Okay, maybe you can help me with something.

There's this pattern I've noticed — chiefly, though not exclusively, amongst us nerds — where, when something doesn't comport with our individual, personal experience, it's immediately judged not merely to be wrong, but obviously wrong, and fatally flawed.

It's like another, equally ugly face to the attitude, broadly held by the general population in the US, that "My opinion is just as valid as your facts", except it's "My expertise trumps [1] anyone else's equally valid, hard-earned, and applicable expertise!"

I really don't get it. And it's a thing I still, after years of work on, struggle with in myself.

Any thoughts on why we, a subset of the population that tends to be defined by priding itself on its intelligence and rationality, can be so egregiously head-up-its-own-ass like this?

[1] Word choice very deliberate.

> There's this pattern I've noticed — chiefly, though not exclusively, amongst us nerds — where, when something doesn't comport with our individual, personal experience, it's immediately judged not merely to be wrong, but obviously wrong, and fatally flawed.

I think the interesting point here isn't that it is obviously wrong but technically and factually wrong in a way that moves the subjective into the objective...but hey, I was already beaten about the head on HN over postmodernism this week...

> Any thoughts on why we, a subset of the population that tends to be defined by priding itself on its intelligence and rationality, can be so egregiously head-up-its-own-ass like this?

Hi, I think about this sort of thing often and have come to the personal conclusion that humans' chief vice is stubbornness. Please allow me to explain because the stubbornness is more of an effect than a cause.

Humans couple identity & belief very tightly. For example, people say things like "I am Republican", which doesn't imply that there is a subspecies of humans called Republican as an alien might think, but rather that they generally believe in the republican party's views. This is the start of it.

Somewhere along the line of growing up, identity becomes a very big deal and puberty hits you with "Shutup mom & dad, I believe in [this] stuff cause that's who I am!" This is actually rather healthy as the teenager is becoming autonomous and self-reliant, but is accompanied by the damaging effect of My Beliefs = Who I am. For a teenager that does not know not to believe in self-debilitating thoughts, they can quickly wind up on the road down to depression.

Furthermore in this world, specialness is generally coveted. A lot of the nerds around here might know Enders Game in which a kid kills a civilization that is arguably more peaceful than our own -- the society worked like a bee hive and did not understand personal dogmas or behavior that centered around the individual. While it's scary to imagine a queen bee ruling over all of us, there's still something to be said about if we focused on working together.

However, that's not this world so what you end up with is people equating their specialness (and therefore value, and therefore self-value, and therefore self-esteem) with their identity, which is defined by their beliefs & physical appearance. If they only could stop caring so much about special, it wouldn't matter if you were right or wrong because you would be on a natural hunt for goodness and knowledge in all its forms. Yet, from the competition to be special comes this behavior.

It's not that people want to be stubborn, but in linking their identity with their belief & thought, they now feel literally attacked if they are wrong. Nerds, who many already suffer with self-esteem issues, thus feel good to be a mental champion because it reinvigorates their self-esteem.

For some of us, we hold our identity in spirit and therefore feel detached from the human existence and do not let it bind us in this manner. I'm not perfect and saying everyone should follow me, but generally speaking, I do believe if people truly evaluated where they get their feelings of self-esteem from, they might be a little startled to see how much of it revolves around petty things like the need to be right.

Interesting and well formulated words that are worth being said. But you are addressing (western?) humanity in general, and not the nerd group GP was wondering about. Do you see an emprical link between nerds and stubborness as GP does? If so, I would be interested in your thoughts.

Do you think nerds is a special subset of humans? ;)

Believe me, it's practically the same conversations on HN as a bunch of guys at the bar arguing over who the best player is in the NFL.

Nerds are generally proud of their mental dexterity and cunningness, so this is what they feel defines them. In regular life, they generally are the smartest in a room, so overtime they learn to teach themselves: well hey, I might not be the coolest or X, but everyone knows I'm really smart so I'm gonna be that. They learn how to be the "alpha intelligence" so to speak, and quickly dismiss foolish ideas. This ensures their status as alpha and also increases their pride. How could you believe that?! they think to themselves and chuckle with a hint (or more) of schadenfreude.

Now they bring all this behavior to HN, but HN has some pretty smart people so they are a bit more tame. However, you'll always see in "New Product Released" something along these lines: "Well sure, it's great, but X, Y, Z." This is them just doing what they know how to do best -- poke holes. Also, this is HN and not only is it nerds, but hackers. Hackers are fully trained and employed at being master logicians. We are paid at work to poke holes. After all, it's a real waste of time to code it X way when you shoulda just had the foresight to know Y was going to be a problem!

