plasticsquid - introspection

On Hope (pt. 2)

2026-07-20T00:00:00+00:00

Until it BSODed while opening my photo editor earlier today^{1</a>, my home PC had over two months of uptime — pretty alright for a Windows 102</a> box! This is not atypical for me: while browsers are pretty good at keeping my tabs indefinitely these days, my text editors persist unsaved changes automatically, and seemingly every other application autosaves every keystroke3</a>, I generally prefer to just put my computer to sleep at the end of the day and have it resume to the exact place I had left off.

Saving (or losing) work isn't even the main issue here; it's primarily persistence of mental state — like a CPU lifting a frame off the stack</a> to reveal a previous one, resuming the computer also allows me to resume the frame of mind I was in when I last used it, catapulting me into the flow of wherever I was up to before.}

This is great for times when you want that kind of preservation... but it also means carrying around a bunch of baggage. Like a computer, the longer you run, the more stuff gets loaded into memory, and just... sticks around. Whether because you neglected to 'free' (forget) it, there's some dangling reference keeping it in memory, or you're caching the information 'just in case' you need it, things accumulate over time — and, to be clear, this is not just 'things you recall', but also 'things that occupy mental load 4</a>'.

And when things accumulate for too long, you can slowly boil the frog 5</a> without noticing (N.B. you are the frog).

But there is no need to boil the frog. We have the ability to exit the pot6</a> as we reach our voluntary thermal maximum (or in this case, situational stress maximum). We have the ability, but not always the awareness to notice that we need to, or the fortitude (or perhaps even the bravery) to make the necessary changes.

When you're in the midst of the pot, it's easy to forget what it's like outside — that you might be one sproing away from cool refreshing air. Hope can be created.
While it is the product of our environment and mindset, these are both var</code>, not const</code>. Changing your environment may not be a reversible decision</a>, but it is often ultimately a required step to resolve downstream issues. And oh boy, once you do make that leap, the winds of change can be as reinvigorating as a bucket of ice water to the face.

"Happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light." - Albus Dumbledore (Steve Kloves) </blockquote> Once your eyes are lifted to see the light appearing at the end of the tunnel, anything feels possible. Perhaps the tunnel is $WORKPLACE, a community turned rancid, or a third place</a> that you now feel dragged down rather than uplifted by — regardless, change is, by definition, required to repair a broken status quo. These situations can feel soul-crushing, but the relief upon finding an 'escape' is immediate and palpable. Often executing the escape isn't even the relieving step — it's just the discovery and knowledge that you have a way out, if you need it, the blossom of hope in an otherwise shaded vista. You don't need to retire and take up bonsai farming</a> to be happy — maybe you just need to change some set pieces on the great stage of life. Remove the boiling pot, pop a few stack frames, open the curtains, and prioritise the things that bring you purpose. Footnotes#</a> </h1> I use Darktable, because I don't *ahem* subscribe to giving Adobe money, but turns out I'd mangled several sidecar files while purging 800 GB of raw photos I didn't need (although my inner data hoarder was aghast at doing so). ↩</a> </li> I would love to replace this was a Linux distro, especially given it's now well and truly EoL (despite Microsoft's repeated support extensions), but every time I think of doing that, I also think of my list of projects that I'd rather be doing over installing an OS (and applications, and backing up data, and restoring data, and, and, and) for the n-teenth time. ↩</a> </li> Obsidian scoffs at my Ctrl-S</code> habit, while Dropbox simultaneously thrashes on its (auto)save history. ↩</a> </li> Load</a> in computing is not merely the sum of CPU currently being consumed, it's based on various factors impacting the throughput capability of the processor. Likewise, the mental load of a person is not merely the things that they are currently doing, but also impacted by backpressure of other suspended tasks and consumed memory. ↩</a> </li> This is a generally refuted theory these days, but as a parable, it is extremely apt. However, a recent study</a> noted that pre-dehydrated frogs were much more likely to fail to make an exit. Therefor, don't forget to (literally and/or metaphorically) hydrate! ↩</a> </li> Obviously this is a privileged outlook, and is not true for all situations; however, for many (including myself), it is. ↩</a> </li> </ol> </section>

