"Sensations are, at their core, neutral. They're not negative or positive, right? The negativity or positivity are things you assign later and, therefore, they're not that serious." This is so powerful.
@@f02e1iu0n2ef IMHO, all of that stuff is not completely applied to depresion, since depression is an objective state of body. This talk is mainly about destructive subjective perception and how to deal with it. Partially it could be applied to depression, but it can be too hard. For example, if you have determined that you have depression, the best thing you can do is to see a doctor immediately. If you start thinking too negatively about your assumption about depression, your chances of giving up will increase.
@@ShtrikeBirbI went to see a doctor, she prescribed me pills, I took them for 3 days and felt completely terrible. Decided fuck that and stopped taking them. Instead I quit the job I was tired off, played games for couple of months, started to go outside and gym more often, found a ned job I like more, now 5 months later I feel great, and this stupid bitch said I had a severe depression and need to medicate urgently.
I once had sex with that chick. It was consentual that it would only be a ONS for now and no commitment was involved. It was great! But, the next day I saw her making out with another guy. Once I entered the picture she quit, feeling a bit ashamed. I was shell-shocked. She was well within her rights but I didn't expect her to be that promiscous. Anyway. It made me think. I had a beautiful night with that girl. That does not change by things that happen later. The sensual pleasure I had has not lessened by not being her exclusive Partner - I didn't even wanted to be her exclusive Partner in the first place. But of course your ego would prefer that additional Status of being the only one who had that privilege. So I let it go... I enjoyed what had happened and I refused to get that memory tainted by something that essentially is not really related. It turned out to be the right decision. We would meet again and again, enjoying each others company and not worrying when the other wasn't there. I never asked her if she had sex with others in between when she was with me. But I expected it. But I didn't even want to know, so I never asked. When she was with me she was with me, why would I mind where she had been 3 days ago or where she will be in that time. We even became kind of friends over the whole thing. Obviously we would not only have sex and she was pretty smart and educated and just a joy to be with. If I had let my jealousy the best of me, I would not have such a nice memory to the first night and the others probably would never have happened. I had a good time with her, why let that ruin everything by your ego???
For everyone else, a challenge: Put this on yr headphones and TRY to be depressed for longer than 2 minutes, before you're gettin' your own private jig on !! ua-cam.com/video/cXEK2ufq2lw/v-deo.html \o/ - The world is FULL of the good stuff, like this - you just gotta learn to get good at finding it! :D
15 minutes in and I have made up my mind that this is the best advise on mental health I've heard in a long while and I don't even code or spend too much time in front of the computer. Thanks.
Loved this talk and wanted to share some of my notes from it, all mistakes are mine: -- His three keys - 1) Thoughts, 2) Bodily sensations, 3) Emotions 1) Thoughts - don't identify too closely, stand back and watch them happen 2) Sensations - they're fundamentally neutral, your mind interprets and amplifies, see thru this 3) Emotions - disappear instantly when you look at them -- "You are not your thoughts. There's a limit to how useful they can be" How much do your thoughts weigh? Your mind is interpreting and translating all of your experiences, doesn't represent the totality or reality of what happened Lots of everyday physical experience is imposed by the mind Emotions don't last long, but we can keep them burning for a long time with our thoughts and perceptions, even years If you want to be happy, why create negative emotions? Everyone goes out of their way to find negativity He was mild to moderately depressed in past, could have multi day episodes Antidepressants not well understood, unlike other western medicine, "science's weaker medicines of last resort"
11:26 Jonathan just glosses over it, but I really like the phrase "the color of the light in the room of my mind". It's both really phonetically satisfying, and gives a clear way of thinking about emotional state.
A modified iambic tetrameter. Ordinarily the mark of long immersion in English literature, especially poetry but also books and possibly including the better-written song lyrics.
What gets me is, he built that nice fire in that spotlessly clean fireplace, but the entire place looks empty! Did he film this video in an open house a realtor was showing him? Is this his house, and it's completely empty of furniture? Even the echo makes it sound like he's in a room that's been stripped bare! Where's all that clutter from the end video of The Witness?
@Warp Zone: Minimalism, man. Minimalism. (Or maybe he just moved into the place. Or maybe the other walls are actually filled with shelves. My apartment has a fairly strong echo as well because there is very little cloth.)
My approach: I write my current physical state down. Then I write down what feeling is causing that physical state. Then I write down what causes that feeling (e.g. my heart races because I have to talk about something and I am not really prepared). Then I ask questions about it (e.g., Why am I not prepared? -> No time. I was told to do that way too late.) At this point I always realise something about that situation that lets me escape the bad feeling (e.g. I can write everything I don't know down and give the information the very next day.). If the bad feeling is still there then I ask myself "What else is causing my physical state?" and repeat the process. This works (at least for me) so incredible well that I can't imagine a situation that could bring me down anymore.
I also tried things similar to what Jonathan is showing here, but for me it is somehow very exhausting and I loose focus during it. But watching the video makes me wanna try it again.
Haha. I am now at the point (29:00) about food poison. I had several years ago pretty bad food poisoning. I had problems with my study, I was alone then I got that posioning (diarrea, headache and parts of my body went numb!). I was too scared to go to a doctor (idiotic!). I seriously thought I might die or fall into a coma (again, idiotic!) so I began to write a diary of somesort (for the people that might find my body). I realised that by writing down what my body feels like the "fog of anxiety" I was in went away and I got better almost immidiately. I realised I felt so incredible bad because of all the other problems I had also. That was the point where I started writing things down regularly as I explained above.
"Most of your experience was not comprised of that thought." While I already knew this, because I'm forced to think about it all of the time, I had never thought of this separation from thoughts as a tool. 16 minutes in and you've already been so helpful. Thanks for this. I'm also constantly thinking about the difference between verbalization of thoughts and the ideas preceding them. But, I get so worried about thinking about the preceding ideas and the underlying processes (thoughts themselves?) that I get dragged right back into the loop. What that single line above has helped me to do is to understand that no matter what I call it, or how many parts it's made up of, I need distance from it sometimes. And, it needs to be a conscious effort.
This is weird. I've been avoiding this talk for a long time, somehow thinking it will remind me of negative feelings. But actually it was the opposite. I've been putting off serious dieting for a while (I lost a lot of weight in the past but have recently gained some of it back) because something in my mind was telling me the hunger is not bearable. After listening to this I decided to go back to intermittent fasting and surprisingly the hunger did not feel bad at all. Like, I literally looked at the feeling, and thought, yea, that feeling is there, it's just a feeling. And went about my day. I haven't felt this _ease_ about combating negative feelings in a long time. Thank you!
What a super intelligent guy. I stumbled upon him through a gaming video mentioning his creation of the witness, a game I can’t wait to play. But finding this, it’s so great to find someone so creative, and intelligent, talk about real world philosophy and problem, and furthermore solutions to those problems. Love love love this guy
This was back when the world was slightly less bad and Casey/Jon weren't as jaded. I missed (by a few years) witnessing that time live, and I hope those days come back again...
I always was frustrated by meditation, because I could never figure out how to know when I was doing it right. This puts everything so clearly and in such a straightforward way. Thank you so much! This is one of the best videos I've ever seen. It puts so much in perspective for me. The funny thing is, I've been using these techniques for years. I just called them 'being aware that nothing matters and I am insignificant'. It sounds strange, but that thought always was really comforting and calming to me and had that exact effect of making my emotions subside. But putting it in terms of sensations being neutral and the layer of interpretation being there is a much more elegant and approachable way of putting it!
@@birdbrid9391 It's unburdening. It's not about saying you are worthless or less than others. It's just about putting yourself in the grandest perspective possible for a moment. Imagine if your boss is shouting at you because you messed up something. It's extremely stressful and you feel bad about messing up while at the same time someone who has substantial control over your life is attacking you. In that moment, the realisation that this is all really not that important and it will not have any lasting consequenses on anything can be extremely relieving. It can remove the stress from the situation and even enable you to deescalate. Because you aren't tensed up and panicked anymore, you can now make better desicions about how to handle the situatiion. That's what meditation can help you with. It's not about feeling bad because you are not important. It's letting go of the expectations that you and others put on you and realising that you do not _have_ to match them. The "you don't matter" part is just a thought that many find helpful in achieving that state of mind.
@@birdbrid9391 I think you missed the point, the part of that statement that they find comforting is the effect of not seeding their wellbeing to whatever emotional state they're in, which is generally one of the first things a therapist would teach you about mental health. The comfort was found in the implications, not the statement itself.
This video was eye opening on multiple levels. I think if he were to have a discussion with Dr. K from healthygamers, the result would likely be some amazing and impactful content.
This was a really powerful reminder. I meditated every day for a year, getting it in my head that I wouldn’t be truly grounded and present unless I did it “enough”. Now I know that I can be present at any time, thank you Jonathan.
Dealing with negative feelings means bringing unconscious thoughts to your attention, to move them to the conscious domain. This reduces chaos and gives everything more meaning (access to more information). Thoughts are the main origin of everything, positive and negative.