To try and roughly summarize these rough thoughts:

-- Nerds link their intelligence to their identity more strongly than others

-- Nerds enjoy this kind of conversation because it's stimulating. It's the thrill of the battle especially when one wins it.

-- Nerds might spend too much time in this mode of conversation and just learn to talk that way. Some are really not trying to be jerks at all, but just feel that's the way you talk.

That's a good explanation, especially wrt intelligence being linked to identity. When I was growing up, I was used to being the smartest person in the room, but there was no "thrill of the battle" for me - it just kinda sucked. I grew up able to put that aside, cover it up really well, because nobody likes a know-it-all (like nefitty said in the other comment.) Now that I'm nominally grown, and probably well-adjusted, it's awesome to see people's faces when I break out with brains blazing every once in a while.

Wow, what a great observation. I have this weird anxiety about posting comments on HN that I don't feel anywhere else on the internet. The flip side, though, is when people upvote my comments the feeling of reward is significantly more satisfying. It's like, "These other smart people valued my contribution, yay!" When I get down voted I feel like a real heel. On disqus I've sometimes felt so dominant in threads that it was just disheartening.

This is in contrast to IRL social life, where I dislike the feeling of being seen as a know-it-all, so I pursue laughs much more intently. It's the immediate feedback during interactions that I love/crave.

Author of the app here. I use this daily, mostly for journalling. I like to think of it as a way to shut up the inner editor, and separate writing and editing into two different steps (as they should be) - and it works amazingly well for that.

Love the idea of this app! I agree there is a lot of value in the meditation behind just writing and leaving some of the critical thinking/content editing for later. One thought though: Perhaps there could be an option to include a spellcheck/type-o error counter to encourage more thoughtful and deliberate writing, especially with auto-correct taking over everywhere. I find it quite easy to continue moving my fingers mindlessly, but if this tool could be used as a way to be even just a little more careful about which keys your fingers are hitting it's applications could go a long way.

Question: What are some resources for beginning journaling. I've wanted to start, but I'm blocked at, "Hmmm... these are my thoughts and feelings. Do I really want to set them free?"

Neat app, btw.

Playing with some of the methodologies like GTD and others is a good way to get started. A lot of it just has to do with getting thoughts out of your head and into either a text file or physical media. Personally I use a mix, I use digital for things that are nicer to cut and paste, and a journal that I date every page with.

I found the biggest improvement is having separate journals for 'projects' and 'day-to-day' as the writing for both is entirely different. A project in this case is something that doesn't have a distinct end. Watch and take notes on a youtube video? That goes in a day journal. Watch a series of videos on youtube that is going to take you a couple days? That goes in a project journal.

Trying to merge everything into one is what killed me.

I keep a developer journal. But that one is very technical. I've not yet been able to jump to non-technical journaling.

Ve found that I'm more likely to journal if I don't feel like I'm being heard by my friends and family. Example, SO and I stopped communicating as well for a bit and I journalled every night. Maybe you don't need your thoughts and feelings to be free because they already are set free.

Excellent point! I tell my wife most of what I'm thinking, so maybe that's my hangup.

Have you read 'the Artists Way' (Julia Cameron)?

For me, it wasn't about setting thoughts & feelings free, it was about getting clarity around them.

A good example - Donald Trump. Do I like him? (No! He's racist!) What about him do I respect? Are there better options? etc.

Give it a try!

No, I haven't. I'll try and pick up a copy.

As I said in my main comment, I love this app. I'll be using this quite often from now. A suggestion would be to not consider backspace/delete/arrow keys as typing something? Because I feel that I spend lot of time hitting backspace to correct thing which interrupts the flow.

Thank you for this.

Edit: My bad. It does not consider deleting characters as typing. Apparently, I wasn't hitting backspace for that long. Funny how it feels like 5 secs is like 2 seconds when you are set time constraints.

Have you thought about collecting basic metrics, such as characters, words and time limit? At a win/fail point, grab those numbers along with the win/fail outcome, then plot them and see if anything interesting pops out.

Maybe focus it as a journaling tool then? Writing app may be a bit too broad for other writing styles.

My wife is a professional violinist. If you've seen a recent Australian movie or watched commercial news, you most likely have heard her play.

The way she practices, the way she "gets in the flow" is VASTLY different to a new pupil.

Perhaps if you have been doing (anything!) for 25 years, comparing yourself (and the steps you take) to get into the right head space is different.

That being said, if you've been doing this for 25 years - how do you get in the flow? What techniques do you use? If this doesn't work, what does?

Help us / help me! Seriously, I'd like to know.

See [John Cleese's lecture on creativity](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qby0ed4aVpo) for one approach. It has wonderful insights.

