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Amazing recount.

I was fortunate to learn in 2018, at a relatively young age, that my mental faculties are the most precious thing I have in life (after my wife ofcourse). It was a very simple accident; chasing a high I let my bike get too fast going downhill on a wet road, a car on the other side was oncoming, I break, the back wheel slips out from under me, I hit my head on the road (with a helmet on). A bruised knee, elbow and shoulder, bit of pain, no damage to the bike, so I get up and continue. 15 minutes later I get home, a sharp migraine sets in, and suddenly, I realize, I can't remember how I got home. In fact, I can't remember most of last week. Luckily an MRI, an OK from a doctor and a couple of weeks later my memory returns and I'm no worse for the wear.

In that moment, when I realized I couldn't recall how I got home, the worst panic I have ever had set in. I've had two close calls with drowning and was in a car crash in the past, and have never felt the panic I had felt in that moment, just sitting comfortably at home, realizing my brain no longer works. I wasn't scared I had a brain bleed or something and would die, I was scared I would lose my mental faculties.

Since then my outlook on life has taken a complete turn. I've become a lot more cognizant of how I spend my time and what issues I engage with mentally.

What we have is precious, it can dissapear in a second, on an otherwise perfect day.

I had a similar moment when I was 16 and had my first migraine aura... Really bad one. I was looking at a billboard and I realized that I couldn't read anymore. Then I looked at people and part of their faces were missing from my field of view even though I was looking straight at them. Then I started feeling tingling in my fingers. I thought it was a stroke. No, just a bad migraine aura. I've had one every 6 to 12 months since though rarely as bad as that first one.

Coming to terms with the fallibility of your own mind is a valuable experience. I think it has helped me to be more rational. Once you accept that your mind can be dysfunctional, it becomes trivial to accept that your mind can be wrong. The way I see it, being wrong is also a temporary dysfunction of the mind.

Wow, I've had this exact experience, as well! Two or three bad ones, with all the rest consisting of:

- a slight odd taste (this is my "early warning sign"), - then the vision loss (which is so hard to describe, because the missing portion doesn't become black/white/blurry/etc, it's just gone), - and sometimes the tingling fingers.

The worst one, which happened while I was in Spanish class at school, began with those symptoms, but then I noticed I couldn't understand the Spanish instructions on the worksheet we'd just been given, even though I'm usually good with languages. I went to read the English "cheater" instructions on the other side, and my ability to read & understand English drained away while I was in the middle of reading. I felt that something was very wrong at that point, and stood up to tell my teacher that I needed to go to the nurse, but as soon as I stood up, I realized I no longer knew how to transfer my thought into my teacher's mind (not only the ability, but even the concept of spoken language had vanished!) ...So I just sat back down and waited it out.

It is quite the experience...

>>a temporary dysfunction of the mind

Interesting

Seems the dysfunction could be either intrinsic, as in mis-processing data/information that is present, or extrinsic, as in not having or failing to obtain a suitable set of data/information on the topic.

Does this match your model?

I believe it is a purely visual processing issue because, when I get a migraine aura, I can think and reason and communicate as normal. I walk normally too, I don't feel dizzy. It's only that parts of my visual field are missing. The missing parts seem to shift like blobs in a lava lamp so I can't just turn my eyes to 'look around them'. Also because visual info is missing (not blacked out or blurred out), it makes it impossible to figure out how much I should turn my eyes to look around 'it'... It's like a spacial distortion in my field of view. I wonder if this is a similar experience to dyslexia? Though for me it's only temporary and affects everything I see including faces... But who knows maybe dyslexics also have this issue but don't realize it because they don't know better?

I can still recognize people even though I can't see their face fully. It's like my subconscious is still seeing the full face.

>>It's like my subconscious is still seeing the full face.

Very interesting; that reminds me of a phenomena I learned about in a college neuroscience class, from studies of people who are cortically blind, as in their visual cortex is dead/nonfunctional, but their eyes and the rest of their brain work (e.g., from a brain injury localized to the back of their head where the visual cortex is located).

You can also present them with a forced choice test, such as a panel with big stripes either horizontal or vertical, and require them to say if it is horizontal or vertical. Of course the initial response is "I can't see it, so I can't say". But with a forced choice, they get it right something like 85% of the time — obviously far better than the chance results we'd get with blindfolded subjects.