I've tried to explain this ability to observe what you're really feeling with regards to negative feelings and lose much of the negativity. I've been doing intermittent fasting and it's amazing to see how well you can neutralize the hunger and realize it's no big deal. I try to explain this to people but it's very hard to get them to even try. Great talk, I've had these benefits with very little practice and this is inspiring to become more deliberate about it. For some reason I haven't applied it to that feeling that drives me to browse the web instead of getting started coding, I look forward to trying that.
I like to think of it as sitting in a movie theater. Most of our daily live we're wrapped watching the movie and (for all intents and purposes) the movie constitutes our experience. But sometimes you can have this stark sensation of suddenly becoming accutely aware that you're sitting in a chair, watching a large screen and that the action taking place on the screen is only a subset of the larger experience. That, to me, is what it's like to distance myself (for lack of a better word) from my thoughts. Where it gets a bit trippy is once you realize that the act of observing thoughts can also be observed... but that's a whole other rabbit hole.
That's a really wonderful analogy. A phrase I once used to help solidify self awareness was "you're an object surrounded by objectivity". Kind of a way of visualizing the fact that the structures that make your "self" are no different than the structures that make "everything else", ie, matter, energy, all that fun stuff. Another thing that's helped me maintain awareness is to detach the human/social meaning we attribute to objects and space. For instance, what we call a "table" or a "room" or a "human body" is really none of those things; the objective universe makes no special distinction between this collection of atoms or that. Just rando thoughts I figured I'd share, thanks for sharing your own!
Jonathan, this has been helping me incredibly since I last watched it three days ago. I'd love to show it to my brother and mother, both of whom can't understand english. Could you open this video for community colaboration so I could add a portuguese translation? That would be very helpful. I also wanted to ask if you are familiar with Henri Bergson's work. His approach to philosophy is very similar to what you describe, specially the ideas of quantitative and qualitative multiplicities. Thanks for this!
Thanks Jon, this was a great talk. I am myself trying to use these techniques, which I find great and definetly life-changing. I think the main problem nowadays is the lack of education about these topics: people get to know about all this stuff only when the problem actually becomes serious (like clinical depression), and learning the techniques is much more difficult in such negative mind states. It would make a lot more sense to educate and train people beforehand, so that the problem would be far more managable later on. I really hope that in the near future this knowledge will spread more and more.
This works because knowing is half the battle. You have control over your thoughts, emotions and sensations, but you're so used to them that you don't see them harming you. Once you know what's happening, it's an automatic fix.
It is 9:57 pm on a Friday, I've had 10 shots of rum, and this video has popped up randomly after spending 10 years in the trenches of "professional" web dev. The look in John's eyes at the beginning just sum's up everything that has brought my life here.
I just love the title of this video contrasting against the barren room without furniture or decor, the grey shirt and close shaved hair and the kind of expressionless stare from Jonathan 👏👏👏
Thank you much for everything you do, Jonathan. You impress me immensely with your thoughtfulness and willingness to articulate and broadcast your wealth of experience on both technical game development matters as well as these motivational issues. You're a treasure. Please know your efforts and time are very helpful and appreciated.
I remember forcing myself too keep holding an extremely hot cup of tea, thinking about this thing: the pain is just an information in my brain, same as the things i see and hear, so why is it so hard to not act on it? We all are used to *feel* like we have complete control over our bodies, but that's so obviously not true, most of our actions are automatic. I didn't even manage to hold it long enough to get even slight burn, which was disappointing. I don't know why im writing this here, maybe because this great video sounded to me like an exercise to become more in control of my own reactions and actions on the information i get. Honestly it's quite sad to realize how even slightest discomfort can block us, when physically and intellectually we could continue exercising, working, etc for much longer. We just have this default chain -- i'm tired -> it's over; i'm sad -> it's time to crawl into bed. Im not saying it's easy to resist, but it's just an exercise to become better at it. When i did physical exercises a lot i slowly realized that it's not so much about how much resourses do you have in your body, it's about how early you give up, how long until you can't ignore this feeling of being exhausted anymore, and it's empowering to know how much you can push it further even with purely physical exhaustion.
Interesting thought. Obviously most of those reactions are there for a reason, for most of them it still makes sense to obey them (outside of some very special circumstances, there's really no reason to hurt yourself with a hot surface). However for the situations John mentions, like being in pain or feeling discomfort, it would be nice to be able to be their master and not a slave as usual.
This is excellent Power of Now stuff, being the observer of your thoughts and not getting lost them, not letting them capture and define you. Thanks Jonathan!
Yeah this feels right. I have this understanding that my emotions are effectively a ball of noise and my suffering is equal to the effort I spend trying to translate that noise into something comprehensible. Or the effort I think I can spend trying to close the gap between how I am feeling and how I’d rather feel instead in that moment. Good post.
I've been thinking about stuff like this for a long time. Why am I unmotivated, why do most things disinterest me, is it a bigger problem in the world or is it just me. My thoughts are surprisingly aligned with Jonathan's. I've been following this guy for years now and while I think role models and heroes are kind of risky associations to make about people I could describe Jonathan as an inspiration to me. I'm a dialysis patient and my days are spent doing very light housework and exercising. I barely study and I don't have a job. I have however always had an interest in computers, technology and especially games so I've slowly started to work on some basic programming skills. I've done multiple courses on multiple languages and I've read multiple books on programming. I haven't had much luck yet of actually getting that ball rolling and starting to practice programming in earnest but I'm slowly warming up to the idea. I'm definitely going to try to apply Jonathan's advice as best I can as well. I'm already meditating and it's actually helpful. I'm glad I'm seeing some of the signs and hints that will lead for a better mental and physical health. There is a neutral zone where we can operate and be productive but if you've existed in this slouched and gloomy state mentally it's very hard to take the actions to realign your perspective. The good news is it IS about perspective. I guess it's sort of funny to say this in this particular context but facts themselves are meaningless to us if we don't act on them or invest in them emotionally. We give power to things when we spend time thinking about them (and boy have I spent time on self-reflective thinking) so it's important to realize that while our brain is terribly smart and effective at thinking it's also a hindrance to actions. So that's really my number 1# reason to turn to meditation. Because you can turn that thinking process down. Practicing meditation isn't so much about silencing thinking all together but learning to control this innate ability within us to adjust that thinking volume which is what Jonathan already said. But I think it's vital. Especially in modern times when we are so informed and so influenced by that information. We need to learn to turn down that volume.
The first thing Jonathan mentions here is a really solid explanation of meditation, and why it works. I don't know why this isn't typically described when the subject of motivation comes up, but it really is about being mindful and practicing awareness of what is going on around you. In a way, training your mind to not get sucked too far down unproductive rabbit holes of thought, and in another, about appreciating how much your senses are aware of. If it helps, I've got some cool video game related white noise on my channel. They help me when I need to tune out distractions and focus on meditating EDIT: LOL, I was cracking up at 21:20-22:45+
I wanted to come back to this video after having watched it quite a while ago, and let you know that the way you went about this got me over the hurdle of understanding this. Thank you for this video, and for your many talks.
John, thank you for this video, you inspire me greatly. I have studied computer science and got my master's in computer graphics, but I'm unable to work with computers at all now. I love programming but I absolutely can not bear the context it's happening in, i.e. the companies, the software I am sick of everywhere etc. I have a lot of job offers but I can't accept any. I've tried but had a breakdown each time and I felt like dying. I am instead distributing leaflets for basically no money at the moment, but I'm much closer to being happy. Weird thing is I am able to work on open-source projects I love for free, I am even enjoying it very much. I don't understand myself.
That's strange. Maybe, you feel too depressed when you meet deadline and your mind don't want to feel that anymore. Probably that's why you can work on open-source project - threre is no pressure! Try to make little game by yourself - maybe it will sell or help you with depression :-)
It has been amazing, listening to your experiences. I followed you because of your development work and was quite surprised when this video popped up. I am 29 and have suffered from anxiety and resulting depressions my whole life. Last year my family physician pointed me to a course called MBSR. I had tried behavioral therapy before which had helped, but didn’t offer me the tools to deal with my issues. All the techniques you described were taught to me there, which basically train you in awareness of thoughts and emotion, as well as perception of body sensation. After 28 years, for the first time, I didn’t feel helpless. I started to understand that I am the master of my perception and most of my negative perception is self created. I hope someone will read this, and take it as an additional motivation to give these techniques a try. Because how Jonathan said: the concepts are very easy, the practice has no side effects and basically anyone can do it. Thank you for sharing this with the world.
Talking about thoughts is reaaaally intriguing for me. Because you can experience the "exact" same things in two different situations, but you can deal with them a whole lot differently - and consequently to live differently. The circumstances didn't change. Only your mind did, but the way you experience life was another level entirely.
I should’ve watched this at the beginning of quarantine, these months of being obligated to get work done since there’s so much free time have been rough
Wonderful talk Jonathan. As a frequent meditator, I can absolutely agree with everything said here! You gave this talk 5 years ago and I'm not familiar with you, so if this message reaches you I just want to say I hope you are doing excellent! :)
There is actually a thin line (if any at all) between science and non-science as between formal rationality and common-sense-driven rationality. At times religious commitment to "The Science" is as mindless as the commitment to superficially, formally rational schemes of thinking in the context that does not suppose those schemes to work at all. So it was interesting experience, thanks for your time.
