BRONZE FROG

Tag: self help

  • We’re Stuck in Monkey Loops

    We’re Stuck in Monkey Loops

    It’s definitely not the case that we’re very good at understanding what our brain and body actually want. There are too many signals coming at us from all directions, both inside and outside ourselves. Learning to consistently Fourier transform that constant stream of input is already difficult, and teasing out actual cause and effect is even harder. To make things more complicated, what you’re drawn toward is not always what you actually need, because certain things can override the subtler signals of your body by hijacking your brain chemistry.

    In the modern world, this discrepancy is especially obvious because companies know that if they can manipulate your brain chemicals, they can convince you to buy things or engage in behaviours that maybe aren’t good for you, but make them a lot of money. We’ve reached a stage of history where an enormous amount of research has been done, information is widely available, and much of this practice has been refined into a pure science. This is definitely not great for the wellbeing of the average person. Daily life starts to feel suffocating because we’re constantly battling junk that’s competing for our attention: advertisements, social media notifications, ultra-processed food wrapped in bright colours and tempting commercials, clickbait headlines, endless feeds. At a certain point, it’s all just plainly exhausting.  

    Whenever I feel lost, I like to look back at the way humans evolved. People often talk about how evolution moves extremely slowly, while culture and society, especially in the digital age, evolve absurdly quickly. One example I hear people talk about is our relationship with sugar. Early humans almost never encountered anything close to pure sugar; maybe fruit, maybe some honey if they were willing to fight a beehive for it. But now, sugary foods are everywhere, often cheaper than healthier alternatives, and engineered to taste incredible. What exactly are we supposed to do with that?

    Another example people bring up a lot is anxiety. Our brains evolved to experience some baseline level of anxiety because, historically, there really was bananas stuff happening all the time. But now, when most people are most often relatively physically safe, the brain still insists on manufacturing threats and stress responses for situations where constant cortisol is mostly useless.

    I was watching a YouTube video by a doctor talking about learning how to rest and recover properly. You can watch it here – it’s reasonably short and sweet and contains a lot more interesting stuff than what I talk about here. He mentioned something that really caught my attention: when the brain becomes tired, you start experiencing decision fatigue. That’s apparently one of the clearest indicators of mental exhaustion: just look at how difficult it suddenly becomes to make simple choices.

    When the brain is low on energy, its instinct is to choose whatever requires the least effort, because from an evolutionary perspective, low effort meant conserving resources. Back then, though, low effort also usually meant low stimulation: in other words, rest. In our modern world, that’s not really the way it works anymore.

    Because of the immediate micro-rewards we get from scrolling and, let’s say, other “chemically juicy” activities, it’s often easier to reach for internet-based stimulation than to sit quietly or do something slower and less rewarding. I’m pretty sure the brain runs some kind of short-term cost-benefit analysis, and the short-term dopamine hit wins almost every time. The problem is that when your brain is already low-energy, it’s also decision-fatigued, meaning you’re even more likely to choose the easiest option available. Modern life has created a horrible feedback loop where the “easiest” option, the choice you’re most likely to make, also further exhausts your brain by bombarding it with lights, colours, novelty, emotional prompts, and constant stimulation. So your brain gets more tired, which pushes you further toward the short-term dopamine rewards, which tires your brain even more.

    The doc in the video also said that physical exhaustion clears noticeably with sleep, but sleep doesn’t do a number on mental exhaustion in the same way. Scary stuff.

    He offered a few practical bandaids for dealing with this. One is to make the “hard” option require as little decision-making as possible. Remove planning and coordination wherever you can. For example, schedule fixed gym times every week so you don’t have to negotiate with yourself about whether or not to go. The habit itself also creates momentum, which helps reduce friction. Another suggestion was to avoid overcomplicating the planning of difficult tasks. Don’t spend thirty minutes engineering the perfect workout. Just get yourself to the gym and figure the rest out once you’re there. The third was reframing effortful activities as active choices rather than obligations. You’re choosing to go to the gym because you care about your health and want to be responsible for yourself, not because some external force is punishing you into doing it. “Shoulds” and “oughts” can take a lot of the joy out of life.