It turns out that (at least the working understanding at the time) is that the brain has different circuits that use info from the optic nerve to tell the eyes where to track and look. E.g., this will get the eyes to track moving objects, or focus along the edges, etc. When those are still working, the brina can still somehow subconsciously access some of that knowledge from those different brain areas.

I wonder if this is relevant to the phenomena you described?

I have these auras ever since young too, but it’s somewhat rare and for me it’s quite related to anxiety. It always lasts like 6-7 minutes in which I usually stop doing whatever I’m doing and prepare for a mild headache following it.

+1 for wearing a helmet. I see so many people riding (both bicycles and even motorcycles) without one. Totally insane since even a minor accident can turn you into a drooling blob with an otherwise minor bump on the head.

Like the GP (and most people, I assume) I really value my mental faculties, but more relevant in my opinion is that in terms of time and often money, your collective knowledge and education is probably the most expensive thing you've invested in. To not do the bare minimum to protect that investment is incomprehensible to me.

My friends will buy ergonomic keyboards, standing desks, monitor arms, etc. to keep them healthy and productive (which is important), but not wear a helmet because "they look dumb". Without a working brain, none of that other stuff will matter! I always ask them, 'Are you expecting to find a partner while you're on the bike? Who are you trying to impress?'

Do you really want a partner whose criteria is doing dumb shit? I mean if a woman doesn't want me because I wear a helmet I figure that's me dodging a bullet

> but not wear a helmet because "they look dumb"

It's not about looking dumb. It's about ergonomics. Sure, helmets make cycling marginally safer, but they also make it considerably more tedious, which results in people simply deciding not to cycle at all, which results in decrease of both public health, and safety of cyclists.

https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/26subr/til_t...

"There are only two kinds of paranoia: Total... and _insufficient_."

There are a number of factors with cycle safety. Going slowly can have a similar risk level to going faster with a helmet. You can wear a helmet and still end up like Schumacher.

I just got off my bike in London, no helmet but typical speeds of 10 mph or so. Most cycle deaths here are crushed by trucks where a helmet doesn't help much.

I'm not arguing that speed plays a factor, but you should still wear a helmet.

I know two people who had brain damage (like, serious damage that persists years later) from low speed falls - one was literally standing still, and the fall sent them to the hospital for a week. The other one was low speed, just starting off after stopping at the bottom of an uphill section. Not sure the exact details of what happened, but same story - fall -> hospital -> permanent loss of cognitive abilities and some change to personality.

Totally agree that if a truck runs you over, helmet probably won't do much. But a helmet will totally be the difference between an embarassing fall with a few minor scrapes, and one of the most (negatively) impactful moments of your life.

Would you argue that the woman in the article should have worn a helmet?

The woman in the article was driving a car, so no?

> What we have is precious, it can dissapear in a second, on an otherwise perfect day.

Family friend was an accountant in NYC that used to ride around on a scooter with no helmet. Fell and hit his head one day and literally lost the ability to do complex math, permanently.

Human cognition belongs on the timeline of significant events in the evolution of universe.

We may be only in the tiniest of corners (for now), but probably nothing beats it in complexity (... for now).

If you ever observed animals, e.g. just observing how chickens socialize, it becomes absolutely clear that they have similar cognition and perception than humans.

Parrots are a more fitting example imo, 300 million years of separation and they have complex cognition that evolved independently.

Crows are also quite smart too.

my 3 chickens have deep and complex social dynamics all while being able to pinpoint grains of quinoa off the ground faster than a robot while being able to spot the faintest outline of the tiniest potential threatening hawk 2 miles away in the sky, fully discerned from various crows flying around that don't phase them at all. their little brains are processing far more than me.

I don't know how scientifically factual this is, it was presented as such but it's hard to believe it in a literal sense but there's a Benn Jordan video called "How The World SOUNDS To Animals" about how different animals perceive time differently. Like flies perceive life many times more slowly than we do which is, allegedly, why they seem to get away when we swat at them, no matter how quickly we move.

If that's true, I'd expect they just perceive time more slowly than we do which is why they're able to appear so much more quick. I still agree they've got a lot going on in those brains I just think this aspect of it is interesting!

Humans have reaction times on the order of 100-200ms. But interestingly if you measure reaction by you moving your hands or torso about 10%-20% of that time is just the time it takes for the signal to travel from your brain to the right muscle. Nerves aren't all that fast. That's why many reflexes happen outside the brain, closer to the relevant body part.

