by Nevermark | 2025-09-07 21:31:23+00:00
> I don't understand. If it IS the cause, hypothetically speaking […]

That is circular reasoning, the way you are using it. Logically “if” makes sense. But when you go from “if” to effectively treating something as if "it IS" true or likely to be true, that’s jumping into an almost certain deep deadend pit with both feet, and then not looking up.

If you have a way to test a possibility, then do it. Otherwise, don’t get trapped in it.

Moving forward requires we all put currently untestable ideas on a shelf and continue undelayed. Preserve the potential usefulness of the idea, without turning it into a trap. Let it accumulate with many others. Where it is available to be reactivated, edited, or contribute to better ideas down the road.

The less stuck we get on one idea, the more complementary ideas and triangulating perspectives we accumulate.

So don’t let yourself get entangled in single possibilities.

Hone your thinking for long term effectiveness. Let shiney things go quickly.

(As the wise but brutal poets say when they have written a wonderful passage they treasure, if doesn’t quite fit the current work: “kill your darlings!!”)

The strength to do this avoids self-created brakes, and will compound your progress in life.

—-

I have ADHD. It’s not ever going to be corrected. ADHD permeates the brain.

It could not be removed or negated, without destroying my strengths and who I am.

I will always be vulnerable to inward and downward spirals.

But learning to cope, creating fallback habits and strategies, and developing support, all help tremendously.

I relate to wanting to solve things, and solving myself is always an attractive problem. The number of systems I have optimistically created to “fix” my own unhelpful patterns is endless. Most don’t work, but I don’t stop (or stop enjoying) trying.

But the best way I have found to improve is to work on things that are not about me, and let my efforts to make more progress on something else lead my progress on myself. The signal is much clearer. Internal progress and external productivity are much more likely to be real.

That provides the best and most reliable feedback. Reality outside myself.

That doesn’t mean going into an area related to oneself is wrong. But when the focus is on fixing yourself, instead of making progress for others, "feedback" becomes a source of subjective spirals, inviting mazes of wishful thinking. Quicksand for the ADHD.

Don't focus on fixing yourself, harness your strengths to do something productive, and you will naturally accumulate the personal tools that help you do that and more, along the way.

Your naturally unrelenting curiosity, care, interest and motivation are advantages many normies don't have. You are an idea factory and hopelessly creative. You have more wood behind your arrow. But to learn to shoot far and straight, to achieve something in the real world, you must seek and aim for targets well beyond yourself and your bow and arrow.

That will guide you to unique areas of self-improvement that fit you and your quests alone. And not waste any of your time on the many ways we genuinely appreciate others for being better than us.

Those are just my thoughts in the moment. You know yourself better than anyone else.