I Don't Know 2026-07-02T00:00:00+00:00 There are many magic phrases — classics such as 'abracadabra', 'please', or 'open sesame' — but I think possibly the most practical (as far as a professional toolbox goes) has to be 'I don't know'. There is an almost mystical power to humility. In a world where everyone is trying to make out like they have all the answers, have it together, have it, admitting that you don't has both a shock value associated with it, and signals that you're not here to be about your own ego1</a>. And when you're not about your own ego, you unlock the power of an open mind, and you get a +5 bonus to your reputation score when people are deciding who is going to be willing to help them out with a particularly gnarly problem or with finding that piece of information that's blocking them (but feels like a stupid question to ask). People like it when you don't make them feel stupid for not knowing something, especially when you don't know it either. Not knowing something is the first step in the process of obtaining knowledge. Unknown unknowns</a>2</a> are one of life's greatest hazards3</a>, and the first step in mitigating them is to convert an unknown unknown into a known unknown. Once you know you don't know a thing, only then can you work to manage it. Say 'I don't know'. Admit your mistakes. Become the person that people know they can go to when they need help: someone who knows how to learn things. This post is in the spirit of Jim Nielsen's Blogging Can Just Be Stating The Obvious</a>. Footnotes#</a> </h1> The only thing worse than a big ego is someone else having a big ego. ↩</a> </li> Along with the related concept in the psychology field of the Johari window</a>. ↩</a> </li> I speak specifically from a Software Engineering perspective, but this extends well beyond that. The medical field goes to great lengths to minimise the information they don't have, because a surprise anaesthetic allergy can throw a massive spanner in the works when you're mid-operation. ↩</a> </li> </ol> </section> Cognitive Deferral 2026-06-16T00:00:00+00:00 Returning home from the office, I found myself sitting on the train in a state of stupor, as one is wont to be while commuting home at 6:53pm in full dark. Unlike Sherlock Holmes, I did not consider injecting cocaine to be a good solution, so was just staring off into middle-distance, instead. As ever1</a>, I had music playing on my headphones — and yet I could not, for the life of me, tell you what was playing. It was some medley of same-y tracks that Spotify had decided I should listen to that day, all mushing together with no intentionality or progression. Earlier that day I had started playing some playlist promoted on the Spotify landing page — probably "Indie Vibe Themes For Post-Modern Teens"2</a> — based on a cursory glance at the light-on description. "Oh, I know those artists", and done. And that works... I got music, but it did not get me music that I wanted, and — worse — it set my day off to a tempo set by someone else (an algorithm, at that). Here, we find the crux of the problem — in deferring my decision, I also paid the cost of giving away my agency. Nothing has to go wrong to drift in the wrong direction</a>. I hadn't made a poor music selection as much as I had chosen not to choose. Sitting on the train, I pulled my phone out and browsed3</a> my saved albums until I found something that actually sparked joy4</a>, and started it playing instead. Immediately, my mood lifted, thanks to three things. I had made a 'real' decision instead of accepting a presented default</li> I received an immediate mental reward of getting something I wanted instead of being fed something asking for my attention</li> This then helps form a positive-feedback loop5</a>, producing an environment that matched my needs</li> </ol> This then got me thinking: what was going on that this was even a scenario I was dealing with? There's a lot of racket in the software sector currently about the rise of cognitive debt</a> due to the raw unchecked speed of LLMs, but what I want to look at today is a closely related phenomenon I'd like to call 'Cognitive Deferral'. I would define this as the habit of letting tools, defaults, or algorithms make choices for us in areas where the act of choosing is part of how we maintain agency, attention, or identity. To solve (any) problem, one must first recognise it. Cognitive deferral does not arrive wearing a little 'V for villain' cape, it presents itself as a convenience. As one fewer thing to think about. As a sensible optimisation. After all, our brain takes the path of least resistance</a>, and when it has the opportunity to not have to make decisions, oh boy, does it like to take it. Once you notice this rift in one aspect of life, and start paying attention and looking out for it elsewhere, it becomes obvious that this is not the only area of life where this happens. Consider also: Relying on calendar (or Facebook!) notifications to remind you of people's birthdays — this is possibly the worst time to try and sync up with people if you want deep relationships. Maintain your friendships outside of special events, people!