With that in mind, it would make a lot of sense if time perception scaled with body size. If you are a big elephant signals need to travel very far, and your muscles have to overcome a lot of inertia. If you can't react quickly anyways you don't need to perceive time as quickly. A fly has little inertia, fast signal times because of the short distances, fast processing because there just are fewer neurons, so there is more advantage to perceiving time more quickly

I can imagine the same would apply to any Super-intelligence. To the singularity, time would simply pass immensely slow because of the parallel computation power, which to us humans on the other hand would look super intelligent.

That's a really interesting way to put it! Thank you! That makes a lot of sense!

Flies feel the rush of air from our oncoming hand and get out of the way, just like we look up from our book (phone, these days) when we feel air from the oncoming subway train we are waiting for.

The secret to killing flies is that they have to fly up first before they can fly away, so you (slowly) put your hands in front and behind them and "clap" them. They feel the air and lift off, right into the center of your oncoming hands.

Your chicken has a small neural net tuned for hawk-watching and speck-pecking. This can be extremely fast and efficient; just don't ask it to compute an integral or invent the diesel engine or understand a complex web of social relationships or remember its cousin's birthday.

Why would you expect the last sentence to be true? Wouldn't you expect the brains of chickens to be vast, and yours to be even more so?

Why, precisely? Larger volume?

Don’t know about you, but over the years I’ve met a lot of humans that can’t obviously outthink a higher-end chicken.

I was asking seriously. But yea, I think there seems to be aspects of human intelligence not shared by our chicken cousins. Both are remarkable, but there doesn’t seem to be any reason to believe a chicken is smarter than a human besides misanthropy.

I never said chickens were smarter than us, I said my chickens are visually processing far more than I possibly can all while engaged in mentally and physically taxing activities.

> my chickens are visually processing far more than I possibly can

This is what I'm responding to. I don't know how to reconcile your two sentences, but no problem.

Let’s put it this way… the common ancestor of humans and chickens is way back, well before the dinosaurs. Their visual processing systems are on an entirely different, essentially unrelated vector from our own… so are their eyes. They can see in ultraviolet, for one, and you can’t, so they’re literally processing far more information than you can even perceive… comparing these two visual systems isn’t apples and oranges, it’s apples and orangutans. The point is to not underestimate what other brains are doing, just because they’re not familiar.

Thanks for the explanation. I see where you're coming from now.

> but probably nothing beats it in complexity

Spend a little while seriously watching an octopus, and you may move that needle.

They're very intelligent for sure, but their neurons are also a lot bigger. About 500 million neurons in an octopus (whole body) vs 86 billion in a human (just the brain.)

Size and quantity of neurons isn’t known to determine intellectual capacity, plus for all we know that’s just RAM… they live a few years, max, we live considerable longer, maybe they literally don’t need as much long term storage to fill with, for example, misplaced nostalgia for 1980s toy commercials?

I would argue that having so much capacity for memory retention that our brains can spare space on frivolous things like that is marvelous in and of itself. Retention of information is arguably as important as the capacity for information. Humans passing down stories for generations, then inventing the written word to preserve ideas for years and year, is itself a beautifully complex thing.

Marvelous, certainly… unique, not necessarily. Some corvids appear capable of passing down skills (tool use) and memories (which humans have harmed previous generations), and just because we lack the ability to understand their stories doesn’t mean dogs, birds, and octopi aren’t passing down just as immense and marvelous communal knowledge via scent, sound, and touch.

As for the written word… I’d call that a running experiment. It’s capable of beauty, certainly… but it’s also capable of Meta (née Facebook) and X (née Twitter). Of course the fact that we can readily coin new terms for new situations — I hereby dub the use of X by its current owner _muskturbation_ — is intrinsically complex, but I’m not sure it isn’t also a direct pathway to both babble and Babble and, ultimately, species-ending atrocity.

Are you intimating that an octopus is more complex than human cognition? Or just that an octopus is complex?

I mean that it appears that octopus “cognition” — dangerously a word we control and can easily twist to only apply to us — is almost necessarily more complex than human cognition, if for no other reason than they seem to have distributed their “thinking” — another dangerously solipsistic word — into their arms and out into their body, well away from merely their brains.

>>realizing my brain no longer works.