    All of these things help you choose the harder, less immediately satisfying option. But they aren’t cure-alls, and they’re not automatically spiritually nourishing either. Honestly, the only thing that has consistently helped me make structural changes around addictive behaviours is understanding what’s actually happening in the brain when I’m already overstimulated (or otherwise feeling yucky) and still choose to further overstimulate myself (or do something that’s going to feel good temporarily but make me feel more yucky in the long term). Understanding the loop itself matters. The dependency. The way the brain twists into patterns that reinforce their own continuation.

    It’s not perfect. I scrolled Facebook Marketplace way too many times today and fried my prefrontal cortex. None of the YouTube videos I tried to watch during dinner were even remotely satisfying, despite my many attempts to stick with one. But somehow, here I am, writing this instead. Thankfully, I had enough wherewithal today to remember that video, and realize that maybe my brain wasn’t actually incapable of doing the harder thing. Maybe starting just felt monumental because I was already scattered from all my phone gooning, and what I really needed was a single activity to affix my attention to.

    So I guess surviving modern life has a lot to do with understanding the loops in the brain that fold in on themselves and quietly push you toward behaviours that aren’t actually good for you. This is a responsibility that has been thrust on us, I would say unfairly, and if you’re suffering, just know that it’s because none of us were built for this shit. 

  • On (and Under) One’s Boulder

    On (and Under) One’s Boulder

    I used to have this grand idea that the reason for experiencing life was so that the cosmos (harbouring some kind of “universal consciousness”) could come to learn about itself. I think that belief came from the idea that we’re all fundamentally connected to some “source,” and that we’re really just observers witnessing our lives unfold; our observer-self doesn’t even have any meaningful tie to the life it’s watching, aside from the cosmic pairing that somehow connected it to a body. The thought was that maybe the universe developed consciousness across different beings and forms as a strange mechanism for understanding itself, in the same way that we developed consciousness, and, as a consequence, became capable of understanding ourselves in ways unconscious creatures cannot.

    Because of this, I thought it deeply important that people increase their awareness and self-awareness, because consciousness, specifically this interconnected, metaphysical kind, was the highest purpose one could serve. You were doing your part by allowing the universe to unfold and understand itself, and all that was ever expected of you was to fill out your particular corner of the universal map of all possible things, which would then fold back into the collective pool of conscious experience. That underlying belief played a nice role in my life for a good long time.

    Lately, though, maybe because of the hedonic treadmill and the brain’s inability to ever be satisfied, I don’t find this reason to push forward into the world nearly as convincing anymore. For one, in this worldview, you must entertain the idea of the universe as a kind of deity. This is fun, but has its limits. And two, being human, I had created my god in my own image: something that places self-understanding above all else.

    How exactly did I convince myself I knew what the universal consciousness wanted? Probably youthful audacity mixed with the need to funnel my religious inclinations into something other than science for a change. And honestly, I still respect my younger self for that, because I firmly believe you have to create whatever reality stirs your coffee every morning. But somewhere along the line, to my own disappointment, I think I stopped caring what the universe “wanted” from me. Or maybe I stopped believing that just because I personally value self-knowledge above most else, I can safely project that value onto reality itself. As below, so above.

    Inside myself, I feel a belief forming that a good life requires both the pursuit and achievement of forward progress (or at least the illusion and hope that you are moving toward some better future, however nebulous) balanced with enough presence and mindfulness to appreciate how far you’ve already come and the many marvels of the world around you. My brain doesn’t seem capable of being happy with only one or the other. I need progress. I need hope. I need narrative. But I also can’t appreciate anything I’ve done, all the skills I’ve developed, or the extent of the person I’ve become unless I deliberately slow down and contemplate enough to really feel it. Without this, you become an endless climber who never even stops to appreciate the view.

    At least with the brain I was gifted, if I’m not moving forward, upward, onward, it becomes difficult to even grasp the wonderful things happening around me that have nothing to do with achievement at all. When I’m delighted by momentum and confident in myself, it becomes much easier to appreciate the beauty of a rose, which, in turn, deepens my conviction that the universe is fundamentally a kind and beautiful place. But apparently, I have not gone through enough therapy to just smell the roses before my positive self-image is “justified”—or, perhaps, without fundamentally believing the future is going to have even prettier and smellier roses. Without “forward”, it’s easy to slide into what the young people might call a “depressive episode”.

    I suppose that’s a pretty good sign that my confidence, even after all this time, still depends at least somewhat on the world around me. But I think I’m banking on this idea that if I balance forward movement and quiet contemplation for long enough, I can create a kind of self-sustaining joy and belief in my own worth, even during periods when I’m not making meaningful progress in the areas of life I care about most. Even though I’m not holding on as tightly as I used to, and even though I now carry a certain je ne sais quoi because of everything I’ve stomached, metabolized, and grown from, maintaining forward momentum in my life is still one of the best ways I know to ensure I’m continually capable of appreciating the elegance of existence all around me.

    So, in the meantime, before I either achieve ultimate enlightenment and detachment or fall victim to my own fallacy, I have a survival strategy. I took inspiration for this from aging and/or deceased relatives on the Ukrainian side of my family. Many, if not all of them, developed a kind of dour intensity in old age. I once asked my father why all his relatives seemed so grumpy, and he said, “It’s a life force. It sustains them.” And… yeah. I think there’s something to that.

    We are born into this universe already engaged in a fight against entropy. Some people are lucky enough to inherit lives with structure and order built in from the beginning. They learn early how to create and maintain systems that keep them suspended above the roughness of the road beneath them. For others, the baseline is much more chaotic and far less stable. But wherever you land on that spectrum, one thing remains true: you must work every single day to maintain yourself and your life. Eat, clean, exercise, plan, exert, manage, converse, haggle, spend, save, play. You cannot really take your foot off the gas, because the moment you neglect something, it has a nasty habit of dragging you further into whatever black holes the universe is already trying to slide you toward.

    So what can actually, reliably keep Sisyphus from getting flattened by the boulder?

    Spite, maybe. The sheer refusal to accept that the universe placed you on this path with your boulder, and that the unfair punishment for stopping is suffering by crippling stagnation: the slow erosion of your strength, your momentum, your capacity, and your ability to smell the roses. Since losing the belief that I’m somehow meant to be gathering experiential data for the universe, I can at least grit my teeth and draw strength from the knowledge that, yes, I was designed as an organism destined to eventually succumb to the entropy surrounding me, but fuck you if you think I’m going to let everything collapse without a fight.

    If I can’t find permanent peace in the act of pushing the boulder uphill, then I will at least become exceptionally good at pushing it. I’m going to get stronger, and eventually the push itself is going to look effortless. I think this is the closest I’ve ever felt to touching lasting satisfaction with the human condition.

  • The Body Knows Your Fashion Crimes

    The Body Knows Your Fashion Crimes

    I find the ways that human beings respond to aesthetics to be deeply interesting. We, as a species, seem to possess a nearly animal sensitivity to congruence; that is to say, we are constantly, instinctively scanning for harmonies and disharmonies between things. We can notice when a song and a photograph somehow contain the exact same emotional texture. We notice when a painting reminds us of a particular person. We notice when somebody’s bedroom or dog looks exactly like them. We notice, at least subconsciously, when somebody’s outfit appears to be wearing them, rather than the other way around.

    There are certain people who feel so coherent that every object surrounding them starts to look like an extension of their internal world. Their jewelry makes sense with their voice. Their apartment makes sense with their posture. Their makeup makes sense with the cadence of their speech. It all appears to emerge from the same source, the same underlying current. Even if you dislike the aesthetic itself, the harmony is palpable. Something in you relaxes around it.

    What we often call a “vibe” is simply this underlying coherence made perceptible. A vibe is not tied to a particular medium. The same emotional essence can exist in a painting, a song, a building, a person, or a coat. Sassy and zany is a vibe. So is softness, sleaze, intellectualism, tenderness, sincerity, and industrial coldness. These things can all be translated between mediums like a kind of emotional language.

    Artists do this constantly. A good artist can take a feeling and package it into their medium. Another artist, working in a completely different medium, can package the same feeling in a completely different form. The observer recognizes the commonality instinctively.

    Humans are strange ecosystems made up of thousands of feelings, patterns, instincts, aesthetics, and selves layered on top of one another. The world responds to you according to the version of yourself that you present, but more strangely, you also begin responding to yourself that way. If you dress polished and elegant, people unconsciously expect elegance from you. If you dress chaotic and playful, people unconsciously make space for chaos and playfulness. If you present yourself like somebody worthy of being listened to, people often listen. Because humans (including you!) are socially porous creatures, you start actually becoming more of whatever is being reflected back at you.

    This is part of why confidence is so reality-altering. Human beings reorganize themselves around certainty. The universe itself almost seems allergic to incongruence; if one person refuses to budge in their belief about who they are, eventually the social world around them starts bending to accommodate the claim. I do not fully understand it. I only know I have seen it happen too many times to ignore.

    Clothing is especially interesting because it sits directly on the body. It is probably the fastest and most accessible way to alter your relationship to yourself.

    To lead with my own example: for a long time, I dressed almost exclusively in ways that emphasized the intellectual parts of me. Respectably intellectual. Slightly frumpy. Thrifted. Eco-conscious. Clothes that suggested I cared more about ideas than appearances. Lots of sweaters. Ill-fitting pants and unflattering t-shirts. Things with holes (some of you know the horror of my old Converse hi-tops…) that at some point certainly crossed the line from charming to concerning.

    And to be clear, that version of me is real. I am intellectual. I do love old things and books and little objects with history attached to them and wearing shoes until they fall off. But over time, I began realizing that I was not merely expressing that side of myself. I was reinforcing it. Every day, I was participating in a feedback loop that amplified a particular mode of being.

    The problem was that this version of me was not always especially happy. She tended anxious. Self-conscious. Awkward and afraid of being perceived. Often uncomfortable with taking up space. Frankly, some part of her, somewhere, thought herself low on life’s social totem pole. There was a kind of flattening effect happening where my presentation was emphasizing some of the least joyful parts of my personality while suppressing others that were equally real.

    I know now that I am not only that person. I also love softness. Glamour. Nice tailoring. Leather. Leopard print. The occasional hyperfeminine silhouette. Luxurious fabrics. Sleaze. Rhinestones and sparkles. Taken all together: the aesthetic sensibilities of a woman who has a well-paying job but put herself through graduate school on the dime of shady nightclub patrons.

    What shocked me was not merely that I enjoyed dressing this way, but that doing so, even in small ways (but nonetheless really mentally and emotionally leaning into it), altered my internal landscape almost immediately.

    When I dress in ways that feel glamorous and coherent and embodied and sensual, I become more audacious. Quicker. Wittier. Less fragmented. Less afraid. I make more eye contact. I flirt more with life, and encourage life to flirt back. I speak more directly. I stop shrinking. I become more playful. More magnetic. More alive. Importantly, this does not feel false, which is the part that interests me most.

    People often talk about fashion as though it is either superficial performance or authentic self-expression, but this binary is incomplete. Humans are multifaceted. Most of us contain many legitimate selves, many dormant emotional configurations, many possible ways of moving through the world. Clothing does not necessarily fabricate an identity from thin air. Often, it simply calls one forward.

    This is also why some outfits feel can “wrong” even when they are objectively attractive. Sometimes the proportions or colours are genuinely bad, yes. But often, the discomfort comes from the fact that the clothing is asking the wearer to embody an energy that they either do not possess or do not trust themselves enough to access. The body knows when crimes of incongruence are being committed. The most beautiful dress in the world cannot save an outfit that is fundamentally disconnected from the person inside it. Conversely, I have seen people wear objectively bizarre things with complete conviction and somehow transmute them into coherence through sheer embodied certainty.

    I think this is why style can become something almost spiritual; selfhood is strangely malleable, and aesthetics are one of the ways we communicate with the subconscious mind. If there are parts of you, even unrealized, that are sensual, capable, elegant, playful, dangerous, soft, intelligent, glamorous, or bold, and you repeatedly present yourself as such, eventually a part of you, the doubtful part, begins believing it. And, as we previously established, once you believe it, other people often do too.

    So, I think the goal of fashion and style is to become intimate with your own multiplicity, and to notice which modes of selfhood that your chosen aesthetics nourish. In other words, realize that you are not just choosing between authenticity and inauthenticity, but between different authentic modes of self-expression that can help you, each day, become the person that you want to be.