Yakir's Blog

Rough Polish Ideas Daily

Between Reaction and Response

In our most agitated moments, a curious possibility exists. The anger coursing through your nervous system, that seemingly solid and all-consuming force, is merely energy in motion, waiting to be recognized for what it truly is.

Most of us live perpetually caught by the next thought. We wake and immediately become entangled in mental chatter that continues uninterrupted until sleep. This isn’t merely distraction; it’s a fundamental misunderstanding of our relationship with consciousness. When a thought about your frustrating colleague appears, it doesn’t simply arise in awareness. It seems to become you. The thought approaches from behind, assumes your identity, and suddenly you are the frustration, the impatience, the reaction.

The revolutionary insight meditation offers isn’t some exotic spiritual achievement but something far simpler: thoughts are appearances in consciousness with no more inherent reality than clouds passing through the sky. When you feel anger rising, the conventional approach is to either suppress it or justify it with more thinking. Meditation suggests a third path: feel it completely. Become incandescent with it. Notice it diffuse throughout your body. And simultaneously, witness the thoughts about anger as separate phenomena, “He always does this,” “I can’t believe she said that,” arising and passing like weather.

What happens next feels almost miraculous. The moment you break identification with the narrative while fully experiencing the raw sensations, anger begins dissolving on its own. Not because you’ve pushed it away, but because you’ve finally allowed it to be felt so completely that its energetic pattern can complete itself. The half-life of emotion without the amplifying loop of thought turns out to be remarkably brief. Often it’s just seconds rather than the hours or days or more that we typically endure.

Can you sense, right now, the difference between the thoughts about what you’re reading and the awareness in which both these words and your reactions to them are appearing? This subtle shift in perspective is more than merely conceptual. It is the practical freedom that transforms your relationship with every experience that follows.

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Artificially Produced Natural Intelligence

In the silent hum of every neural network, a peculiar kind of ‘understanding’ emerges. In AI, it’s not the kind of understanding you or I might recognize. There’s no self-awareness, no whisper of why. But still, these transformers process, predict, and produce results that feel eerily human. What does that say about how we think?

Transformers, those towering marvels of machine learning (the T in GPT), teach us that cognition (understanding, pattern recognition, and prediction) can be stripped down to a series of computations. They excel at identifying patterns in data, much like how we sift through the chaos of daily life to make sense of it. Their “attention” mechanism prioritizes certain inputs over others, mirroring how our brains filter the world around us. [Search for a paper titled “Attention is All You Need”]

Here’s where this gets interesting: Transformers don’t need our human experience of consciousness to function. They don’t wonder, “Why am I doing this?” or feel the weight of their decisions. They simply process and respond. This suggests that understanding might not require the subjective layers of experience we associate with human thought. It’s a humbling reminder that our cognition, while infinitely richer, shares some fundamental mechanics with these digital minds. Is our ‘human experience’ sort of just the processing of our loss function? It’s a thinker. (Buh ddum tss!)

Often enough, I’ve caught myself overthinking a decision, lost in the labyrinth of “what ifs” and “why nots” and the emotions these narratives invoke. That’s where transformers offer a lesson: sometimes, the answer lies in the data, not the drama. By focusing on patterns and context, rather than getting caught in the swirl of emotions, we might make clearer, more effective choices. It feels weird, almost counterintuitive, to think this way… but maybe that’s the point. Is this what Spock was taught in school?

What’s one decision you’re overthinking right now? Can you strip it down to the essential patterns and data points, like transformer technology would? Could you even ask AI directly for help with this analysis?

Naturally Asymmetrical Decision-Making

The neurological response to losing $10 differs quantifiably from gaining $10. This is not by subjective perception, but by measurable brain activity. Brain scans show that anticipating a loss activates our emotional centers about 2.5 times more intensely than anticipating an equivalent gain. This is beyond how we feel. It’s how our brains are built.

Think of your decision-making brain as a scale with uneven arms. The loss side is significantly longer, creating a structural imbalance that tips your choices regardless of the actual weights involved. This tilted scale explains why the fear of losing a client often drives more urgent action than the possibility of gaining a new one of equal value. When the scale tips toward loss, our normally careful analysis gets overridden by emotional circuits designed for survival, not rational calculation.

This imbalance creates predictable patterns in how we approach risk. When protecting what we have, we become extraordinarily cautious, like someone carrying a full cup of coffee across a crowded room. But when trying to recover a loss, that same person suddenly sprints, sloshing coffee everywhere, in a desperate attempt to make up lost ground. Organizations follow this same pattern without realizing it, making cautious moves during growth but surprisingly risky ones when facing decline.

To recalibrate your tilted scale, try the “third-person reframe”: When making your next significant decision, write down your options as if advising someone else. Use their name and describe their situation objectively. Notice how your risk assessment immediately becomes more balanced when you step outside your own loss-aversion circuitry. What decision are you currently viewing through the distorted lens of potential loss? Try this reframing technique today and notice how your perception of the same options shifts.

Your Expertise Can Blind You

If you’re reading this, you’ve probably had that experience of carefully explaining something you know deeply, only to be met with blank stares. There’s that moment of confusion. How could something so obvious to you be so opaque to others?

This disconnect isn’t about intelligence or attention, but rather a cognitive blind spot we all develop. Let’s call it the curse of knowledge. Once we thoroughly understand something, our brains literally cannot simulate what it’s like not to know it. The neural pathways that formed during our learning process become so efficient that we can no longer access the memory of confusion, uncertainty, and discovery that marked our own journey from ignorance to understanding.

This cognitive blindness creates a fascinating paradox: the deeper your expertise grows in any domain, the worse you often become at communicating that expertise to newcomers. The language, concepts, and connections that feel elementary to you exist in a different cognitive universe for your listener. What you consider “basic terminology” might be completely foreign territory for them. The steps you skip as “obviously implied” represent critical missing links in their understanding.

What domain knowledge do you possess that others find difficult to grasp? Try this exercise: identify three concepts you consider “fundamentally obvious” in your field and force yourself to explain them as if to someone who has absolutely no background knowledge. Notice where you want to use shorthand or specialized vocabulary, where you unconsciously make conceptual leaps. These moments of impatience reveal exactly where your expertise has constructed a communication barrier that only deliberate awareness can dismantle.

The World Doesn’t Run on Single Threads

When something fails, we instinctively search for “the reason.” When success arrives, we’re equally quick to identify “the key factor” that made everything work. This mental shorthand feels satisfying because it creates a tidy narrative that our pattern-seeking brains crave.

But reality refuses to cooperate with our desire for simplicity. The single cause fallacy, our tendency to attribute complex outcomes to one dominant factor, blinds us to the intricate web of influences that actually shape results. In business especially, this fallacy leads to dangerous oversimplifications: “Our campaign succeeded because of the creative,” or “We lost the client because our price point was too high.” These explanations feel right precisely because they’re simple, not because they’re accurate.

Think of any significant outcome as a garden rather than a single plant. Success doesn’t grow from one perfect seed but emerges from the interplay between soil quality, watering schedule, sunlight exposure, pest management, and countless environmental factors working in harmony. When we fixate on a single cause, we’re essentially staring at just the flowers while ignoring the complex ecosystem that produced them.

What systems are you currently attributing to a single cause? Can you identify three contributing factors you might be overlooking? The next time you’re tempted to explain an outcome with a single-factor analysis, pause and consider what other elements might be quietly working beneath the surface.

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We Live In What We Think

In the quiet rooms of your mind, an architect works tirelessly.

This architect doesn’t build with concrete and steel, but with something far more fundamental: thoughts. Each thought becomes a foundation, upon which emotions rise like walls, behaviors form the roof, and experiences become the rooms we inhabit.

Consider the blueprint: A simple thought, perhaps “I don’t belong here,” lays a foundation. Almost immediately, emotions rise from this foundation, anxiety, unease, a subtle contraction in your chest. These emotions shape behaviors as naturally as walls direct movement, your voice softens, your posture changes, you find reasons to exit early. And within these structures, you live experiences that feel solid and real: another uncomfortable gathering, another confirmation of your separateness.

The most fascinating aspect of this architecture is its invisibility. We walk through these mental structures daily, feeling their effects without seeing their design. We experience the low ceilings of limitation without noticing who placed them there.

I’ve wandered through many such structures in my own mind. For years, I lived in rooms built on thoughts of inadequacy, never questioning why the ceilings always felt so low, why the windows offered such limited views. The architecture seemed permanent, immutable… until I glimpsed the blueprint.

What liberates us is the revelation that we are both the architect and the inhabitant. The thoughts we lay as foundations aren’t inevitable, they’re choices, often made unconsciously but choices nonetheless. Change the foundation, and the entire structure shifts. A thought like “I’m still learning how to connect here” creates different emotional contours, different behavioral pathways, and ultimately, different rooms to live in.

What structures are you inhabiting today? Can you sense their foundations beneath your feet? The architect awaits your instructions.

Beyond the Garden Walls

Every thought you have about yourself or others grows in one of two gardens.

The Walled Garden

Within high stone walls sits an ancient garden with rigid hedges trimmed to perfect angles and plants sorted by strict categories. The gardener here carries only shears and a measuring stick, ruthlessly cutting back anything that grows “incorrectly.” Plants either thrive exactly as expected or are removed entirely.

In this garden, thoughts can become unalterable verdicts: “This is just how I do things.” “I never get things right.” “They’re doing it wrong.” The measuring stick determines worth, and the shears enforce conformity.

The Open Garden

Just beyond those walls sprawls a different garden with gentle paths winding through diverse landscapes. Here, the gardener carries a watering can and a magnifying glass, studying how each plant responds to different conditions. Some plants that struggle in shade flourish when moved to sunlight.

In this garden, thoughts become useful observations: “This approach works better in these conditions.” “I notice a pattern worth exploring.” “They see things from a different perspective.” The magnifying glass reveals complexity, and the watering can nurtures understanding.

The Complete Landscape

Both gardens exist within you. Both have purpose. The walled garden provides structure and clear boundaries. The open garden allows for growth and adaptation.

You forget that you have access to both gardens.

When forming thoughts about yourself or others, notice which garden you’re standing in. Are you measuring against rigid standards or observing with genuine curiosity? Are you cutting away or cultivating understanding?

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