Approaching Effortful Tasks As Play
Sep. 30th, 2018 12:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nemorathwaldDespite the ending of the video being a punchline, in all seriousness, there is something important here about how human beings create meaning and purpose from within. Do you have a second?
Try to describe how you tie your shoelaces. Do not demonstrate; do not use visual aids. Use only words. I'll bet your instructions will make it look complicated.
If someone else sets up the board before you begin to play, and then demonstrates one round instead of teaching you the rules in advance, you will discover that playing Settlers Of Catan is easier than tying shoelaces.
The challenge shown in this video is not intellectual problem. It is one hundred percent a problem of emotion, motivation, and self-image.
Last night I played a game with someone who could not pay attention. Most of the mental energy that could have gone toward paying attention, instead went toward talking about one's own self-image as a "stupid" person.
It's not that they were stupid. It's that they were not interested. Intelligence is almost entirely a function of interest, and having a reason to do things.
Difficulty and purposelessness are not just facts about the task you are performing. They are also things that your brain is doing. Difficulty and purposelessness are intrinsic to every task you perform, at least to a small amount. This includes tasks you enjoy; but for those tasks, you actively participate. The task is "enjoyable", but you are the one doing the "enjoying." That's you. The degree of difficulty or purposelessness intrinsic in every task you perform, all day, every day, is made worse if you experience it as suffering.
As a child, I hated math. I spent hours of my childhood, daily, sitting in front of math homework, crying, and refusing to do it. This went on for weeks on end. I did not find the fun in it. I mostly spent my mental energy thinking about how I did not know the purpose of it.
These days, this phenomenon happens less often, because I have learned how to design board games. This requires building my skills of actively finding the fun in whatever I am doing.
Worst of all, as a child, mathematics was a power struggle in which I was going to be in trouble unless I capitulated to those who would hurt me for my noncompliance. I spent a lot of my mental energy on fear and conflict instead of math.
Fear and conflict strikes at the heart of our motivation to do things. It is poison for creative problem-solving tasks, which are best performed voluntarily. The human brain works on goals, which are emotional and motivational in nature.
I still put in effort to overcome this challenge every day. When working on a task with a team, I cultivate the ability to get my mind off of power, insults, and threats. For example, suppose I need to decide whether to write a script in an object-oriented style, or a functional style. I can think "Which manager am I trying to please, to cover my ass, so I still have an income?" Or, I can put in massive mental effort to ignore my self-image and my financial risks, and ask "If I do it one way rather than the other, how maintainable, resilient, testable, and performant will this code be?"
It is similar to my techniques for quieting my mind so I can fall asleep. It takes a great deal of mental energy every day. That is not intellectual. It is emotional.
In volunteer organizations, and in board games, I never have that struggle. In volunteer organizations, and in board games, I want to always treat my collaborators in a way that gets their mind off their self image and their personal risks.
Mathematics has now turned into a system which I can play with like a toy. And as I play, I learn. That's what most tasks can be, if threats get out of the way, and we learn how to approach a task as play.
Try to describe how you tie your shoelaces. Do not demonstrate; do not use visual aids. Use only words. I'll bet your instructions will make it look complicated.
If someone else sets up the board before you begin to play, and then demonstrates one round instead of teaching you the rules in advance, you will discover that playing Settlers Of Catan is easier than tying shoelaces.
The challenge shown in this video is not intellectual problem. It is one hundred percent a problem of emotion, motivation, and self-image.
Last night I played a game with someone who could not pay attention. Most of the mental energy that could have gone toward paying attention, instead went toward talking about one's own self-image as a "stupid" person.
It's not that they were stupid. It's that they were not interested. Intelligence is almost entirely a function of interest, and having a reason to do things.
Difficulty and purposelessness are not just facts about the task you are performing. They are also things that your brain is doing. Difficulty and purposelessness are intrinsic to every task you perform, at least to a small amount. This includes tasks you enjoy; but for those tasks, you actively participate. The task is "enjoyable", but you are the one doing the "enjoying." That's you. The degree of difficulty or purposelessness intrinsic in every task you perform, all day, every day, is made worse if you experience it as suffering.
As a child, I hated math. I spent hours of my childhood, daily, sitting in front of math homework, crying, and refusing to do it. This went on for weeks on end. I did not find the fun in it. I mostly spent my mental energy thinking about how I did not know the purpose of it.
These days, this phenomenon happens less often, because I have learned how to design board games. This requires building my skills of actively finding the fun in whatever I am doing.
Worst of all, as a child, mathematics was a power struggle in which I was going to be in trouble unless I capitulated to those who would hurt me for my noncompliance. I spent a lot of my mental energy on fear and conflict instead of math.
Fear and conflict strikes at the heart of our motivation to do things. It is poison for creative problem-solving tasks, which are best performed voluntarily. The human brain works on goals, which are emotional and motivational in nature.
I still put in effort to overcome this challenge every day. When working on a task with a team, I cultivate the ability to get my mind off of power, insults, and threats. For example, suppose I need to decide whether to write a script in an object-oriented style, or a functional style. I can think "Which manager am I trying to please, to cover my ass, so I still have an income?" Or, I can put in massive mental effort to ignore my self-image and my financial risks, and ask "If I do it one way rather than the other, how maintainable, resilient, testable, and performant will this code be?"
It is similar to my techniques for quieting my mind so I can fall asleep. It takes a great deal of mental energy every day. That is not intellectual. It is emotional.
In volunteer organizations, and in board games, I never have that struggle. In volunteer organizations, and in board games, I want to always treat my collaborators in a way that gets their mind off their self image and their personal risks.
Mathematics has now turned into a system which I can play with like a toy. And as I play, I learn. That's what most tasks can be, if threats get out of the way, and we learn how to approach a task as play.