Good ideas. I can also say that it helps to get up, walk around, and take a break every once in a while. Not too frequently because when you're programming you really need to get your mind into your work. But when you're mind starts to feel sluggish and maybe a bit "stuck", it's time to take 10-15 minutes to feel the sunshine and smell the roses. Some people need the "excuse" to get a snack or a coffee or a smoke. But try to get rid of those harmful crutches as soon as you can. What's important is to give your mind a few minutes to clear before going back to work, not developing a bad habit that you'll regret later in life. Walking is good because the body movement can help your brain with the rhythm of breathing and walking.
Thank you so much for posting this! I've used some techniques you described to fight my overactive brain when trying to fall asleep and deal better with chronic pain at times.
I can relate to that. I remember being acutely aware if this when one day I mistakenly pushed a hollow steel pipe into the back of palm. The pipe was about 7mm in diameter with very sharp edges. I remember the first sensation I had after this thing went in was, how painful it was and I was even at the verge of tears, but when I looked at the spot, I noticed there was little to no blood! In that second or two of noticing that there was only a little blood, it made me realize that I had immediately blown this thing out of proportion before even investigating how bad it really was. Immediately, my heart beat started to slow down, I realized I had even slowed down my breathing too, so I took a few deep breaths and just smiled at how silly the situation was. After this small moment of realization passed, that's when I noticed the bleeding intensified, but even at this stage, I was still calm and collected and simply went to the bathroom to clean up up the wound.
Thank you, these techniques have definitely helped me. I have listened to your video now twice. Thank you for sharing. This thought of just inspecting the thought that is causing discomfort, just looking at it, giving it light so that it might burn away is great and really works.
It's great that you put these detailed instructions out, for people who want to calm their negative emotions. Thank you for that. I have an opposite sort of problem though, real depression where I don't seem to have positive emotions that have positive body feelings to them, not that I can remember. It seems like I wouldn't recognize that I'm having a feeling that's supposed to feel good, if I happen to feel some feeling that other people would call feeling happy or joyful or euphoric.
Jonathan Blow is a spiritual teacher come in the guise of game designer. I realized this when I was playing the Witness and it dawned on me how the whole game is a most brilliant study in mindfulness.
Really appreciate the thoroughness of this video, along with the practical anecdotes of how things go poorly or well in your previous experiences, and how you dealt with them.
After dating this one girl for a while, one day we were talking about people and their anger, and she said this one fellow she knew would "suppress" his anger. But it would go down inside him and build up and affect his mood and make him and everyone around him miserable and eventulaly he'd kind of blow up, and then the process would start all over. I said I don't suppress my anger, and she said "No you don't, you do something with it. It doesn't go down inside you, it goes.. somewhere else. I don't know where it goes." I don't either. But it's like turning a switch that erects a barrier and redirects that whole flow elsewhere entirely out of me. I think it's very much like what is being talked about here. I just see it, I'm aware of it, I'm aware of myself feeling it, and as quick as it came it goes away. Like shining a light on it and saying "I see you" to it. Recognizing that "it" is not me. Then I can go back to whatever the matter was later and kind of approach it from a distance and pick it apart and try to think about objectively and decide what to do, if anything, about it. I'm not saying that I'm just always totally Zen, I'm sure not, but I would confirm that this is a thing that can work; it's a valuable tool.
I thought about this a lot in the past. I had some pretty terrible toothaches and kidney stones in the past, and it's a learning experience. This kind of 'meditation' (don't know if that's the right word) feels like a debugger running on itself. It's fuzzy because it's looking at itself running, but we can make out glimpses of our inner workings. We can almost make out parallel thoughts, responding to each other and to sensations. The fact we are analyzing ourselves makes it fuzzy, because observing itself generates thoughts.
It's amazing how much of The Witness I can see in this video. Many of your thoughts on our psychology remind me of the David Darling quote on zen koans.
This plays strangely well at 1.5x speed. I didn't know I was watching it that fast until I realized it was almost over and it had roughly been ~30 minutes.
Thankyou i've been worrying about future feeling unmotived and made me feel negative because I didn't wanna complete or can't decide what to do at any more, thankyou keep this video up for as long as you can into the future i'm saving this page in case I forget I will return & remind myself on these techniques i've put it on a playlist i've set to public... i'm prob gonna put more inspirational, and motivating videos on the playlist!
My personal takeaways: 1. Working with computers for hours on end is unnatural and therefore can lead to psych problems 2. You are not your thoughts (proof = watch as your thoughts begin and end) 3. Feelings start to appear different when you examine them. Example - superficially area of contact between your butt and chair feels hard and defined, but if you stop and actually feel it, you find it's amophous 4. Feelings are more fleeting than they seem: you may feel like you will be angry for a long time after an argument, but actually examining yourself you may find the anger is long gone 5. Examining your feelings closely and neutrally without interpreting them is good.
You look so much like a childhood friend of mine that it's startling! I've spent an unholy amount of time looking at lots of different ideas in the space of personal growth and I would say that you have done an excellent job of putting a lot of the best lessons I've learned from that (plus some new ones of course) into a system that I am fairly sure will work very well for a great number of people. I find the separation of thoughts from self to be the most powerful idea to take away from what you have said and your ability to explain the method you use to do this is very impressive, I have never had much ability in the way of communicating my thoughts to others and would be very interested if you did a video about how you develop this skill, as I am sure this is something you have thought about with how methodical you appear to be in all the other areas of your life!
Hard to know if I feel depression or just boredom when I have issues with motivation. I believe human beings have a tendency to procrastinate if the tasks you are supposed to do don't have an immediate reward. I recall when I was in university, there were times I was really struggling with motivation and realized that I could turn the problem around and try to make it more interesting, find some kind of new challenge through doing it in a different way. Perhaps that is why I often prefer to code something from scratch instead of using some off the shelf component, and certainly why I dont like big frameworks. The time spent learning it just feels wasted as I know that after I am finished using it I will likely never use it again and if I ever do come across it again I have to learn it all over again. My biggest problem is that I get very engaged in the start of something and the moment the bigger challenges are conquered I quickly loose interest. I have a lot of half finished projects as I feel the reward of finishing something isnt as big as the challenge I just conquered. No doubt with computers and access to the internet the possibilities for distractions are endless. I know there are many writers that use old MSDOS computers that is not connected to the internet or something plain for the time they work with writing. Notebooks, paper, and just simplify your environments so the mind cant so easily be distracted is wise. No cellphones or email programs. A general motivation thing that works for me is to do something for someone else to see. Showing someone who is interested in your work and can come with good feedback. Especially good if you are able to "play ball" with assets and code - for example if you are a coder and you have a graphics artist that is producing assets as you need them - that can be a great motivator.
The ancient stoic philosopher Epictetus said it very succinctly: “People are not disturbed by things, but by the views they take of them." And of course in Buddhism similar ideas are articulated.
I’ve heard of these techniques before. Practiced meditation before. But have not tried to regularly apply them throughout the day nor have thought about the importance of doing so. This was so eye-opening. Thank you so much. I’ve also went through a depressive like state and I’m still recovering from that the best I can with things like food, exercise, and getting enough sleep. But these tools are really helpful for dealing with the other side of things, I’m going to practice them and hopefully help me on my journey even more.
i know this is a little late to comment on this video, but they teach you this in substance abuse classes. My counselor described it as "being conscious". You basically are watching your thoughts at a distance and are choosing to engage with it or ignore it. I thought of it as sort of getting in touch with your ego, observing your id or feeling, and superego or thought. I know thats an oversimplification of the meaning of those words, but it helped me understand how your mind is seperated from the chaos of your experience.
I think the only way is to remind oneself of the goal and work towards the smaller objectives that contribute to that goal. As you complete the small objectives and see yourself progressing towards the goal, you will be motivated.
You seem like a truly sweet person for sharing this. Thank you for giving me one more reason to look up to you. And thank you for sharing, i will try it and be a better person. Thank you.
That's the Witness processus. Analysing part by part a problem you don't understand, and try to formulate the rule with a simple sentence in your head. Good idea to apply this to emotions or addictive problems. Trying to take back and look at each parts to understand the schematics and in fine take control of yourself. But yeah, finally we understand we are all mad and angry on things that are not so importants. ;-) Thank you Jonathan. Your game was a masterpiece and I loved the way you reboot the communication/langage that's buried deep inside each one of us. By the way, I had to practice 2 days long before succied to your "challenge. Very epic Boss. I hope one day you'll make a sequel of this witness, because for now, I can't erase my memory to rediscover your amusement parc again.
I know this video is old, and I don't know if you read comments. But it sounds like you found Rupert Spira. I went on the same journey. After I learned a lot from him, I read every philosophy book I could find. I've read all the platonic philosophers (there are a ton of them) and Aristotle. Until finally I found Ayn Rand and studied objectivism (not reading Atlas Shrugged or those types of books, but actual philosophy). Everything clicked and I was able to regain my self-esteem and fix all of my depression and anxiety. It took 10 years for me. Good luck Jon.