So is it really you realizing your brain no longer works, or part of the brain with ownership of the rest realizing its brain no longer works?

P>S> To get still a full spectrum, let's not forget (rather rare) cases when people with 80%< of the brain filled with cerebrospinal fluid due to hydrocephaly were able to do uni math or work as accountants.

Many years ago I read an article (which I can't seem to find) that had the following key points:

- Very smart guy

- Had some kind of blood circulatory issue so reduced oxygen to the brain

- BUT was a very active cyclist so has very good cardio

- due to both of the above, he was getting enough O2 to be functional but effectively had a lower IQ

- circulatory issue was eventually identified and then corrected

His comments (paraphrased):

"Being less smart was kind of a blessing. Instead of getting frustrated when things weren't working when there were obvious solutions, my attitude changed to just accepting things.

As soon as my circulatory issues where resolved, I went right back to being frustrated."

Huh, interesting. Kind of a real-life Flowers for Algernon scenario.

I believe it was a hn or reddit post, I remember it also.

Me too. I think it was on HN.

Found it, it was a blog 10 years ago. https://web.archive.org/web/20120508004058/http://garrysub.p...

I remember that too - I think it was an HN comment, iirc he also had more empathy for less capable people as a result of having temporarily been less capable himself.

This resonates deeply with me on major hangover days... somehow life is just more basic and I find more enjoyment in nothing more than the basics.

There was a House MD episode about something similar. https://youtu.be/tLMzEOoSjc4?si=j08sc6pptBqWinbq

She and her family were hit by a wrong way truck probably going 70 mph. It completely shattered their bodies, lives and shows how precious our moments are.

This almost feels personal to me because of how well written her account is. I’ve had terrible chronic migraines for as long as i can remember. Apparently they can be associated with brain lesions, too. I’ll clearly never know how they’ve impacted my personality.

As horrible as this accident is, this is also a testament to modern automotive safety. If this had happened in the 70s or 80s, they all would've been done for. I've seen reports of recent model year cars surviving these kinds of accidents while leaving their drivers unscathed.

My 8mo pregnant wife and 4yo daughter just walked away completely unscathed from a 40mph T-bone collision where the other driver blew a stop sign. Their car was hit so hard it spun around twice. The impact was directly into the driver side, where they were both sitting. By the time I got there barely 5 minutes later my daughter was sitting and joking with the police on scene.

Found out later the VW Atlas essentially has armor plating in the side, which spread the side impact out from the door into the frame. Didn’t know that when we bought it, but we sure bought another one quick.

It does not. VW products probably have the lowest safety of all the German products. BMW probably being the highest.

Watch the president of the NTHSA talk about how his M5 saved his life.

Porsche is the safest of all as it is statistically the least likely to get in an accident by a significant margin (even accounting for per mile driven)

… that being said VW is likely much safer than your average American cost-cutter econobox crossover made of plywood and newspaper.

I don’t know about all that, just that the Audi SUV that tried to kill my family looked like it had been hit by an asteroid, and our Atlas was visibly deformed but otherwise fully intact. The door that took the hit didn’t intrude into the passenger compartment at all. Maybe a BMW would have done better, but that was good enough for me.

On the other hand, the situation is not so great for those outside of a car due to recent cars' increased height and mass. If the person on the receiving end is a 10-year-old biking to school, there's now less of a chance they're going to make it.

My partner occasionally fawns over the idea of buying a vintage Jeep, "just to drive around town, not on the highways". Safety has always been my #1 point of pushback, and when we looked into what can happen even in a low speed accident without modern safety systems, that idea was put to rest pretty quickly.

Driving old cars, especially open top, can be a really fun, joyful activity! Risk manage it like any other high risk activity: plan ahead, pay attention, and be realistic about your ability.

Fair point. There’s a balance to be had!

After decades of migraines I was diagnosed with Chronic Daily Migraines. I was prescribed a 'under the tongue' triptan which if the migraine aura arrived during the day worked some of the time. If I woke with the migraine at 10/10 pain level than I lost the full day.

One of my daughters also had weekly migraines, lost a day at work each time.

I got a Daith piercing in my right ear - my migraines originated on the right side of my head. Yes the piercing stung, but the next day I had no migraine. The constant pain had just stopped. This was maybe 7-8 years ago. I very rarely get odd migraine symptoms - vision feels off, head feels woolly - but no pain at all.

