Korva is a scroll of the internet’s best ideas.
Quit thoughts, then a scurrying brain
After a read where nothing lands for anyone, Jennifer Egan's first thoughts are extreme: she doesn't want to work with these people anymore, she's quitting writing, it's over, her best work is behind her. A real problem, like a narrator no one liked, brings a stretch of anger and hopelessness. She doesn't get defensive. She just listens, and she treats those thoughts as just expressions.
Then a scurrying sensation starts in her brain, a problem-solving mechanism spewing out ideas even while she is considering law school or whatever it is. One little part of her brain is always following where she is imaginatively, not just in the shower or on a walk. If it goes quiet, that's a bad sign.
Why do ideas come when you're not working?
Researchers call the benefit of stepping away from a problem incubation. In a 2012 study in Psychological Science, Benjamin Baird and colleagues gave people a creativity test, then a break. People who spent the break on an easy task that let their minds wander improved more on repeated problems than people who rested or did a demanding task. The researchers concluded that mind wandering helps ideas form without conscious effort.
Why do setbacks bring catastrophic thoughts?
Psychiatrist Aaron Beck at the University of Pennsylvania described in the 1960s how people have automatic thoughts after a setback that jump to extreme conclusions. He labeled patterns such as all-or-nothing thinking and overgeneralization, in which one failure becomes proof of permanent failure. David Burns's 1980 book Feeling Good popularized a list of such cognitive distortions. Catastrophizing is one of the patterns on that list.
More from Better in Person with Stephen Dubner