53:27 "People will tell you they don't want to have negative experiences - most people will tel you they want to be happy. But what I saw very clearly happening was a part of my mind whose job was specifically to make me more angry, reach out and say 'this thing here! this thing here! be mad about this!'" 54:07 "but I want to be happy! So if I want to be happy, then why was I creating this problem? ...Why was I so willing to step into it and propagate it?" This haunts me every day. Edit: Haunts me less now. It seems as long as you try, over time, the brain will rewire and normalize itself. Human brains are hard to understand. Edit June 2024: Barely haunts me. Easy to deal with. Just passing moments. I suspect it will become *even* easier with time. Edit September 2024: why was I ever haunted by it?
Great to know. What i've also found helpful is that during bad emotional states, changing breathing patterns breaks the state. Example, if you are angry, try breathing slowly and deep. I've tried a lot of similar things which i listened from Osho. The guy is magic. For example, if you watch/observe the middle point(from tip till throat ending) on tongue, thoughts disappear instantly, its crazy how much we don't know.
Thank you. I must've picked up some of these techniques subconsciously, but never "formally" heard them spoken by someone who can articulate them as words and understands a deeper philosophy behind them.
The complex built ontop of small hunger pangs Jonathan mentioned, mirrored the structure of programming. Is that what programming is? Building elaborate (computer) logic on top of tiny sensations? Sensations can't really be neutral... feelings lead to life or death eventually, pain means something!
the problem with depression is that to try a technique you need motivation in the first place. severe chronic depression makes that extremely difficult. if i had the motivation to try the technique then i am already motivated. sometimes its hard to do the most basic, simple tasks
@@bonjonbovine2961 I think a key disclaimer for this video should be that techniques like these don't help much if you only attempt to practice them when you're already in a negative headspace. If you suffer from chronic depression, it can be difficult to develop these habits to begin with and many people need therapy and sometimes medication to get to a point of stability from which you can work on developing habits from exercises like the ones Jon recommends.
You mean John, "Supergenius Alien-In-Person-Suit, Time Traveling Space Wizard, Interdimensional Overgenius, Actual Rocket Scientist, Experimental Artificial Intelligence Gone Rogue, Benevolent Hyperintelligent Architect Of The Post-Singularity Simulation We All Live In, Sentient Galaxy-Brain Meme, Clearly Not A Net Negative On The Show, Juvenile Delinquent, Psychic Supersoldier Prototype, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Practitioner, Energy-Based Fourth-Dimensional Being, Earth-Stranded Nihilanth, Part-Time Astrophysicist, Our Only Insurance Against An Overwhelming Alien Incursion, Death-Frightening Scion Capable Of Seeing Through The Illusionary World Before Our Eyes, Etherspawn Tech-Cipher, Perfected Human Analogue, Jace Hall Asphyxiator, Ageless Organism With A Real Name Unpronounceable By The Human Tongue, Engineering Elemental, Luddite Nemesis, Texas-Based Technocryptid, Resident Of The Binding In-Between Space That Holds Reality Together, Id Software Co-Founder, Keeper Of The Forbidden Code, Master Of The Anti-Life Equation, Programming Overlord, Nigh-Invulnerable Nexus-7 Prototype, Grotesque Macrocephalytic Psychic Soldier, Monolith Constructor, Metaverse Destroyer, Corporeal Being By Choice, Time-Displaced Neural-Net Processor, Whatever The Top Military Scientists In The 1960s Passed Off As Human Tissue, Host Organism For The Consciousness Of An Ageless Space Turtle, Person Who Could Easily Understand Explain And Probably Recreate F.E.A.R.'s A.I. In An Afternoon With A Pizza And A Two-Liter Of Diet Coke, Intangible Etherspawn, Former Metaverse Voice Of Reason, Anthropomorphized Essence Of Technological Innovation" Carmack? Yeah, that dude is not of this world.
@@ZombieLincoln666 In that case it's curious that you find motivation to do stuff since minimizing pain is probably like half of it, the other being maximizing pleasure.
I also think taking steps to observe yourself and adjust your attitude are very important skills to managing stress and sadness and anger. One of the better habits I picked up was journaling, and I have done that to good success for a year now. But I needed a fountain pen so I could write lightly with a calm grip, or literally my hand getting sore would start making me upset after half a page lol. I will try some things mentioned in this video, thanks for doing it.
Thank you very much Jonathan. It seems to be just as you say. It doesn't seem so hard after watching the video, and I actually feel better after practicing some of the exercises you proposed here. I really appreciate you took the time to make this video. I actually admire you as a game developer and wouldn't probably have watched something like this if it wasn't for that. I guess I'm glad that you decided to make this even if it isn't strictly related to video games. You are an incredible human being. Thanks again!
Very, very good discussion Jonathan, thanks for sharing this. I love books that try to teach us techniques to live better. They're commonly called self-help, but that became an underappreciated term, so I prefer personal development, or simply living better. There's this book called "Designing your Life", by two former Apple engineers. This idea of DESIGNING your life is very powerful. Most people simply don't. They go through the motions, they try to catch the "good" opportunities in the moment, but they simply don't define how they want to live for the next year or decade. I many times suffer from lack of motivation, even if I know with a good degree of certainty how I want to live. But even in these moments, knowing my life design helps me a lot.
I like the way you present this, very practical and unassuming, genuinely helpful. I practiced few of these methods before and they have been effective to me at times, although I didn't explore it much. Your presentation helps me bring new light into it and consciously seek applying them now. Thanks!
I observed I can't really observe my thoughts. They can be either A: observed, in which case they completely cease, or B: unobserved, in which case I'm the thinker of thoughts, not the observer.
Two thoughts: 1) Your observations on examining an experience or sensation from a distance are exactly why I find (medical, legal) marijuana useful as a pain treatment - it doesnt numb the pain, I still know something bad is going on and not to make it worse. But it does seem to make it further away and allow me to more easily make a decision about how I want to deal with it. It lets you break that cycle of reaction. 2) If the techniques you describe do *not* work at all for getting depression or other emotions under control, that is a good way to distinguish clinical depression for which you absolutely should seek professional medical help. 3) (off-by one error :) Thanks for this talk, it was very useful.
0:00 Made me feel like John was really disappointed in me
Me too! Me too. I'm really dissapointed in you too.
@@АлександрБагмутов I agree. Not sure what escapism game did, buuut... they probably shouldn't do it again.
"You clicked on this video... You are not my son anymore"
He does the typical "dad sigh" very well.
Sounded like he was about to make an apology video.
"Sensations are, at their core, neutral. They're not negative or positive, right? The negativity or positivity are things you assign later and, therefore, they're not that serious." This is so powerful.
check out Marcus Aurelius
@@notusingmyrealnamegoogle6232 Man I've been practicing stoicism for two years. What a coincidence.
@@f02e1iu0n2ef IMHO, all of that stuff is not completely applied to depresion, since depression is an objective state of body. This talk is mainly about destructive subjective perception and how to deal with it. Partially it could be applied to depression, but it can be too hard. For example, if you have determined that you have depression, the best thing you can do is to see a doctor immediately. If you start thinking too negatively about your assumption about depression, your chances of giving up will increase.
@@ShtrikeBirbI went to see a doctor, she prescribed me pills, I took them for 3 days and felt completely terrible. Decided fuck that and stopped taking them. Instead I quit the job I was tired off, played games for couple of months, started to go outside and gym more often, found a ned job I like more, now 5 months later I feel great, and this stupid bitch said I had a severe depression and need to medicate urgently.
I once had sex with that chick. It was consentual that it would only be a ONS for now and no commitment was involved. It was great!
But, the next day I saw her making out with another guy. Once I entered the picture she quit, feeling a bit ashamed. I was shell-shocked. She was well within her rights but I didn't expect her to be that promiscous.
Anyway. It made me think. I had a beautiful night with that girl. That does not change by things that happen later. The sensual pleasure I had has not lessened by not being her exclusive Partner - I didn't even wanted to be her exclusive Partner in the first place. But of course your ego would prefer that additional Status of being the only one who had that privilege.
So I let it go... I enjoyed what had happened and I refused to get that memory tainted by something that essentially is not really related.
It turned out to be the right decision. We would meet again and again, enjoying each others company and not worrying when the other wasn't there. I never asked her if she had sex with others in between when she was with me. But I expected it. But I didn't even want to know, so I never asked. When she was with me she was with me, why would I mind where she had been 3 days ago or where she will be in that time. We even became kind of friends over the whole thing. Obviously we would not only have sex and she was pretty smart and educated and just a joy to be with.
If I had let my jealousy the best of me, I would not have such a nice memory to the first night and the others probably would never have happened. I had a good time with her, why let that ruin everything by your ego???
