Progress and Flexibility

Nothing is permanent – the only permanent truth. As all truths go, it goes both ways; hurts if you don’t have a grip on it, comforting if you’re keeping your life aligned. As humans, we are inherently made to hope for some sort of permanence- something to anchor us down in this crazy, dynamic world. A vast portion of humanity’s progress is a result of our fickle attempt at that very task.

There is only permanence in movement. Humans have never been able to even remotely achieve permanence in anything, save for our efforts to do so. With all its ups and downs, the macroscopic direction of homo sapiens has always been towards the better. And this is also what I use as the anchor of my life: that even when all else fails, I am a better man today than yesterday. Permanence in movement.

In learning, substantial time exists between beginning and feeling assured in one’s progress and method. Getting started is a massive challenge in itself- motivation does not come cheap.

Dr. Andrew Huberman, a neuroscientist and professor at Stanford, provides insight into this problem of motivation and persistence. He explains that the average age of 25, the human brain becomes extremely resistant to change. Neuroplasticity begins to give way to rigidity: the brain isn’t as easily stimulated as your pre-25 years.

If you manage to wrestle past the phase of motivation, you face something worse: doubt.

Wrestling with new information is often accompanied by frustration. The self-doubt phase is where many give up, myself included. We often take these feelings of doubt as signs of something being wrong. The pessimist in us raise their heads, asking if there’s any point in continuing further, and that question starts to sound very compelling to us. We are frustrated, we’re draining our energy and time, and yet not seeming to get anywhere- is this really worth it? This is where my mind was at during the previous three rounds.

Dr. Huberman proposes a different approach to these negative emotions: they are signs of the right path. We feel increasingly frustrated because the act of learning clashes with the brain’s plastic nature. Force ourselves to sit down and stare at whatever it is we’re supposed to study for a long enough time, and the brain starts freaking out. The pain center fires up- learning can be, quite literally, a pain. The brain starts releasing cortisol, the primary stress hormone, and will do so until you stop your learning. Cortisol levels begin to stack up, and once above a certain amount, the brain triggers a safety feature: autopilot takes over, disabling our control over our own body and mind. We’ve all had times where we just couldn’t find the urge to sit down and do the work, no matter how important it is.

Quite the grim picture here, huh? Motivation is scarce, and stress is imminent…

This doesn’t mean learning is impossible. The brain needs to be stimulated to learn just as a car’s engine needs a kickstart to get moving . The car doesn’t care what gas station its fuel is from; similarly, the brain treats all stimulation as equal. A positive, can-do attitude is just as stimulating as an approaching deadline. In other words, anything can be a stimulant.

The core strategy of Dr. Huberman’s approach is in the perception of stress. Once we make that positive connection with stress- that we’re on our way to internalizing new stuff- we can relate back to this connection whenever we feel that sense of doubt; whenever “I’m feeling stressed out and frustrated” is consciously connected back to “must mean that I’m doing something right,” our brain registers as positive source of stimulation.

Stimulation invokes the release of dopamines- which, of its many functions, has the effect of immediately lowering the brain’s cortisol- hormones released whenever the brain is in state of stress-levels to a manageable level. We can use the fact that we’re stressed to combat stress- is this not revolutionary? Find a way to turn the negative around, use it as fuel to move a little further. Motivation is not far; it’s all in your head- hippie talk, now scientifically proven.

We sometimes suck, we face stressful situations, we sometimes feel humiliated by our own mistakes. And yet, we march on, finding silver linings and meaning along the way to keep us going.

Life is a trick question. It’s not what about how high you go; that’s not the point. It’s about discovering your character, your identity, your agenda—and being true to it. I guess that wraps up the lesson of this interview.