In Search of Secrets

A few weeks ago I was feeling pretty down. Now, there were definitely other reasons for my low mood, but after a little while I realized that part of the problem was I’d been neglecting things like eating food, drinking water, and sleeping.

Remembering to do those things didn’t make my problems disappear. But it definitely made it easier to handle them!

Here’s the thing: food, water, and sleep are the fundamentals of self-care. They’re the very first things you should try when there’s a problem, like making sure an appliance that’s not working is plugged in, or checking to see if caps lock is on when your password isn’t working. So why did I neglect them for so long when I needed them so badly?

Unfortunately, it wasn’t a coincidence.

There’s a common type of advice in nearly every field that boils down to something like “don’t neglect the basics.” In sports, it’s “keep your eye on the ball;” in business, there’s “make something people want;” in art, “practice makes perfect;” science has “test your hypotheses;” and in the rationality community we have “read the sequences.”¹

Why is it so common to hear advice that basically boils down to “Hey, remember the very first things you learned? Y’know, all the easiest stuff that you’ve practiced a million times? Be sure not to forget it!” It seems like telling a Math Olympian not to forget that 2+2=4.

There are two reasons for this. The first is straightforward: the simplest and earliest lessons are also the most important. This is easiest to see in sports: if both you and your opponent have mastered the basics, the victor is determined by your mastery of the more advanced techniques.² But if you flub the basics, your opponent can generally crush you without breaking a sweat.

“What does you in is not failure to apply some high-level, intricate, complicated technique. It’s overlooking the basics. Not keeping your eye on the ball.” -Jerry Cleaver (as quoted here)

The second reason is more subtle. When are you most likely to forget the basics? Probably not when you’re relaxed, well-rested, and focused–but if you’re under stress, pressed for time, tired, hungry, distracted? That’s when you’re most likely to make simple mistakes (like forgetting to drink water when you’re in a funk).

Of course, those are also the times when you’ll get the most benefit out of low-effort, high-impact fixes. Hence, the common advice.

So here’s my self-care tip of the day: don’t forget the basics. Stay hydrated, eat healthy, get rest, exercise as much as you’re able. Most importantly, when you know that forgetting the basics isn’t the main problem, take extra care to remember them anyway. It won’t make your problem go away, but it will make it easier to handle.

Joy and health to you all.

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1. You may be wondering why our “basics” is literally an entire alphabet of volumes. The answer should probably be its own essay, but the footnote version is that (a) rationality is such a young field that pretty much the whole thing is basics (there are no fancy high-level techniques, or at least very few), (b) the majority of those basics consist of un-learning habits and intuitions that are either inborn or cultural, and (c) the majority of what remains is stuff so basic that in other fields it’s learned in childhood–less “keep your eye on the ball” and more “a ‘ball’ is a spherical object, held in the hand and used for sport or play (though there are exceptions, notably…” ↩︎
2. Actually, the dirty secret of televised sports is that the more exciting and high-level the game, the more likely it is that the outcome will be determined by sheer luck. Sufficiently advanced technique is indistinguishable from superstition. ↩︎