The Paradox in Self-Improvement
I think it’s fair for us all to say that we like the concept of “self-improvement”.
We would all have traits that we wish we didn’t have or things that we would like to be better at. I think that this is quite fair too, it’s natural to be dissatisfied with the present; it’s how we improve and prepare for future uncertainties.
Now, whenever I talk about this on my way to lunch with my friend, he would say “You really shouldn’t think like that. It’s good to do it occasionally, but all this negativity can exhaust you. You’ve got to learn to take breaks occasionally, and appreciate yourself for who you are and what you have achieved already.”
Yeah, I know I should.
But for anyone who has struggled with such a curse of self-improvement, no switch pauses one’s mental activities. I think the best way to describe it would be as such: my stream of consciousness would rapidly form connections between life events, checking whether I made the appropriate decisions in the past, to support the future that I envision.
If I think, for even just a moment, that I didn’t make the best choices, my mind could then jump to evaluate possible solutions to that issue. The brain becomes oddly convinced that those decisions were absolute mistakes, and of course, we should never repeat our mistakes. It appears that our minds are firm believers in the old saying “Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me”.
It’s only so unfortunate that this rational evaluation eventually leaks into the emotional side of things, where sharp and critical thoughts dissipate into foggy anxiety and stress and become lost to the pumping of the heart. If we were to only separate our emotions from rationality, we would be able to efficiently improve ourselves, right?
Maybe we can detach our emotional side of the brain with the rational side of the brain to achieve this. Neuroscience shows that cognition and emotions come from distinct regions in our brain’s prefrontal cortex. Recent evidence shows that the A32 region of the prefrontal cortex may selectively modulate signals from its emotional and thinking sides, relaying signals to provide intercompartmental communication (Joyce et al., 2020).
It does seem like the mad scientist’s utopia to ultimately achieve this with neuroscience research.
Fortunately, we don’t live in a sci-fi utopia. The A32 region has been implied to maintain our emotional equilibrium, and its activity is disrupted in depression (Joyce et al., 2020). Excitingly, novel anti-depressants may work with this region. A better understanding of the A32 region could elevate drug efficacy and point out other drug targets.
There seems to be a biological dead-end to our quest for self-improvement.
…
Have you ever heard of a psychological phenomenon termed “Rumination”? It provides an excellent scientific description of our idea of self-improvement.
Rumination is an excessive and abnormal reflection on past choices or events (Sansone et al., 2012). This often leads to emotional distress and may worsen symptoms of anxiety and depression. Like our personal reflections, the scientific community describes rumination as a notably passive activity, although it can also be initiated through active contemplation (Sansone et al., 2012). Why do we have this trait? We may have evolved it to maximize brain utilization to improve survival prospects. The brain consumes such a significant amount of energy that it would be a waste to not keep it constantly running, and it can provide an evolutionary advantage in preparing for future events.
Self-improvement, when pursued relentlessly, leads to rumination.
But is rumination really so negative?
According to Nietzsche, when the brain is in conflict, it acts to also promote one’s enthusiasm for life. The brain can become conflicted when the mind is born in conflicting circumstances when it inherits values from different cultures, and from which greatness can be born. Caesar and Leonardo Da Vinci are people like this: they master the art of conflict that stimulates them, making them extraordinary.
Nietzsche is less sympathetic towards the negative products of these thoughts and their impacts on the individual. In other words, he is less sympathetic towards those who cannot control such mental infighting and rumination. He would say this to such an individual:
“His fundamental desire is that the war which is IN HIM should come to an end; happiness appears to him in the character of a soothing medicine and mode of thought (for instance, Epicurean or Christian); it is above all things the happiness of repose, of undisturbedness, of repletion, of final unity.” — Nietzsche
Not very supportive, to say the least.
Whether we should agree with Nietzsche, or with psychological research, I’m still uncertain. Admittedly, I’m still working my way through them.
But I think it’s beautiful to simply appreciate these ideas as they are.
Some give comfort, others improve themselves, but to me, they’re all ways that someone has lived their life.
It’s fun to use these ideas, ideas from these other lives of ours, to think about how we can live our lives too.
Reference list
Joyce, M.K.P., García-Cabezas, M.Á., John, Y.J. and Barbas, H. (2020). Serial Prefrontal Pathways Are Positioned to Balance Cognition and Emotion in Primates. The Journal of Neuroscience, 40(43), pp.8306–8328. doi:https://doi.org/10.1523/jneurosci.0860-20.2020.
Sansone, R.A. and Sansone, L.A. (2012). Rumination: relationships with physical health. Innovations in clinical neuroscience, [online] 9(2), pp.29–34. Available at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3312901/.