</li> Using LLM summaries to 'read' articles for you, especially opinion or non-fact-based pages — this throws all interpretation in favour of the model's biases, let alone forming a meaningful understanding of the topic</a>.</li> Essentially any modern form of social media for the obvious reasons — you sacrifice essentially all ownership of your attention, both what you think about, and how you should feel about it</a>.</li> Using smart replies, or munging your writing through an LLM editor — you have a personal voice, even in writing. Be proud and protective of it.</li> </ul> You almost certainly have others that spring to mind, based on your life and circumstances6</a>7</a> Of course, it is more nuanced than 'eliminate all outsourcing of decision making.' In some cases, cognitive deferral can be a worthwhile trade-off. For example, the availability of GPS navigation is an excellent tool. We no longer have to pull out a Melways (or other local map of choice) and work through routes to determine the best way to get to your aunt's BBQ. However, this atrophies our spatial navigation skills and ability to concisely describe directions or locations. This can be ~fine most of the time, but if you need your GPS to navigate you between your home and regular workplace8</a>, something has probably gone wrong. You can also defer to your past self (if you trust your past self!). Zuckerberg, Obama, and Jobs all had 'iconic' fits because they had chosen to form a complete wardrobe of a single 'design' to eliminate the cognitive load of having to make the trivial9</a> decision of what do I wear? on a daily basis. The same can easily be said for other front-loading deciders like meal-prepping lunches, or even picking a pre-built PC over building it yourself from parts10</a>. Delegating to yourself can still be your own agency, just shifted earlier in time. Where does that leave us, then? I would summarise this as: Retain control of the decisions that affect your environment, mood, or wellbeing.</li> Outsource those that don't make a meaningful change to the above, or where the cost-benefit tradeoff seems worthwhile.</li> Prefer systems set up by your past self for future optimisation over defaults provided by someone else.</li> </ul> Reclaiming agency isn't rocket science. Sometimes all it takes is to choose an album yourself. Footnotes#</a> </h1> I think our CTO thought he listened to a lot of music, and then was gobsmacked when we shared our listening stats at the end of the year... it's down a little since the end of pandemic measures, but at one point I was listening to music for 1 hour out of every 3 of my life. ↩</a> </li> other options: "Lo-Fi Beats for Doing Absolutely Nothing of Consequence"</li> "Songs You Thought You Liked Until We Played Them To Death"</li> "Made for You: A Genre We Invented Based on Shuffling The Dictionary"</li> </ul> ↩</a></li> It feels very much to me like there should be a better past tense of 'browse' like 'brose' — 'browsed' just seems clumsy. ↩</a> </li> "I Wasn't Only Thinking About You..." by Oh Pep!, in case you were wondering. ↩</a> </li> The short definition I would give for this is "an atmosphere that manifests a positive reinforcement loop for traits that enhance the purpose of the space" — could be work, recreational, or elsewise — but this is a topic that I would like to talk about in some detail in a future post. ↩</a> </li> It is great that we all have individual lives and experiences! This does, however, make it difficult for one individual to talk to another's situation. This is why empathy (and, generally, EQ) is such a valuable skill, because those who can are easier able to navigate those socio-workplace situations where it feels like you're navigating between Scylla and Charybdis</a>. ↩</a> </li> In my experience, this problem is endemic to the modern western society, and is only trending more so with our ever-inevitable (to be hyperbolic) slide towards constant media consumption (and eventual alignment with depictions from WALL-E) ↩</a> </li> Not a fictitious scenario, unfortunately. My brother-in-law's apprentice was working at the same site for weeks, and then his phone bricked itself, and he could not find his way home without it. ↩</a> </li> I guess this is how I can tell that I haven't made it yet, when I have bigger fish to fry than deciding whether to wear my 'Jabba _{(the Hutt) Script' or my 'Ministry of Silly Walks x Abbey Road mashup' printed tee today.}↩</a> </li> Used to be that this was a trade-off of paying extra money for having to do less research on compatibility and specs. I hear these days with the shortages that seem to have been going on for the past decade that they actually represent better value a lot of the time. ↩</a> </li> </ol> </section>