I convinced my daughter to have a Daith. She now doesn't even get regular headaches.

Anecdotal though this is, I would suggest looking into getting this piercing. It is discreet. There is no formal research I am aware of but for this sample of two it was a huge positive.

I could see that affecting the trapezius muscle or nerve endings somehow. That seems to play a large role in many of my migraines. It probably does for others as it’s part of where the botox for migraine shots go.

Ie when the pain shoots up through/along the side of the traps, along the backside of the ear, to the forehead and back of the eye.

Reminds me of pinching the ear lobes during a migraine. That seemed to sort of help but not terribly.

Nowadays nurtec/the cgrp protein inhibitors work wonders. But I’ll consider the piercings too.

Did you get the piercing because you expected it might help (and if that's the case, would you mind sharing why), or did you get the piercing just for aesthetics and then discovered it helped?

I'm not looking to pick apart your story, just curious.

I got the piercing after reading something somewhere that a daith had helped someone else. I am no stranger to bodyart / piercings and I have a passing interest / experience in acupuncture / acupressure. So the idea it could help appeared worth a shot, so I went for it. I did not think "this will work", but hey, nothing ventured ..

I would not describe a daith as an aesthetic piercing. It is very discreet so not a 'showing off' type. The placement also does not lend itself to changing the usual steel ball closure ring which is initially placed. I did not think through what I would do if it did not work because I am visibily modified and this extra was a nothing.

My daughter has no bodyart. Standard ear-gun piercing, one in each ear. She took some convincing, but all I could say was "This worked for me, I'll pay, there is nothing to lose and much to gain". And it worked.

What I do not know is "If I removed the metal, would I get migraines back?" and I'm not about to try.

Here is something to try: My late wife would have bad headaches. If I squeezed the web between her big toe and the next one the pain would fade after a few minutes and if I continued the pain would stop.

Wow pretty amazing. This seems to point very clearly to a muscle tension issue. The piercing into some area on your head may have helped some chronic tension to release, stopping the migraines.

I was diagnosed with cluster migraines, but I'm not convinced at that diagnosis, it didn't seem that severe. I used to get a migraine or two a month, and in allergy season it was even worse. My migraine were pure pain, I would literally think I was going to die, but I also knew I had been through it enough times that I would be okay. I'd also get full on allergy attacks (relevant in a minute), constant nose running - I'd stuff my nose with toilet paper and sit miserably, unable to focus or think clearly.

Then I moved to another state, and haven't had an allergy attack since, and my migraines have mostly gone away. I get probably one real migraine a year, with smaller headaches maybe once a month. Nothing debilitating like before though. For me I think it was all allergy related, but specific allergies. The state I moved to is rated as having the same allergy levels, but yet I don't have these attacks or as many migraines anymore.

I had a monthly or quarterly migraine for years before getting some wisdom teeth pulled. Now it is almost never.

Could be an effective placebo for sure: https://health.clevelandclinic.org/can-unconventional-pierci...

If it's effective, does it matter if it's placebo?

Especially given low cost and low risk.

As I said, there is no research.

But there is also much anecdotal evidence it helps.

This is one of those areas where anecdotes can be quite valuable, because there seems to be no real downside risk to a piercing aside from the money spent and possible infection, but if there's even a .01% chance it could stop debilitating chronic pain, then sure, you might make a valid decision to try it even though there isn't a study supporting it.

I tend to think in medical science that often anecdotes come first, then the "real" science. Not always populist anecdotes / wive's tales / etc, often times they come from nurses, doctors, or researchers of all kinds -- but sometimes they do come from sparse clusters of common folk sharing anecdotes with each other. Most do not pan out.

But the "hard" science generally needs a spark of intuition to help someone decide "maybe I should look into this", whether it's naive citizens positing that a certain practice/diet/supplement seems to help one of their conditions, or doctors noticing a pattern with a handful of their own cases, or researchers noticing something interesting but unexpected in vitro.

Again, most of these anecdotes don't pan out, but many do, and still today often against best-practice medical wisdom for systems we know less about.

The human body is massively complicated, and we're still just dipping our toes in a lot of new frontiers, and there are some areas which are very difficult to formally study.

The hard science is also limited when you consider the differences in each person. There’s a good article about that: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/09/09/what-statistic...