A [transcript](http://genius.com/John-cleese-lecture-on-creativity-annotate...) is also available.

First: My thoughts on what it takes people (overall) to get into flow are not wholly from my own experience. I have regular conversations with other writers (of all genres) on what helps them focus. Not all of the answers are the same... but I've never heard someone say that a ticking clock was helpful.

(Other than, "I need a deadline, because I start writing the night before it's due," which is different.)

There are books about the topic, including <a href="http://amzn.to/1T4Nf4H">Finding Flow: The Psychology of Engagement with Everyday Life</a>. It's years since I read it, but the overall discovery is that for _most_ creative people, the way to get into flow is to do something active that you can do on automatic, which somehow gets the hindbrain in motion. That's why so many people "get their best ideas" while they are taking a walk or in the shower. You can let your mind drift... effectively.

What I've learned from conversations with everyone from Hugo award-winners to household-name tech journalists to famous software developers is not that everyone has the same way of getting into flow. It's that every one has noticed what it takes for _him_ to get into flow. To look back at the commonalities of, "When did you figure that out?" and to recognize that process for oneself.

For instance, 30 years ago (when I was still programming professionally) I was listening to a public radio station interview in which the interviewee explained how she worked with people to "reach their inner child." (That meme dates it, doesn't it?) I snorted in derision, but it was a long car drive so I listened to the interview anyway. During which the psychologist explained that she got adults to lie down on the floor, on their tummies, with a pad of paper and crayons... and discovered that _their handwriting changed_ when they did that. And they came up with more creative ideas.

--Whereupon I practically dragged the car over to the side of the road, because I realized that whenever I was stumped, I'd lie down on the living room floor with a pad of paper, and I'd write in just the same way as a 3-year-old with a coloring book.

So next time I was frustrated with what I was working on, I _deliberately_ lay down in that way... and 20 minutes later I had a solution. Eventually I just started an important project by going into that coloring-book mode, and I found that by the time I was physically uncomfortable I had the entire thing scoped out in my head.

It DOES change, however. Originally I found that I wrote best when my first draft was longhand; then I found I could kind of put myself into the same head space. I used to write in silence; then I discovered that (for reasons I cannot fathom) I can get into flow by playing old Cat Stevens albums. But for me... the key is paying attention to what works, and repeating that. I also recognize that I write best at some times of day; please don't ever ask me to get fired-up before 10am, though I'm happy to write email or other general conversation at 7a.

Obviously, "your mileage may vary," and this does not necessarily match the other writers I know. A few (particularly fiction authors) need to completely turn off all distractions. One award-winner has a PC that has NO Internet access on it at all, in a separate room, which is where she does her writing.

Dude, I get it's not your gig but you don't need to be so incredulous like it's a stupid idea. A lot of people think free writing has a lot of value in a number of settings.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_writing

https://www.google.com/search?q=free+writing

Yeah I think the use-case here is more the writing that you have to do, but don't want to do. For me, I have to write up some method sections for a paper. Boring, but easy. This 'app' is nice for that; you don't want to lose progress so you just crank something out as fast as possible and fix it later. You're right though, it's probably not for inspired writing...

I guess the ideas is that the worry will go away once you learn that you need to just keep typing.

I used 750words.com for a year (and hit a 500 streak) and can say that the biggest problem was the ease with which I could switch tabs and start browsing e.g. hacker news. This seems like an interesting stab at a technical mind-hacking "solution".

Would a better variant be to kill the buffer if you actually moved focus from the text area? That way you can pause and think without losing flow, but there's still the threat that if you choose to distract yourself, there are consequences.

The 5 second thing can just halt the timer. So you have to actually spend 5 minutes writing, more or less.

An alternate version would only run the clock while keystrokes are being input. Sort of like watching a professional sports game. The time on the clock doesn't actually reflect the time spent on task (though the setup of this one does correlate, save for the 5 second timer leeway). It probably takes quite a bit more 'clock time' to actually walk away with five minutes of 'writing time' so to speak.

I think you're assuming someone who procrastinates by doing other things on their computer. People also procrastinate by getting up and doing something else. Part of the point is to keep you in your seat, rather than letting you, say, get a reference book to "just look up one detail" and end up reading it for hours.

What happens if a popup steals focus? Google hangouts steals focus all the time.

Completely agreed. I think committing to doing X words a day is a much better system than this. Sometimes you need to pause and mull something over, which is not necessarily the same as going into "editing mode" that I think this is supposed to curtail. I think a similar window that showed just showed # of words and % toward daily goal would be better, at least for me.

I thought it was only going to track time you actually spent typing- so 5 minutes of actual words written. You can break all you want, but when you come back you see that you only have actually typed 3 minutes worth today.