Lost in Oblivion

Lately, I've been having a crazy amount of realizations. It's like every 5 seconds, I'm connecting new information in my head and making sense of all of it. How did I not see all of this before??

However, I realized that this cognizance stemmed from one point. And as I traced my thinking back further, I realized exactly how I discovered this one point and this abundance of new information.

The simple metaphor I will use for this 'excavation,' because that's really what it is. For the sake of this metaphor and at the risk of sounding nerdish, I am going to use Minecraft in order to portray my point. ([b]if this is tl;dr, skip down to the bottom[/b]; however, I hope you read this as so to understand the metaphor better)

There was a time when I played Minecraft and I was walking through a dungeon exploring. For the most part in a dungeon, you see a lot of stone. That's what makes the dungeon's shape: stone. Occasionally, you'll see little anomalies like a block of coal or iron. If you're playing, you'll probably compulsively dig it out, but you may not always notice them as they're not like little deposits in the middle of a room.

I noticed when I was wandering that there was some coal on the ground off to the side. I went over and started digging it out. There was quite a bit of coal, so I kept digging deeper. At the bottom, at several blocks' height and underneath all that damn coal, was a diamond deposit with 7 diamonds (diamonds are rather rare in the game). I was mildly excited, cause it was just a game, but in real life, it's different. :tongue:

Let's compare that to the workings of the mind. In my mind, I am wandering a dungeon. I detect an anomaly and I dig into it. Without knowing, I have found a diamond deposit - something I [i]never[/i] would have guessed was there.

This is what I'm trying to encourage. Find anomalies and excavate them, because you don't know what you will find. If you look at a piece of information, if there's something that strikes you as anomalous, look into it. Why is it anomalous? What makes it anomalous? Seek to understand the anomaly, to extract all information from it. And if you dig without finding anything, no harm done in it! (unless you dig straight down and fall into lava. :laughing:)

There is, thereafter, another way to excavate the mind that can be just as unveiling. Let's go back to the diamond experience. Once I finished and saw that there wasn't any more diamonds to dig out, I thought, "well, [i]what if[/i] there's more underneath?" So I dug a bit deeper. I didn't find anything - but this is the method I'm encouraging. In the game, I have dug out dirt deeper down in the cave to find that it led to a completely different area of the dungeon. From there, I found more things to excavate.

At the same time, there have been times where I have dug out holes in dirt to find out it goes absolutely nowhere. Sometimes, in those scenarios, I try digging out a hole in the wall randomly to see if I will find anything. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't.

[b][u]Simple version[/u][/b]

This is how I think information should be approached - as a combination of these two excavation methods. Let me relate this to cognitive functions:
1. Ni/Se - seek anomalies and search them, dig as deep as possible
2. Ne/Si - explore randomly, but know when to stop - if no anomalies are found, move on

Where you start depends on what you're more comfortable with. You should be moving in a circular motion with these functions - so if you start with combo 1, use combo 2, and afterwards, back to combo one. I find it so important, that [u]if you find no anomalies, do not dig past for too long[/u]. You'll waste a lot of time digging without finding anything new but a bunch of stone.
- If I stumble upon something in my mind, and I do not detect "potential" in it (it's not very comfortable to think about), I just leave it alone. If I find "potential" in it (I have relative ease in thinking about it), I look into it more.
- I'll try exploring different areas of my mind or information. I throw out a crazy idea related to what I'm thinking about and see how I can relate the idea to it. Normally, I see blue and red and see how they relate, how they mix, etc.; but if I throw green in their I've added a whole new plethora of information to work with.

For me, attempting to make use of every single perceiving function allows me to explore the deepest depths of my mind. In turn, I have discovered deposits of valuable ore that I would have never have seen by simple observation.

It's like I've become like a plant. Give me sunlight and I will be able to feed myself. :tongue: