Things that seem related

Table tennis

I sometimes play table tennis with a friend. There's a pattern which happens which goes like this.

I'm losing.

I then win a point, and then my mind says 'Yes, excellent, you can do it. You can come back from this, and this is the game you will finally win. You just need to win four more points to be even, which seems doable, and then just win another five points to win, which also seems doable. Yes'

Immediately afterwards I lose a point, and then my mind says 'No, it's gg. You'll need a miracle to win now, the gap is too big, it's over.

And then immediately afterwards I win a point and then my mind says 'Yes, you can actually do it though, it's not too late, just another four more like that and then...'

Binocular Rivalry

There's this thing where say you have some eyes, and then you present an image of say a house to one of the eyes, and an image of a face to another of the eyes (but like up real close so that the face-eye can't see the house and the house-eye can't see the face). What happens is that the person who owns the eyes sees like a face for a bit, and then they see a house for a bit, and then they go back to seeing a face for a bit and so on.

What doesn't happen is them seeing a face-house, or a house-face. No, they see either a face, or a house.

Self Transformation

There's this book 'Transforming Your Self: Becoming Who You Want to Be', and I read a chapter or so of it a while back.

According to me, the book's thing is that the source of everyone's woes is that they have unstable self-concepts. Like, people often have a concept of themselves as smart, and a concept of themselves as stupid, instead of having a concept of themselves as kinda-smart-and-sometimes-dumb.

Parable of the really chill guy

Once upon a time there was a Chinese farmer whose horse ran away. That evening, all of his neighbors came around to commiserate. They said, “We are so sorry to hear your horse has run away. This is most unfortunate.” The farmer said, “Maybe.” The next day the horse came back bringing seven wild horses with it, and in the evening everybody came back and said, “Oh, isn’t that lucky. What a great turn of events. You now have eight horses!” The farmer again said, “Maybe.”

The following day his son tried to break one of the horses, and while riding it, he was thrown and broke his leg. The neighbors then said, “Oh dear, that’s too bad,” and the farmer responded, “Maybe.” The next day the conscription officers came around to conscript people into the army, and they rejected his son because he had a broken leg. Again all the neighbors came around and said, “Isn’t that great!” Again, he said, “Maybe.”

(copied from here)