This landed at a rough time for me. An hour later, things feel less shitty. Thank you.
to me It's just 'mental weather' - it has no particular meaning, and you can always count on that it always passes. :)
It sucks when it's too often cloudy :/
+Scylk - ua-cam.com/video/e-JYU1rDhpo/v-deo.html :)
For everyone else, a challenge:
Put this on yr headphones and TRY to be depressed for longer than 2 minutes, before you're gettin' your own private jig on !! ua-cam.com/video/cXEK2ufq2lw/v-deo.html \o/
- The world is FULL of the good stuff, like this - you just gotta learn to get good at finding it! :D
do you even lift, bro?
"regular working life is probably unhappiness making"
so true and simple
He's such a great guy.
Jon is the best. Truly inspirational under so many points of view.
Indeed you are right.
Total forgot about this comment. 4 years has passed, some things changed, some didn't.
I should come back to this video every now and then.
Underrated as well. He deserves better
What fascinates me about him is that he is the superposition of the best and worst kind of human.
15 minutes in and I have made up my mind that this is the best advise on mental health I've heard in a long while and I don't even code or spend too much time in front of the computer. Thanks.
How’s it been going?
Loved this talk and wanted to share some of my notes from it, all mistakes are mine:
--
His three keys - 1) Thoughts, 2) Bodily sensations, 3) Emotions
1) Thoughts - don't identify too closely, stand back and watch them happen
2) Sensations - they're fundamentally neutral, your mind interprets and amplifies, see thru this
3) Emotions - disappear instantly when you look at them
--
"You are not your thoughts. There's a limit to how useful they can be"
How much do your thoughts weigh?
Your mind is interpreting and translating all of your experiences, doesn't represent the totality or reality of what happened
Lots of everyday physical experience is imposed by the mind
Emotions don't last long, but we can keep them burning for a long time with our thoughts and perceptions, even years
If you want to be happy, why create negative emotions?
Everyone goes out of their way to find negativity
He was mild to moderately depressed in past, could have multi day episodes
Antidepressants not well understood, unlike other western medicine, "science's weaker medicines of last resort"
Thank you still useful in almost 2024...
Thank you for saving my time
11:26
Jonathan just glosses over it, but I really like the phrase "the color of the light in the room of my mind".
It's both really phonetically satisfying, and gives a clear way of thinking about emotional state.
41:28 He goes into it a little bit more
A modified iambic tetrameter. Ordinarily the mark of long immersion in English literature, especially poetry but also books and possibly including the better-written song lyrics.
11:27
This is one of the single most useful videos I have seen in years
I came for the presentation, and stayed for the soothing fireplace
What gets me is, he built that nice fire in that spotlessly clean fireplace, but the entire place looks empty! Did he film this video in an open house a realtor was showing him? Is this his house, and it's completely empty of furniture? Even the echo makes it sound like he's in a room that's been stripped bare! Where's all that clutter from the end video of The Witness?
I'm not entirely convinced that it isn't a green screen
@Warp Zone: Minimalism, man. Minimalism. (Or maybe he just moved into the place. Or maybe the other walls are actually filled with shelves. My apartment has a fairly strong echo as well because there is very little cloth.)
This is pretty much ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy) to a tee! So cool to see successful people use similar ideas
13:50 exercise for standing apart from thoughts 21:10 physical sensation exercise
My approach: I write my current physical state down. Then I write down what feeling is causing that physical state. Then I write down what causes that feeling (e.g. my heart races because I have to talk about something and I am not really prepared). Then I ask questions about it (e.g., Why am I not prepared? -> No time. I was told to do that way too late.) At this point I always realise something about that situation that lets me escape the bad feeling (e.g. I can write everything I don't know down and give the information the very next day.). If the bad feeling is still there then I ask myself "What else is causing my physical state?" and repeat the process. This works (at least for me) so incredible well that I can't imagine a situation that could bring me down anymore.
I also tried things similar to what Jonathan is showing here, but for me it is somehow very exhausting and I loose focus during it. But watching the video makes me wanna try it again.
Haha. I am now at the point (29:00) about food poison. I had several years ago pretty bad food poisoning. I had problems with my study, I was alone then I got that posioning (diarrea, headache and parts of my body went numb!). I was too scared to go to a doctor (idiotic!). I seriously thought I might die or fall into a coma (again, idiotic!) so I began to write a diary of somesort (for the people that might find my body). I realised that by writing down what my body feels like the "fog of anxiety" I was in went away and I got better almost immidiately. I realised I felt so incredible bad because of all the other problems I had also. That was the point where I started writing things down regularly as I explained above.
Interesting! 👍
So kind of like debugging yourself and remembering how you fixed the bug?
What do you do when "what's causing my physical state" is "all plausible projected outcomes" ?
"Most of your experience was not comprised of that thought." While I already knew this, because I'm forced to think about it all of the time, I had never thought of this separation from thoughts as a tool. 16 minutes in and you've already been so helpful. Thanks for this.
I'm also constantly thinking about the difference between verbalization of thoughts and the ideas preceding them. But, I get so worried about thinking about the preceding ideas and the underlying processes (thoughts themselves?) that I get dragged right back into the loop. What that single line above has helped me to do is to understand that no matter what I call it, or how many parts it's made up of, I need distance from it sometimes. And, it needs to be a conscious effort.
This is weird. I've been avoiding this talk for a long time, somehow thinking it will remind me of negative feelings.
But actually it was the opposite.
I've been putting off serious dieting for a while (I lost a lot of weight in the past but have recently gained some of it back) because something in my mind was telling me the hunger is not bearable.
After listening to this I decided to go back to intermittent fasting and surprisingly the hunger did not feel bad at all. Like, I literally looked at the feeling, and thought, yea, that feeling is there, it's just a feeling. And went about my day.
I haven't felt this _ease_ about combating negative feelings in a long time.
Thank you!
What a super intelligent guy. I stumbled upon him through a gaming video mentioning his creation of the witness, a game I can’t wait to play. But finding this, it’s so great to find someone so creative, and intelligent, talk about real world philosophy and problem, and furthermore solutions to those problems. Love love love this guy
This was back when the world was slightly less bad and Casey/Jon weren't as jaded. I missed (by a few years) witnessing that time live, and I hope those days come back again...
Jon's actually still pretty fun :)
I guess that was before Computer Enhance because Casey is more productive than ever
I always was frustrated by meditation, because I could never figure out how to know when I was doing it right. This puts everything so clearly and in such a straightforward way. Thank you so much!
This is one of the best videos I've ever seen. It puts so much in perspective for me. The funny thing is, I've been using these techniques for years. I just called them 'being aware that nothing matters and I am insignificant'. It sounds strange, but that thought always was really comforting and calming to me and had that exact effect of making my emotions subside. But putting it in terms of sensations being neutral and the layer of interpretation being there is a much more elegant and approachable way of putting it!
" 'being aware that nothing matters and I am insignificant' "
idk why ppl think that belittling themselves is mentally healthy
@@birdbrid9391 It's unburdening. It's not about saying you are worthless or less than others. It's just about putting yourself in the grandest perspective possible for a moment. Imagine if your boss is shouting at you because you messed up something. It's extremely stressful and you feel bad about messing up while at the same time someone who has substantial control over your life is attacking you. In that moment, the realisation that this is all really not that important and it will not have any lasting consequenses on anything can be extremely relieving. It can remove the stress from the situation and even enable you to deescalate. Because you aren't tensed up and panicked anymore, you can now make better desicions about how to handle the situatiion. That's what meditation can help you with. It's not about feeling bad because you are not important. It's letting go of the expectations that you and others put on you and realising that you do not _have_ to match them. The "you don't matter" part is just a thought that many find helpful in achieving that state of mind.
@@birdbrid9391 I think you missed the point, the part of that statement that they find comforting is the effect of not seeding their wellbeing to whatever emotional state they're in, which is generally one of the first things a therapist would teach you about mental health.
The comfort was found in the implications, not the statement itself.
This video was eye opening on multiple levels. I think if he were to have a discussion with Dr. K from healthygamers, the result would likely be some amazing and impactful content.
That would be interesting
This was a really powerful reminder. I meditated every day for a year, getting it in my head that I wouldn’t be truly grounded and present unless I did it “enough”. Now I know that I can be present at any time, thank you Jonathan.
Dealing with negative feelings means bringing unconscious thoughts to your attention, to move them to the conscious domain. This reduces chaos and gives everything more meaning (access to more information). Thoughts are the main origin of everything, positive and negative.
Thank you soo much. The ideas you showed helped me a lot 😁 (Even after 6 years....)
I've tried to explain this ability to observe what you're really feeling with regards to negative feelings and lose much of the negativity. I've been doing intermittent fasting and it's amazing to see how well you can neutralize the hunger and realize it's no big deal. I try to explain this to people but it's very hard to get them to even try. Great talk, I've had these benefits with very little practice and this is inspiring to become more deliberate about it. For some reason I haven't applied it to that feeling that drives me to browse the web instead of getting started coding, I look forward to trying that.
