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Robert Shepherd's avatar

I definitely feel quite similar myself, and I suspect it’s because creativity is only possible when you’re able to let your guard down.

I heard of something called the “salience network” which is a thing in our brains that switches it between things we do when we’re safe and things we do when we’re not— creativity and play maybe happen when we don’t need to use all our energy scanning the horizon for threats.

But now, there are very sophisticated machines which are built around saying “you should scan your horizon for threats! And there a lot of them are real threats; they’re just over there on the horizon.”

I think doomscrolling is probably a natural thing to be doing as an animal, and it just seems odd to say that because it’s on a phone? But it’s a sensible primal instinct that’s being manipulated. I don’t know if that’s actually very helpful to say— except to say that I don’t think what you’re describing is silly; I think it’s just what our minds do to try and keep us safe. And it doesn’t keep us safe, it probably erodes us further, but hopefully it is at least useful to know

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Tove Danovich's avatar

I read this in the midst of resolving a SECOND horrendous travel issue from a flight delay/cancellation while in a foreign country. I look forward to seeing this differently a year from now

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