If you have nothing to do for a while, you may as well be in a daze and stunned for a while.
01
I've been talking about all kinds of "big topics", so today I'll change it and talk about a light topic.
Since the popularity of smartphones, there has been a popular concept - "make good use of fragmented time". Smartphones can be carried around and are powerful, so many apps are designed to allow people to take advantage of the "fragmented time" of sitting in the car, queuing up, and even going to the toilet, such as reading or listening to an article and learning a skill - stir-frying a certain dish. In the most popular short videos, there are also many content that teaches people this and that. In short, it's about learning a little bit.
It seems that this is a great improvement. Without smartphones and their apps, it's hard to take advantage of this fragmented time, and basically just go in a daze or get bored – remember the days when people on the bus looked at each other and had nothing to do?
And the spirit of "trying to use fragmented time to learn" is also worthy of recognition. People with this spirit are at least studious, optimistic and positive people, not the kind of lazy and boring people who are not interested in anything and are never listless.
But (yes, it's time to say "but"), after I've experienced "making the most of fragmented time" myself for a while, it doesn't feel too good. Although I learned some things, on the one hand, the little things I learned were only superficial, and in fact they were not very useful. What's more, the result of making the most of fragmented time is that it seems that I am having a harder and harder time maintaining concentration.
What's going on?
02
By consulting knowledgeable people and studying relevant works, I found out why. This is actually a law of brain operation, that is, a question about brain science.
Brain science is currently one of the most cutting-edge and difficult disciplines. In fact, we don't know much about how the brain actually works. This is the biggest obstacle to the development of artificial intelligence. As a liberal arts student, of course, I am more ignorant. Fortunately, some basic principles about the brain are not difficult to understand. It is almost enough to explain this problem with these basic principles.
One of the most basic concepts about the brain is "neurons." A neuron is a type of cell. There are tens of billions of neurons in the human brain — a lot of numbers.
There is some kind of protrusion on the neuron, and through this protrusion, the neurons can connect with each other. This connection is how the brain works, which is the main way we think. When you read these few lines of my text, there are certain neurons in your brain that are connected to each other, so you can understand. If you see a foreign language that you don't understand, the way neurons are connected is different, and the result is that you can't understand it.
This is the most basic principle of how the brain works. That's all I can say. If you say more, you will "not understand", after all, you are a "false connoisseur".
I will apply this basic principle to explain the above problem.
03
In the case of learning a foreign language, for example, every time you memorize a grammar of a word, or have a pan-reading intensive reading, certain neurons in the brain make some new connections. Over time, more and more neuronal connections about this foreign language, you have more and more mastery of this foreign language, and finally, you can fluently listen, speak, read and write.
See, there's an important point about brain work, which is that brain work takes time, because the connections between neurons take time. The more complex the information to process, the more time the brain needs. Learning a foreign language is a complex matter that takes at least a few years.
Some people will say, you're not talking nonsense! Who doesn't know this yet.
It's not necessarily. Many people have misconceptions about the brain at this point. We sometimes say "put knowledge in the head." It gives the impression that the brain receives information as if it were pouring water into a pool of water. Pouring water into the pool of course also takes time, but the "sense of time" given by this matter is not strong, and the feeling of "instantaneous completion" is stronger.
Many people think that the brain's acceptance of new information is a similar process, and although it takes time, if the brain can turn on at full strength, or find the right way, it can learn new knowledge quickly — as quickly as pouring water into a pool. Therefore, you can often hear sales pitches such as "seven days to learn English proficiency and speaking", "three days to memorize three thousand words" and so on.
Now you know, seven days, three days, and so on, are impossible, they are all fools. Learning a new language requires a lot of neuronal connections, which takes a lot of time. This kind of learning, there is no shortcut, copying near is going around the distance.
Therefore, a true expert will tell you that the most effective way to learn a foreign language is to repeat and repeat. You have to listen, speak, read and write that language a lot, which is the only way to learn a foreign language well. The rationale for brain science is that every repetition is the establishment of new connections between neurons. Connections are established enough to learn the language. There is no other way. Regarding the connections of neurons, the number determines everything.
This is the first truth about the work of the brain, and the next is a deeper truth.
04
The brain is not a hard disk, and besides, the brain is much more complex than a hard disk. The complication is that you can't control when and how the connections between those neurons in the brain begin and how they start. You can control the hard disk precisely, let it turn when you want it, and let it stop if you want it to stop. But you can't control the brain so directly. The brain has its own rules.
