The Human Mind Project — as a Web Developer
Introduction
I recently attended the Google Campus @ London event: The Human Mind Project — led by great people like Sir Colin Blakemore from the School of Advanced Studies (SAS), University of London.
Absolutely amazing people whom I’ve listened to include neuroscientists, cognitive and social scientists, software engineers, designers, developers, and creative thinkers.
And if that gets you excited being in the same room, then there’s much more to learn around the world after all.
Using the mind the same way inventors/thinkers use it
Using the subconscious just as Einstein and Nikola Tesla and Edison used it — to think of a hard question/problem to solve just an hour before you go to bed.
And simply let go of yourself, and when you get a Dream you remember, immediately write it down, and decipher the personal meaning for you with regard to your recent experiences, or whatever experience you infer relates to your Dream.
I understand that this may seem dangerous as you tap into your mind, but it is the truth that must not be hidden away. It will only come crawling back out again.
So it is best to realise however negative the dream interpretation might seem, to follow it, and tweak it so that you make that meaning as actionable.
For example, you get a memorable dream/nightmare about looking at your wrinkly hands. It’s a nightmare so you naturally tend to avoid it.
But, this is a whisper from the mind, saying that you have to decipher what experience you had recently (usually yesterday) that is related to wrinkled hands.
Upon opening up Google and looking for the dream meaning of ‘wrinkled hands’, comes a personally relatable definition of ‘becoming wiser’.
The dream meaning has to be relatable to you. And you can discard what dream meaning is not interesting to you regarding wrinkled hands.
Soon enough, you have passed a milestone for your mind, and more interpretations mean more uncovering of learnings about your mind — that you will benefit from. I say this because you don’t want to make yourself some voodoo guy.
In summary, trust your mind to interpret what is comfortable for you, and you will get the answer.
Using the social mind to your advantage
We usually think of ourselves as introverted people. But then again, shying ourselves away from the rest of society leaves a great disadvantage — depression and ignorance of the size of the world.
Avoid depression/unproductive moods
Usually, being introverted means that we easily drain energy from going out with other people under a social function.
But as John Sonmez over at Simple Programmer said that:
Social Anxiety is normal, and to overcome it has more gains than disadvantages.
I’ve put a link to the video itself up there.
But there is always a price to pay to jump down with a bungee cord and everything set up, it’s just if you could push through this barrier, to reap all the benefits of keeping your productivity in order.
If productivity is important for you, then you will get through this barrier. I too have my times of hitting the barrier of not practicing speaking to others, but it’s a skill that has to be developed.
In fact, joining events like these or even your comfortable Developer/designer Meetups will make your day/month great!
The Digital Age vs the Human Era
We have to realise that we are still human and that we have only existed in this Digital age for such a small period in the Human Era.
This video explains it so precisely.
This modern mind of ours may have only been 100,000 years old. And out of that timeframe, the World Wide Web itself is about 30 years old. Yet, we are pacing so quickly that the human mind needs to adapt quick.
So far, we can’t exist without other humans. Being completely locked in a room only leads to unintended suffering, as Vsauce’s Michael points out:
And how difficult it was to be separated from things we humans have evolved alongside — the Earth, and other people. I was amazed by how uncomfortable, confusing, and scary it was to have nothing but myself.
Yes you can be playing video games as a choice of comfort, but then you do not best reap the benefit of the Earth and the natural tendency to smile in warmth under the presence of other people.
So social events are imperative to staying how we work best — being human.
How to be sociable as an introvert
If you’ll ever learn about being viably sociable it is that:
You have to listen and affirm others’ statements with empathy.
That seems to be the key word to:
- Draining least amount of energy from socialising
- Enjoying the conversation being under the presence of the other person
- Learning from others as you do ~80% more listening
- Simply being human — sharing the same thoughts and feelings
- Keeping your productivity and focus on a high time
Flow state in work
Coincidentally related to my other post about the Flow state, this has been cited by one of the event’s speakers that the mind has way more power than previously thought.
That power of the mind includes:
- Completing a series of work tasks for the day in 4 hours what would normally take 8-10 hours
- Enjoying your flow state as you flow through it
- Feeling accomplished for the day after the 4 hours of focus
- In effect, this is being an “olympic/pro athlete of the office”
- Therefore, Happiness/Blissfulness
I discuss this more in depth in my blog post about the Flow State for Web Developers.
Final Thoughts
The mind is a great tool that we as humans must evaluate on a first-person level, and gather common experiences of how we use the subconscious. It is present as confirmed by science. It is like an iceberg where the subconscious is the large part of like 80-90% of that iceberg submerged underwater, whilst the 10% is the conscious mind.
Knowing that we can use our minds and that there seems to be no limit — as last week scientists published research explaining that the mind has 100x more computational capacity that previously imagined!
That’s mindfulness folks!
If you’ve enjoyed this article you might want to head over to my article about the Flow State, as discussed at Google HQ on Steven Kotler’s talk.