What a well-written story. I don't have much to add, but I can say her humour or writing talent seems to be quite sharp for someone that feels she has not completely regained her mental faculties.

Also the joke about opening a spa where she whacks stressed people with a bat so they find respite from our busy world: we already do that ourselves when we reach mental burnout. I did, and in some ways, I feel that years later, my mental sharpness is still not what it used to be. Perhaps burnout is as traumatic to the brain as a massive brain injury; certainly takes as long to heal from.

> Perhaps burnout is as traumatic to the brain as a massive brain injury

Wouldn’t surprise me.

I had a massive psychotic break 5 years ago. I’m pretty sure it came with physical brain damage. My memory isn’t what it used to be. There are holes in it. Apparently some of it is so completely gone, I don’t know I’ve forgotten it. Usually I know if I forgot something because there is a dangling pointer to it.

Brain damage feels distinctly different. The problems from being bipolar has very sharp lines in my brain. It’s known territory. Damage is foggy, indistinct.

Things have definitely healed and I’m getting function and a few memories back. The foggy areas have mostly cleared up. It’s been an odd experience.

After a bout of psychosis I was told by a psychiatrist treating me that acute psychotic episodes are physical events with lasting structural consequences in the brain. The more you have the more likely you are to have more of them.

Which all makes sense, but I don't think is part of the general awareness of these conditions. I get the feeling that most people think of them as "only" mental experiences.

I've often felt this way about depression, but it's hard to tease apart the long-term after-effects of a depressive episode, the probability that my current symptoms might just be the beginnings of an episode, and the long-term (after-)effects of the medication I took/take for it.

I'm pretty sure in my case because my moods move around in predictable ways. Medication has been a significant improvement to that. The major side-effect of one medication lines up with a genetic mutation I have. As a result, a supplement has significantly improved my short-term memory.

Neither medication nor moods have affected the brain fog that I was referring to, only time.

I often feel as if the brain is deliberately culling memories around psychotic episodes as a means for survival/optimisation.

Either that or the memories are treated no differently by the brain. Because one remembers the time as being so significant it seems disproportionate for it to be forgotten. But this could just be what happens to all memories.

Oh, I remember the episode very well. It’s stuff from my past that’s gone.

It’s also a scene in the old movie “I heart Huckabees”. Great movie btw.

https://youtu.be/9EilqfAIudI?si=ZIh4v4RmHQUf_WEL

(2021)

https://archive.is/hm5Ai

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27554686

The title says “the quiet mind”. This seems to allude to the temporary cessation of the discursive mind in (Buddhist) meditation.

> When we return to New York I take the subway to doctor appointments. I don’t take out my phone, I just sit. My brain is quiet, which I find suspicious, but also soothing. Before the accident I went to yoga retreats and tried meditation. I said things like “I just need to unplug.” Apparently what I needed was to get hit by a truck. Perhaps I have discovered the secret to a peaceful mind, and it is traumatic brain injury. I fantasize about opening an expensive spa where busy people pay me money to whack them on the head with a baseball bat.

Levity aside, I’ve never seen a master meditator discuss “quieting the mind” as a downside.

I don't think they are saying it's a downside. Quite the opposite: "but also soothing." I think she means more "If this is the price I had to pay to get there, I'd rather have a noisy mind."

For some reason I found this line particularly funny and poignant:

"But did you know that you can eat whole grains and still get hit by a truck?"

As I get older, more and more people around me get ill and die: many of them super healthy, not smoking or drinking, sporty all their lives, wealthy, health food nuts and no family histories get diagnosed with cancer and heart disease. In my group more healthy than unhealthy receive terrible outcomes at too young an age. It seems indeed it is not fair; do not believe or think it is, there is no reason to do so. Oh and another one is: you can have cancer and still get hit by a truck. Or; statistics don’t mean so much if it’s you ‘winning’ that lottery.

Life is inherently suffering and has no meaning. Being healthy brings many people joy and so does smoking cigarettes; either way we're here for a limited time surrounded by things that are trying to kill us so why not enjoy it?

That's my take at least. During winter I'd probably have a more depressing perspective but the sun has been out lately.

Not sure if you meant to say that, but I do believe you should do what you like and can in this short period on earth. Whatever that is and if it doesn’t hurt others, do it please, it doesn’t matter anyway.