I don't know if you have this experience. Before going to bed at night, I learned something, learned a little, went to sleep in a confused way, and planned to continue learning tomorrow. But tomorrow, when I opened the book and continued to study, I suddenly became enlightened, and what I could not understand at all the day before was now very simple, and I understood it all at once.
Again, you write an article, and when you're done, you think it's good, there's nothing to change. After a few days, I took it out and looked at it, but found that there were many things that needed to be revised, and there would even be obvious text errors and logical confusion. Strange, how can I not see it when I write it.
The reason for these phenomena is that when you put that thing down to sleep and do something else, the brain doesn't stop with it — the brain isn't a hard drive. Those neurons in your brain are still silently making relevant connections, but you just don't know it yourself.
So, after a while, a night's sleep, or a few days apart, during which your brain actually continues to "process" the thing you're going to learn, about that article, and you're making new progress. At this time, if you continue to study, or read the article again, you will unexpectedly find that you have made "unexpected progress".
For this "surface stop, but neurons are still silently making connections" law of the brain, many people will not take advantage of it. In their view, the brain is the hard disk, and it starts to work when it starts to turn, and when it stops working, it doesn't turn. Where do they know that the brain is much more complex. You stop, it doesn't stop.
So, how do you use this law of the brain?
First, "get started" as soon as possible. Whether it's studying or completing a project on the job, it's important to start as soon as possible. Because as soon as you start, even if the next progress is not fast, but the brain has started the connection of neurons in this aspect; and then, even if you stop and rest, the neurons in that area are still silently building, that is, learning and work are actually still in progress. Because the brain has this pattern, as soon as you start, time is on your side. Conversely, if you delay starting, the brain doesn't initiate the associated neuronal connections, and time is wasted.
05
You have to learn a certain instrument, but always think of waiting until the conditions are complete or there is more time. Wait and go, and most of them will never start. If you want to learn, start today. As soon as you start learning, the brain kicks in. Then, no matter how fast or slow you progress, the brain is silently "familiarizing" with the instrument, that is, silently establishing relevant neuronal connections. Not every second is wasted.
Many people also have an experience when learning, and at a certain stage, progress will be very slow, or even stagnant, that is, into the so-called "bottleneck period". In this case, the teacher generally encourages you to try hard and not give up. It looks like it's just "chicken soup" and cheering. In fact, this kind of encouragement is very much in line with the principles of brain science.
What you feel is that progress is slow, even stagnant, but what is really going on in the brain, you don't know. In fact, at this time, the connection of neurons is continuous and does not stop, but there may be a bit of a problem in the way of connection, so that you feel that the progress is not fast, but the number of connections between neurons is always growing.
At this time, as long as you persist and do not give up, the connection of neurons will continue to increase. Under the numerical advantage, those "stagnant" problems will be gradually solved. Then, at a certain point in time, the quantitative advantage of the previously accumulated neuronal connections was transformed into a quality advantage, suddenly enlightened, and went to a new level.
Speaking of which, you think of the famous passage in Wang Guowei's "Words and Sayings on Earth".
Ancient and modern people who have become great undertakings and university inquirers have all passed through three realms: last night's west wind withered bi trees. Go up to the tall building alone and look at the end of the world. This first realm also. The belt gradually widened and finally did not regret it, and was haggard for the people of Ishwa. This second realm also. The crowd looked for him a thousand times, and suddenly looked back, and the man was in the middle of the light. This third realm also.
Wang Guowei is worthy of being a master, although he does not understand brain science, he can vividly outline the laws of brain work (it can be seen that the world's learning is all figured out). The first realm is to start as soon as possible and aim high. The second realm is to insist on not giving up during the "bottleneck period" and carry out the suffering to the end. Then, at a certain point in time, "looking back", there will be a big breakthrough, and this big breakthrough does not seem to be difficult and easy to get. But why couldn't it be achieved before? The man was there, but if you hadn't "haggard for the people of Ishwa", you wouldn't have been able to see it!
06
Next we return to the "fragmentation time" problem.
Understand the above principles of brain science and you will know. The so-called "fragmented time" is only your superficial feelings. For the brain, it is not a "fragment" at all, it is also a "whole piece", the same time it takes for the brain to work. In fragmented time, the brain does not stop to "look at each other" and "look at each other in a boring daze", the brain is still continuing its previous work, making connections between neurons. Don't forget, there are tens of billions of neurons.
