirection.  I don't know if that makes it a lot different, but it seems more accurate.  Going back to to what I was actually going to talk about.

The thing I noticed was something Scarcity pointed out, but didn't provide an answer to.  It makes me realize how Alcoholics Anonymous works as well.  All major projects and adjustment schemes operate on the same principle.

Scarcity (the book) points out that being focused on something causes us to ignore other things.  The social and mental problems generally are caused by an incorrect focus.  So the answer to solve the scarcity problem is redirection.  And that's why everyone suggests exercise.

But I just made a jump there.  To get that jump, you have to go to a different book.  For that, it's over to Mastermind.   Mastermind points out that in order to think of something, you have to redirect your mind and let the unconscious processes work on the problem.

So, the answer to solving those stuck in a rut problems seems to be redirection by causing a mental separation.  The task needs to be sufficiently tedious to take the mental process away, or grind it down.  Exercise and manual labor seemed linked to the process.  Shoveling dirt for an hour or two or running both result in the brain not thinking about what it had been thinking.

So the answer to the rut problem seems to be exercise.  Or at least one answer to the problem.  I'm sure there are others.

Which makes me also wonder if the authors of scarcity ever went back to look at scarcity mindset on people who practice meditation or mindfulness exercises on a regular basis.  Meditation could easily cause that same mental separation seen by exercise and manual labor.

Though it makes me think that whatever the mental separation exercise is, it should be different than the day to day task.  A manual laborer couldn't use manual labor to create separation.  I say that, but I'm mostly guessing at this with no background in psychology.  I guess it's just what I've grown to understand.

Maybe I'm crazy.  But then again, exercise is considered a habit dominated by the rich over the poor.

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