I like to think of it as sitting in a movie theater. Most of our daily live we're wrapped watching the movie and (for all intents and purposes) the movie constitutes our experience. But sometimes you can have this stark sensation of suddenly becoming accutely aware that you're sitting in a chair, watching a large screen and that the action taking place on the screen is only a subset of the larger experience. That, to me, is what it's like to distance myself (for lack of a better word) from my thoughts. Where it gets a bit trippy is once you realize that the act of observing thoughts can also be observed... but that's a whole other rabbit hole.
That's a really wonderful analogy. A phrase I once used to help solidify self awareness was "you're an object surrounded by objectivity". Kind of a way of visualizing the fact that the structures that make your "self" are no different than the structures that make "everything else", ie, matter, energy, all that fun stuff.
Another thing that's helped me maintain awareness is to detach the human/social meaning we attribute to objects and space. For instance, what we call a "table" or a "room" or a "human body" is really none of those things; the objective universe makes no special distinction between this collection of atoms or that.
Just rando thoughts I figured I'd share, thanks for sharing your own!
@@AtticusDragon also a good way to put it
Jonathan, this has been helping me incredibly since I last watched it three days ago. I'd love to show it to my brother and mother, both of whom can't understand english. Could you open this video for community colaboration so I could add a portuguese translation? That would be very helpful.
I also wanted to ask if you are familiar with Henri Bergson's work. His approach to philosophy is very similar to what you describe, specially the ideas of quantitative and qualitative multiplicities.
Thanks for this!
this would be so great actually!! because it would benefit much more people
Community translations are gone now, unfortunately
This is exactly the kind of thing I've learned in therapy and it works for me! Thank you for this video!
Thanks Jon, this was a great talk. I am myself trying to use these techniques, which I find great and definetly life-changing. I think the main problem nowadays is the lack of education about these topics: people get to know about all this stuff only when the problem actually becomes serious (like clinical depression), and learning the techniques is much more difficult in such negative mind states. It would make a lot more sense to educate and train people beforehand, so that the problem would be far more managable later on. I really hope that in the near future this knowledge will spread more and more.
This works because knowing is half the battle. You have control over your thoughts, emotions and sensations, but you're so used to them that you don't see them harming you. Once you know what's happening, it's an automatic fix.
Best upload on this whole website. Thanks, Jon.
It is 9:57 pm on a Friday, I've had 10 shots of rum, and this video has popped up randomly after spending 10 years in the trenches of "professional" web dev. The look in John's eyes at the beginning just sum's up everything that has brought my life here.
10 shots of rum? damn bro, gotta take care of yourself
I just love the title of this video contrasting against the barren room without furniture or decor, the grey shirt and close shaved hair and the kind of expressionless stare from Jonathan 👏👏👏
Thank you much for everything you do, Jonathan. You impress me immensely with your thoughtfulness and willingness to articulate and broadcast your wealth of experience on both technical game development matters as well as these motivational issues. You're a treasure. Please know your efforts and time are very helpful and appreciated.
I remember forcing myself too keep holding an extremely hot cup of tea, thinking about this thing: the pain is just an information in my brain, same as the things i see and hear, so why is it so hard to not act on it? We all are used to *feel* like we have complete control over our bodies, but that's so obviously not true, most of our actions are automatic. I didn't even manage to hold it long enough to get even slight burn, which was disappointing.
I don't know why im writing this here, maybe because this great video sounded to me like an exercise to become more in control of my own reactions and actions on the information i get. Honestly it's quite sad to realize how even slightest discomfort can block us, when physically and intellectually we could continue exercising, working, etc for much longer. We just have this default chain -- i'm tired -> it's over; i'm sad -> it's time to crawl into bed. Im not saying it's easy to resist, but it's just an exercise to become better at it. When i did physical exercises a lot i slowly realized that it's not so much about how much resourses do you have in your body, it's about how early you give up, how long until you can't ignore this feeling of being exhausted anymore, and it's empowering to know how much you can push it further even with purely physical exhaustion.
Interesting thought. Obviously most of those reactions are there for a reason, for most of them it still makes sense to obey them (outside of some very special circumstances, there's really no reason to hurt yourself with a hot surface). However for the situations John mentions, like being in pain or feeling discomfort, it would be nice to be able to be their master and not a slave as usual.
This is excellent Power of Now stuff, being the observer of your thoughts and not getting lost them, not letting them capture and define you. Thanks Jonathan!
Yeah this feels right. I have this understanding that my emotions are effectively a ball of noise and my suffering is equal to the effort I spend trying to translate that noise into something comprehensible. Or the effort I think I can spend trying to close the gap between how I am feeling and how I’d rather feel instead in that moment. Good post.
still relevant in 2020 .. soo much madness this year, thanks Jonathan
I've been thinking about stuff like this for a long time. Why am I unmotivated, why do most things disinterest me, is it a bigger problem in the world or is it just me. My thoughts are surprisingly aligned with Jonathan's. I've been following this guy for years now and while I think role models and heroes are kind of risky associations to make about people I could describe Jonathan as an inspiration to me.
I'm a dialysis patient and my days are spent doing very light housework and exercising. I barely study and I don't have a job. I have however always had an interest in computers, technology and especially games so I've slowly started to work on some basic programming skills. I've done multiple courses on multiple languages and I've read multiple books on programming. I haven't had much luck yet of actually getting that ball rolling and starting to practice programming in earnest but I'm slowly warming up to the idea. I'm definitely going to try to apply Jonathan's advice as best I can as well.
I'm already meditating and it's actually helpful. I'm glad I'm seeing some of the signs and hints that will lead for a better mental and physical health. There is a neutral zone where we can operate and be productive but if you've existed in this slouched and gloomy state mentally it's very hard to take the actions to realign your perspective. The good news is it IS about perspective. I guess it's sort of funny to say this in this particular context but facts themselves are meaningless to us if we don't act on them or invest in them emotionally. We give power to things when we spend time thinking about them (and boy have I spent time on self-reflective thinking) so it's important to realize that while our brain is terribly smart and effective at thinking it's also a hindrance to actions.
So that's really my number 1# reason to turn to meditation. Because you can turn that thinking process down. Practicing meditation isn't so much about silencing thinking all together but learning to control this innate ability within us to adjust that thinking volume which is what Jonathan already said. But I think it's vital. Especially in modern times when we are so informed and so influenced by that information. We need to learn to turn down that volume.
The first thing Jonathan mentions here is a really solid explanation of meditation, and why it works. I don't know why this isn't typically described when the subject of motivation comes up, but it really is about being mindful and practicing awareness of what is going on around you. In a way, training your mind to not get sucked too far down unproductive rabbit holes of thought, and in another, about appreciating how much your senses are aware of.
If it helps, I've got some cool video game related white noise on my channel. They help me when I need to tune out distractions and focus on meditating
EDIT: LOL, I was cracking up at 21:20-22:45+
I wanted to come back to this video after having watched it quite a while ago, and let you know that the way you went about this got me over the hurdle of understanding this. Thank you for this video, and for your many talks.
John, thank you for this video, you inspire me greatly. I have studied computer science and got my master's in computer graphics, but I'm unable to work with computers at all now. I love programming but I absolutely can not bear the context it's happening in, i.e. the companies, the software I am sick of everywhere etc. I have a lot of job offers but I can't accept any. I've tried but had a breakdown each time and I felt like dying. I am instead distributing leaflets for basically no money at the moment, but I'm much closer to being happy. Weird thing is I am able to work on open-source projects I love for free, I am even enjoying it very much. I don't understand myself.
That's strange.
Maybe, you feel too depressed when you meet deadline and your mind don't want to feel that anymore.
Probably that's why you can work on open-source project - threre is no pressure!
Try to make little game by yourself - maybe it will sell or help you with depression :-)
It has been amazing, listening to your experiences. I followed you because of your development work and was quite surprised when this video popped up.
I am 29 and have suffered from anxiety and resulting depressions my whole life. Last year my family physician pointed me to a course called MBSR. I had tried behavioral therapy before which had helped, but didn’t offer me the tools to deal with my issues. All the techniques you described were taught to me there, which basically train you in awareness of thoughts and emotion, as well as perception of body sensation. After 28 years, for the first time, I didn’t feel helpless. I started to understand that I am the master of my perception and most of my negative perception is self created.
I hope someone will read this, and take it as an additional motivation to give these techniques a try. Because how Jonathan said: the concepts are very easy, the practice has no side effects and basically anyone can do it.
Thank you for sharing this with the world.
It's good to also seperate our automatic thoughts from our concious ones. Automatic/subconcious thoughts really are the ones that tend to be negative.
Yeah, they get in the way without permission.
You're the man Jon. Seriously, thanks for the years of motivation and inspiration. Keep going my friend. Always.
Talking about thoughts is reaaaally intriguing for me. Because you can experience the "exact" same things in two different situations, but you can deal with them a whole lot differently - and consequently to live differently. The circumstances didn't change. Only your mind did, but the way you experience life was another level entirely.
I should’ve watched this at the beginning of quarantine, these months of being obligated to get work done since there’s so much free time have been rough
Jhonathan Blowed our minds... You are a wise man, thanks for sharing these!
Thank you! For this video, for your games, for your coding sessions and for every gift you gave us! You're an amazing human!
Wonderful talk Jonathan. As a frequent meditator, I can absolutely agree with everything said here! You gave this talk 5 years ago and I'm not familiar with you, so if this message reaches you I just want to say I hope you are doing excellent! :)
There is actually a thin line (if any at all) between science and non-science as between formal rationality and common-sense-driven rationality. At times religious commitment to "The Science" is as mindless as the commitment to superficially, formally rational schemes of thinking in the context that does not suppose those schemes to work at all.
So it was interesting experience, thanks for your time.
Good ideas. I can also say that it helps to get up, walk around, and take a break every once in a while. Not too frequently because when you're programming you really need to get your mind into your work. But when you're mind starts to feel sluggish and maybe a bit "stuck", it's time to take 10-15 minutes to feel the sunshine and smell the roses. Some people need the "excuse" to get a snack or a coffee or a smoke. But try to get rid of those harmful crutches as soon as you can. What's important is to give your mind a few minutes to clear before going back to work, not developing a bad habit that you'll regret later in life. Walking is good because the body movement can help your brain with the rhythm of breathing and walking.
you are so good in expressing complicated things. thank you!!
Thank you so much for posting this!
I've used some techniques you described to fight my overactive brain when trying to fall asleep and deal better with chronic pain at times.
Jonathan, i really like your personality. I wish you all your dreams come true and a prosprous life.
I am a web developer and i encounter lack of motivation & malaise daily. Thank you so much for sharing this.
recently I've noticed that I can stop feeling pain by focusing on it and "observing", and this video just blew my mind
I can relate to that.
I remember being acutely aware if this when one day I mistakenly pushed a hollow steel pipe into the back of palm. The pipe was about 7mm in diameter with very sharp edges.
I remember the first sensation I had after this thing went in was, how painful it was and I was even at the verge of tears, but when I looked at the spot, I noticed there was little to no blood! In that second or two of noticing that there was only a little blood, it made me realize that I had immediately blown this thing out of proportion before even investigating how bad it really was. Immediately, my heart beat started to slow down, I realized I had even slowed down my breathing too, so I took a few deep breaths and just smiled at how silly the situation was.
After this small moment of realization passed, that's when I noticed the bleeding intensified, but even at this stage, I was still calm and collected and simply went to the bathroom to clean up up the wound.
Thank you, these techniques have definitely helped me. I have listened to your video now twice. Thank you for sharing. This thought of just inspecting the thought that is causing discomfort, just looking at it, giving it light so that it might burn away is great and really works.
Super important stuff. Jon is intelligent in so many ways. Thank you!
what a good talk, i’ve heard of these techniques but i really appreciate how you approached it.
I really appreciate that Jonathan is so open and willing to share
It's great that you put these detailed instructions out, for people who want to calm their negative emotions. Thank you for that.
I have an opposite sort of problem though, real depression where I don't seem to have positive emotions that have positive body feelings to them, not that I can remember. It seems like I wouldn't recognize that I'm having a feeling that's supposed to feel good, if I happen to feel some feeling that other people would call feeling happy or joyful or euphoric.
Jonathan Blow is a spiritual teacher come in the guise of game designer. I realized this when I was playing the Witness and it dawned on me how the whole game is a most brilliant study in mindfulness.
Really appreciate the thoroughness of this video, along with the practical anecdotes of how things go poorly or well in your previous experiences, and how you dealt with them.
What you just explained in this video feels like it can be applied to anyone. That alone makes it more important than any game you've ever worked on!
It's all about perspective i guess, and not only in The Withness. You are the best Mr. Blow.
After dating this one girl for a while, one day we were talking about people and their anger, and she said this one fellow she knew would "suppress" his anger. But it would go down inside him and build up and affect his mood and make him and everyone around him miserable and eventulaly he'd kind of blow up, and then the process would start all over. I said I don't suppress my anger, and she said "No you don't, you do something with it. It doesn't go down inside you, it goes.. somewhere else. I don't know where it goes." I don't either. But it's like turning a switch that erects a barrier and redirects that whole flow elsewhere entirely out of me. I think it's very much like what is being talked about here. I just see it, I'm aware of it, I'm aware of myself feeling it, and as quick as it came it goes away. Like shining a light on it and saying "I see you" to it. Recognizing that "it" is not me. Then I can go back to whatever the matter was later and kind of approach it from a distance and pick it apart and try to think about objectively and decide what to do, if anything, about it. I'm not saying that I'm just always totally Zen, I'm sure not, but I would confirm that this is a thing that can work; it's a valuable tool.
I thought about this a lot in the past. I had some pretty terrible toothaches and kidney stones in the past, and it's a learning experience.
This kind of 'meditation' (don't know if that's the right word) feels like a debugger running on itself. It's fuzzy because it's looking at itself running, but we can make out glimpses of our inner workings. We can almost make out parallel thoughts, responding to each other and to sensations. The fact we are analyzing ourselves makes it fuzzy, because observing itself generates thoughts.
I like the idea of meditation being like a debugger running on your self. I think that's a pretty good analogy. :)
Reminds me of my time in the military. When we said we are in pain our lieutenant always responded with.
"Pain is a feeling and feelings are great"
It's amazing how much of The Witness I can see in this video. Many of your thoughts on our psychology remind me of the David Darling quote on zen koans.
This plays strangely well at 1.5x speed. I didn't know I was watching it that fast until I realized it was almost over and it had roughly been ~30 minutes.
I find it relaxing to just hear his voice while I am programming.
Thankyou i've been worrying about future feeling unmotived and made me feel negative because I didn't wanna complete or can't decide what to do at any more, thankyou keep this video up for as long as you can into the future i'm saving this page in case I forget I will return & remind myself on these techniques i've put it on a playlist i've set to public... i'm prob gonna put more inspirational, and motivating videos on the playlist!
My personal takeaways:
1. Working with computers for hours on end is unnatural and therefore can lead to psych problems
2. You are not your thoughts (proof = watch as your thoughts begin and end)
3. Feelings start to appear different when you examine them. Example - superficially area of contact between your butt and chair feels hard and defined, but if you stop and actually feel it, you find it's amophous
4. Feelings are more fleeting than they seem: you may feel like you will be angry for a long time after an argument, but actually examining yourself you may find the anger is long gone
5. Examining your feelings closely and neutrally without interpreting them is good.
You look so much like a childhood friend of mine that it's startling! I've spent an unholy amount of time looking at lots of different ideas in the space of personal growth and I would say that you have done an excellent job of putting a lot of the best lessons I've learned from that (plus some new ones of course) into a system that I am fairly sure will work very well for a great number of people. I find the separation of thoughts from self to be the most powerful idea to take away from what you have said and your ability to explain the method you use to do this is very impressive, I have never had much ability in the way of communicating my thoughts to others and would be very interested if you did a video about how you develop this skill, as I am sure this is something you have thought about with how methodical you appear to be in all the other areas of your life!
This was absolutely fantastic. Thank you for putting this out there Jonathan. So practical and very reflective of my own life.
Learning to be self aware is a superpower. Nice to see narcissistic behavior can be controlled through the use of introspection.
Hard to know if I feel depression or just boredom when I have issues with motivation. I believe human beings have a tendency to procrastinate if the tasks you are supposed to do don't have an immediate reward. I recall when I was in university, there were times I was really struggling with motivation and realized that I could turn the problem around and try to make it more interesting, find some kind of new challenge through doing it in a different way. Perhaps that is why I often prefer to code something from scratch instead of using some off the shelf component, and certainly why I dont like big frameworks. The time spent learning it just feels wasted as I know that after I am finished using it I will likely never use it again and if I ever do come across it again I have to learn it all over again. My biggest problem is that I get very engaged in the start of something and the moment the bigger challenges are conquered I quickly loose interest. I have a lot of half finished projects as I feel the reward of finishing something isnt as big as the challenge I just conquered.
No doubt with computers and access to the internet the possibilities for distractions are endless. I know there are many writers that use old MSDOS computers that is not connected to the internet or something plain for the time they work with writing. Notebooks, paper, and just simplify your environments so the mind cant so easily be distracted is wise. No cellphones or email programs.
A general motivation thing that works for me is to do something for someone else to see. Showing someone who is interested in your work and can come with good feedback. Especially good if you are able to "play ball" with assets and code - for example if you are a coder and you have a graphics artist that is producing assets as you need them - that can be a great motivator.
The ancient stoic philosopher Epictetus said it very succinctly: “People are not disturbed by things, but by the views they take of them."
And of course in Buddhism similar ideas are articulated.
3:56 "i think for a fact that computers are fundamentally depressing"
Machines that cause disappointment :D
I’ve heard of these techniques before. Practiced meditation before. But have not tried to regularly apply them throughout the day nor have thought about the importance of doing so. This was so eye-opening. Thank you so much.
I’ve also went through a depressive like state and I’m still recovering from that the best I can with things like food, exercise, and getting enough sleep. But these tools are really helpful for dealing with the other side of things, I’m going to practice them and hopefully help me on my journey even more.
i know this is a little late to comment on this video, but they teach you this in substance abuse classes. My counselor described it as "being conscious". You basically are watching your thoughts at a distance and are choosing to engage with it or ignore it. I thought of it as sort of getting in touch with your ego, observing your id or feeling, and superego or thought. I know thats an oversimplification of the meaning of those words, but it helped me understand how your mind is seperated from the chaos of your experience.
I think the only way is to remind oneself of the goal and work towards the smaller objectives that contribute to that goal. As you complete the small objectives and see yourself progressing towards the goal, you will be motivated.
You seem like a truly sweet person for sharing this. Thank you for giving me one more reason to look up to you. And thank you for sharing, i will try it and be a better person. Thank you.
That's the Witness processus. Analysing part by part a problem you don't understand, and try to formulate the rule with a simple sentence in your head. Good idea to apply this to emotions or addictive problems. Trying to take back and look at each parts to understand the schematics and in fine take control of yourself. But yeah, finally we understand we are all mad and angry on things that are not so importants. ;-)
Thank you Jonathan. Your game was a masterpiece and I loved the way you reboot the communication/langage that's buried deep inside each one of us.
By the way, I had to practice 2 days long before succied to your "challenge. Very epic Boss.
I hope one day you'll make a sequel of this witness, because for now, I can't erase my memory to rediscover your amusement parc again.
I know this video is old, and I don't know if you read comments. But it sounds like you found Rupert Spira. I went on the same journey. After I learned a lot from him, I read every philosophy book I could find. I've read all the platonic philosophers (there are a ton of them) and Aristotle. Until finally I found Ayn Rand and studied objectivism (not reading Atlas Shrugged or those types of books, but actual philosophy). Everything clicked and I was able to regain my self-esteem and fix all of my depression and anxiety. It took 10 years for me. Good luck Jon.
I somehow read this as tips for dealing with mayonnaise
Woah man, ya gotta learn how to crawl before you can learn how to run.
FINALLY, a topic I can relate to!
That means you like Mayo and may be you were hungry at that time, that is why your mind suggested it.
Iiiiis Boris!
53:27 "People will tell you they don't want to have negative experiences - most people will tel you they want to be happy. But what I saw very clearly happening was a part of my mind whose job was specifically to make me more angry, reach out and say 'this thing here! this thing here! be mad about this!'"
54:07 "but I want to be happy! So if I want to be happy, then why was I creating this problem? ...Why was I so willing to step into it and propagate it?"
This haunts me every day.
Edit: Haunts me less now. It seems as long as you try, over time, the brain will rewire and normalize itself. Human brains are hard to understand.
Edit June 2024: Barely haunts me. Easy to deal with. Just passing moments. I suspect it will become *even* easier with time.
Edit September 2024: why was I ever haunted by it?
Great to know. What i've also found helpful is that during bad emotional states, changing breathing patterns breaks the state. Example, if you are angry, try breathing slowly and deep.
I've tried a lot of similar things which i listened from Osho. The guy is magic.
For example, if you watch/observe the middle point(from tip till throat ending) on tongue, thoughts disappear instantly, its crazy how much we don't know.
Thank you. I must've picked up some of these techniques subconsciously, but never "formally" heard them spoken by someone who can articulate them as words and understands a deeper philosophy behind them.
Thank you Jon. I'm about 3 weeks from my game coming out so this is just what I needed. Your techniques reminded me of Ram Dass.
The complex built ontop of small hunger pangs Jonathan mentioned, mirrored the structure of programming. Is that what programming is? Building elaborate (computer) logic on top of tiny sensations?
Sensations can't really be neutral... feelings lead to life or death eventually, pain means something!
the problem with depression is that to try a technique you need motivation in the first place. severe chronic depression makes that extremely difficult. if i had the motivation to try the technique then i am already motivated. sometimes its hard to do the most basic, simple tasks
@hoezay bib its a horrible place, and everyone else thinks you're just lazy or something. and then you start to agree with them.... it sucks
@@bonjonbovine2961 I think a key disclaimer for this video should be that techniques like these don't help much if you only attempt to practice them when you're already in a negative headspace. If you suffer from chronic depression, it can be difficult to develop these habits to begin with and many people need therapy and sometimes medication to get to a point of stability from which you can work on developing habits from exercises like the ones Jon recommends.
In contrast to all of this, John Carmack (creator of Doom and Quake's engines) says he just feels happy an productive ALL of the time)
You mean John, "Supergenius Alien-In-Person-Suit, Time Traveling Space Wizard, Interdimensional Overgenius, Actual Rocket Scientist, Experimental Artificial Intelligence Gone Rogue, Benevolent Hyperintelligent Architect Of The Post-Singularity Simulation We All Live In, Sentient Galaxy-Brain Meme, Clearly Not A Net Negative On The Show, Juvenile Delinquent, Psychic Supersoldier Prototype, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Practitioner, Energy-Based Fourth-Dimensional Being, Earth-Stranded Nihilanth, Part-Time Astrophysicist, Our Only Insurance Against An Overwhelming Alien Incursion, Death-Frightening Scion Capable Of Seeing Through The Illusionary World Before Our Eyes, Etherspawn Tech-Cipher, Perfected Human Analogue, Jace Hall Asphyxiator, Ageless Organism With A Real Name Unpronounceable By The Human Tongue, Engineering Elemental, Luddite Nemesis, Texas-Based Technocryptid, Resident Of The Binding In-Between Space That Holds Reality Together, Id Software Co-Founder, Keeper Of The Forbidden Code, Master Of The Anti-Life Equation, Programming Overlord, Nigh-Invulnerable Nexus-7 Prototype, Grotesque Macrocephalytic Psychic Soldier, Monolith Constructor, Metaverse Destroyer, Corporeal Being By Choice, Time-Displaced Neural-Net Processor, Whatever The Top Military Scientists In The 1960s Passed Off As Human Tissue, Host Organism For The Consciousness Of An Ageless Space Turtle, Person Who Could Easily Understand Explain And Probably Recreate F.E.A.R.'s A.I. In An Afternoon With A Pizza And A Two-Liter Of Diet Coke, Intangible Etherspawn, Former Metaverse Voice Of Reason, Anthropomorphized Essence Of Technological Innovation" Carmack?
Yeah, that dude is not of this world.
@@discoRyne😂 Too bad the next best thing is coping with whatever Marcus, one who ruled Rome and managed to peacefully retire, Aurelius came up with
Some people are like that. I personally don’t really get depressed (not yet at least). I just kind of accept whatever happens in life
@@ZombieLincoln666 In that case it's curious that you find motivation to do stuff since minimizing pain is probably like half of it, the other being maximizing pleasure.
@@unaliveeveryonenow I struggle with motivation but I find, unfortunately, that social status and self-respect are motivators
I also think taking steps to observe yourself and adjust your attitude are very important skills to managing stress and sadness and anger. One of the better habits I picked up was journaling, and I have done that to good success for a year now. But I needed a fountain pen so I could write lightly with a calm grip, or literally my hand getting sore would start making me upset after half a page lol. I will try some things mentioned in this video, thanks for doing it.
Thank you very much Jonathan. It seems to be just as you say. It doesn't seem so hard after watching the video, and I actually feel better after practicing some of the exercises you proposed here.
I really appreciate you took the time to make this video. I actually admire you as a game developer and wouldn't probably have watched something like this if it wasn't for that. I guess I'm glad that you decided to make this even if it isn't strictly related to video games.
You are an incredible human being.
Thanks again!
An intelligent man right here.
Very, very good discussion Jonathan, thanks for sharing this. I love books that try to teach us techniques to live better. They're commonly called self-help, but that became an underappreciated term, so I prefer personal development, or simply living better. There's this book called "Designing your Life", by two former Apple engineers. This idea of DESIGNING your life is very powerful. Most people simply don't. They go through the motions, they try to catch the "good" opportunities in the moment, but they simply don't define how they want to live for the next year or decade. I many times suffer from lack of motivation, even if I know with a good degree of certainty how I want to live. But even in these moments, knowing my life design helps me a lot.
I like the way you present this, very practical and unassuming, genuinely helpful.
I practiced few of these methods before and they have been effective to me at times, although I didn't explore it much. Your presentation helps me bring new light into it and consciously seek applying them now. Thanks!
I observed I can't really observe my thoughts. They can be either A: observed, in which case they completely cease, or B: unobserved, in which case I'm the thinker of thoughts, not the observer.
Two thoughts: 1) Your observations on examining an experience or sensation from a distance are exactly why I find (medical, legal) marijuana useful as a pain treatment - it doesnt numb the pain, I still know something bad is going on and not to make it worse. But it does seem to make it further away and allow me to more easily make a decision about how I want to deal with it. It lets you break that cycle of reaction.
2) If the techniques you describe do *not* work at all for getting depression or other emotions under control, that is a good way to distinguish clinical depression for which you absolutely should seek professional medical help.
3) (off-by one error :) Thanks for this talk, it was very useful.
I knew there's something like that from you.
Appreciate your work on The Witness. I feel like it came out a perfect tool for waking the player.