Even when you sleep, that is, when you are "unconscious," the brain is still working silently. It can be seen that your superficial perception and the actual working state of the brain are two different things.
The problem is that if you make the most of all the "fragmented time", it seems that this is to avoid wasting time and reducing the "boring daze", but for the brain, it is disrupting its work rhythm, it is breaking the whole piece into pieces.
For example, you're working on a project at work. After a day at work, very tired, when you go home to take the subway, you don't do anything, just in a daze in the subway. Your "daze" at this time is not a waste of time, but rather allowing your brain to continue to make neuronal connections about that project — just that you don't feel it yourself. It doesn't feel, but you give your brain time.
Instead, you don't "get in a daze," but you want to "use the fragmented time," open an app in the subway, and learn about modern Chinese history (just to give an example. I am not disrespectful to China's modern history, but I am very interested in it). At this point, your brain has to stop the neuronal connections about that work project and start to make neuronal connections about China's modern history. After studying modern Chinese history for a while, you start learning to cook through short videos. After learning to fry lamb with green onions, you open an APP and start to study "ten secrets for getting along with people in the workplace"...
It may seem like you're making the most of your fragmented time and learning a lot of new things, but in reality, because of the frequent switching of content, the neurons in your brain are in a state of "exhaustion." Just started to establish this connection, and then it was interrupted and the other side was started. Within a few minutes, he was interrupted again and began to establish the next connection...
We may feel this state of brain neurons being "exhausted", and that's what I mentioned at the beginning – it's getting harder and harder to stay focused. Because of the long-term "exhaustion", neurons gradually become accustomed to "half-heartedness" and establish a large number of unrelated connections. The result is the dog licks eight bubble, and the bubble licks impure.
07
It can be seen that the correct and consistent approach to the rules of the brain is to try to maintain the main work content of the brain, do not switch frequently, do not let the neurons fall into a state of "exhaustion", and do not establish a large number of unrelated neuronal connections in the brain.
Of course, this does not mean that you have to work all the time, you can't stop and can't do anything else, but it means that if the brain wants to rest, it must rest completely; doing anything else, to do it, has nothing to do with the "main business". For example, the desk worker's way of resting is to simply play basketball, which has nothing to do with work, and does this to activate other parts of the brain, rather than switching between the original part of the work content.
At this time, because it is irrelevant, on the one hand, the part of the brain that originally worked can take a break - in fact, it is not a rest, but the neurons continue to connect, but not under your subjective control, your subjective feeling is rest. This rest is actually taking full advantage of the brain's "surface stop, but neurons are still silently making connections." This is what "active rest" means.
On the other hand, because playing basketball uses a completely different part of the brain, it will not interfere with the original desk work process, that is, it will not disturb the continued connection of that part of the neuron.
Speaking of which, it is clear that we must avoid "using fragmented time as much as possible", which is tantamount to destroying the process of "silent connection of neurons". Frequent switching, aborting concentration, is the biggest waste.
In a word, leave the fragmented time to the brain. Don't stupidly fill in all the fragments of time, that's not filling in the blanks, it's pointlessly tossing your brain. Doing so is not in line with the laws of learning, but also a great waste of brain power.
In many human cultures, the special role of "meditation" and "meditation" is emphasized. During meditation and meditation, people do nothing, even close their eyes, and no longer accept information from the outside world. It seems that this process is very boring and boring, in fact, from the perspective of brain science, during meditation and meditation, the brain is very active. Neurons, without external interference, will more efficiently and more quickly establish connections that have already been initiated. The problems being pondered, the topics being studied, will therefore progress faster, closer to the moment of the "sudden enlightenment" of the big breakthrough.
08
From another point of view, the idea of "trying to use the fragmented time" actually reflects a kind of greed of modern people, a greed that wants to control everything and not miss any opportunity. But as the chicken soup says, the tighter you hold the sand, the more the sand flows away.
Temperance is a virtue. This virtue is especially important in contemporary societies where both material and information are abundant. Only by maintaining moderation and leaving some blank space can we really get something.
If you have nothing to do for a while, you may as well be in a daze and stunned for a while. Leave fragmented time to the brain. People are too clever and too busy to be good.
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