October 2007

A reader recently pointed out that I toss around the term Pseudo-Science quite a bit.

Well, they’re right, I do.

For one thing, it’s fun to say, what with all the hissing SsssSSSsss’s.

For another thing, I admit to finding shameful amounts of amusement in taking apart the ideas - they just make me giggle. (I know. I shouldn’t giggle. But I can’t help it!)

More seriously, there’s a lot of value in examining pseudo-science.

It tests logical skills, encourages taking fresh, creative looks at things, and teaches about the stumbling points in our human thought processes. Debunking pseudo-science is good exercise for the brain.

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But what exactly *is* pseudo-science, you ask? I was getting there, I promise!

Pseudo-science refers to any claim, idea, or thought which is presented as scientific…. but isn’t.

Technically, science can mean any body of knowledge - (political science, for example) but most of the time, modern usage of the word conjures up images of laboratories, lab coated scientists and rigorous methods of testing, in search of answers about the world around us.

It’s this second type, the lab-coated type, that pseudo-science imitates.

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Ok… I wasn’t exactly a teenager, but “I Was A Twenty-Something Neuro Plasticity Junkie” doesn’t have the same ring.

Subject-line cuteness aside, I was in my mid-twenties when I took my first big-girl toke on neural-reorganization.

The year was 1991-ish, and I’d just been blessed with a hand-me-down Tandy computer.

Pre-Windows and ancient even then, the awkward hulk of black plastic limped along at the speed-of-lethargy. It required that commands be typed in (slowly) before it would agree to do even the simplest of tasks.

There were no visual cues to rely on, no cute little folder icons or program logos to click on. This frustrating interface meant I had to actually *think* about the directories I created - to think about them, and remember how they were structured.

The whole thing gave me a headache.

But after a period of floundering around, I finally grokked it. (For the Science Fiction Deprived among us, “to grok” something means to empathize and understand it so deeply that it becomes part of you.)

I don’t use the term “grok” lightly here - Learning to use DOS directory structure did something to my brain. The connections were made in a flash, a flash that seemingly flipped a switch deep inside my brain..

…and Things *happened*.

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This morning, as I drifted in that half-awake, half-asleep state of grog, I dreamed there were two new comments on this blog.

The first was “Please don’t stop, after such a messsage of hope!”

The second was “I wish you would write more.”

Egads. A nagging subconscious!

Fine, fine… I’ll sit down and write a real post, and NOT one about how I’m going to start writing again…  not even one about how to gag a nagging subconcious!;)

BTW, that half-asleep, half-awake state that produces those odd “I would have sworn it was real!” dream moments is called hypnogogia.   It’s characterized by brainwave patterns that are literally between waking and sleeping, the same sorts of brainwaves that are found in many trances, religious experiences and visions. 

For those of you interested in the gritty details, it’s apparently a Theta-wave state, or on the border between Alpha-Theta (around 7-8hz).  Alpha is the brainwave range produced when you’re relaxed, while Delta is produced when you’re asleep. Theta is between them.   I know, I know, it’s not in proper Greek alphabetical order. I didn’t name the states, I just report them! 

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MindTWEAK: I searched QuotationsBook.com for “hynogogic”, hoping for some pithy statement to close with. It asked me (ever so politely) if I didn’t mean to search for spongecake.  No, really, it did.

But QuotationsBook didn’t have any spongecake quotes, either.  In fact, the only quotation on sponge cake which is to be found on all of Google is from Jimmy Buffet’s song, Margaritaville.  You know the one.. “Living on sponge cake, watching the sun bake…”

Clearly, the universe is advising us that a Margarita is the perfect mind-tweak. 

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 A few months ago, I was all fired up about my Plate-Spinning concept.  I even set up a blog on my home computer to help organize the info into something resembling a book.  I talked to a friend about developing supportive software applications. Then something happened. 

Something … <cue ominous music>

Procrastinative.*  

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When we become procrastinative, we lose momentum. When we lose momentum, our projects start to stop. They spin slower, and start to wobble. Increasingly unstable, they eventually fall off their axis, and tumble to the ground.  Kersplat. 

It’s very sad when we procrastinate on our very own productivity projects, causing them to go kersplat.

To combat this depressive kersplatting trend, I’m taking it upon myself to implement new Plate-Spinning  Project Planning Strategies.  Sounds official and impressive, doesn’t it? 

It isn’t all that impressive, though; I’ll just be working out how to plan the projects I’m going to start/restart, in a plate-spinning context.  The idea is not just to plan it for myself, but to develop the system so that others can use it. 

Why bother with all that? Well… because I am the sort of person who is spectacularly unmotivated towards achieving their own success.  I am, however, astoundingly motivated when it comes to helping *other* people achieve success.  

In other words, there’s no way I will go to the trouble of creating and following through with this system for myself. But if I’m creating and testing it for YOU, there’s a good chance I’ll not only do it, but do it well — so that’s what I’ll be doing in just a moment. 

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“But wait, MT.. your post title refers to Productive Procrastination — what’s that mean?”

Isn’t being a lovely bit of excess alliteration enough justification for it? Wow, don’t YOU have high standards!

Productive Procrastination is a key element of my personal method.   You see… I am a procrastinator (I know, tough for you to imagine that someone who often promises so many ”ongoing seriess” which never materialize is a procrastinator, but its true).

Instead of beating myself up with missed deadlines and broken promises, I’ve decided to accept that procrastination is a natural part of my process. By accepting it, I can work *with* it, rather than against it.  That means finding ways to make procrastination productive, and building my system so it assumes the habit of putting-things-off, and includes methods to be sure it is a *useful* sort of putting-things-off. 

This post is an example of one of those methods.

When I sat down to write, I was procrastinating on the “Build A Better Brain” series.  I was procrastinating cleaning the kitchen. I was procrastinating about an art project I’m working on. 

But instead of trying to force myself into one or all of those tasks, and hating them, I accepted the procrastination, and started to write something entirely different, but useful:

This post.

I hope you’ve enjoyed it.

Now I’m off to productively plan my plate spinning and procrastination.

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*Procrastinative: 1. a native inhabitant of the Procrasti nation.

Please don’t tell me that procrastinative isn’t a word, or that it means something entirely different.  It is, and it does,I assure you.  But those dictionary editor folks are procrastinative themselves, so they have yet to include it with a proper and complete definition.