However, almost all people I know that are over the top healthy (measuring everything, doing some sort of ‘du-jour’ diet (all meat, no meat, all protein, no protein, extreme fasting, no fasting; etc; ‘the best way to live’ changes more often than JavaScript frameworks), a lot of sports) are addicts to it or do it because they believe they will get a lot older than others (weird to me as many spend a of time doing stuff they don’t like; why would you want to lengthen your life in that case, but ok).

there's a workaholic / achievement / perfectionist satisfaction aspect at play - hustle to make yourself into an idealized version of self. Since achieving this is difficult, gradual, and ultimately impossible, it becomes a perpetual distraction.

I’d say existence precedes essence, and meaning is what the living do. If we make efforts to increase the footprint, robustness, and extent of life then we increase that meaning. (Existentialism, but more.)

> Life is inherently suffering and has no meaning.

I'd hate to hear your winter perspective :)

I'd think with a username like that you'd be in agreement. Certainly I've not found any other truth about life.

The suffering depends on how lucky you are though; if you are well off (inherited or self made) and/or born in the right country you have the dope to not have the suffering. Eventually the dope to end it, whenever that may be. Meaningless cannot be helped; the universe is dark and vast and nothing ‘cares’ on any larger scale than your immediate family/friends, and even they lose interest, if they really had any to begin with.

I’m not sure about that. I think our baseline for suffering just shifts. So you can shield a person in a bubble of happiness, still some minor inconvenience might cause that person to break down if they’re not used to experiencing it.

The same way, people who have suffered a lot in the past might be now more happy than you are, maybe you’re objectively better but you might not perceive it that way, which is what matters in the end.

The Buddha was a prince.

Another data point: We got a Peloton last year and have rode with lots of instructors. All of them are fit as hell. One of them had a stroke and another is battling breast cancer. Life waits for no one.

Statistics are kinda pointless when you only have one life, just enjoy life and try to balance having some health as well.

There are many studies that prove that having a healthy body (like not very obese) improves your lifespan.

But going 5x to the gym a week, or a 6-pack has very little impact.

So make sure you touch grass, have sometime to take care of your body but don't go extreme, it's a waste of time

People who think that living healthy cosmically entitles them to live to the age of 85 without any unfortunate events are (cosmically) entitled. A sort of “I deserve better” attitude towards unhealthy people who happened to be more lucky reveals a nasty moralistic attitude.

Living healthy is extrinsically rewarding in itself. You better your odds at least. Maintaining this latent chip on your shoulders towards the unhealthy is weird.

EDIT: I wonder if there is a (channeling Nixon) silent majority of health-“nuts” who just live healthy without advertising it (beyond their inherent health and vitality!). We naturally mostly notice those who make it part of their persona.

> Maintaining this latent chip on your shoulders towards the unhealthy is weird.

I don’t do that : I just know a lot of extremes and it seems that it is moving toward that more but that might be my bubble. If you eat healthy, move, no smoking or drinking and don’t mention your marathons or weird diet every 5 minutes, it seems healthy to me, but people around me seem to not find that healthy since covid. It has to be more extreme, especially diet and especially the telling me how much they move per day as if it’s something to be proud of. So yes your EDIT exactly; their persona.

I don’t care if people are unhealthy or not and I don’t think it matters too much from personal experience; do what you like but don’t tell me about it. I live healthy but not extremely so that I have a diet or am so skinny that my wrists are the size of my calves (I have honest to god people who have that and say they are in superior health; smart people with doctorates too I might add); I don’t believe it but I definitely don’t care how much they bicycle, run, swim or whatever.

Yeah, important to realize healthy eating and exercise does something like reducing a 5% (say) chance of early severe sickness or death to a 2% chance. The exact numbers are definitely wrong but the size of the effect seems about right.

Of course, the chance of death is always 100% in the end :^)

The smokers excuse eh!

I had a "moderate" TBI while in the military, and I'm actually dealing with a migraine today.

I am absolutely less smart (however you want to phrase that) on the days I have a migraine. I can't quantify it, but I can say that on normal days I can do advanced math, etc. and on migraine days I just... can't understand it. It's like it just doesn't "click".

It's fascinating and gives me profound empathy for those who don't have the mental faculties I do (on my good days).

That reads as somebody experiencing PTSD in addition to the injury. The "am I me" and new perspective on work and life happens as a consequence of life altering tragedy.

I have a similar injury and I'm honestly not sure how you can not have a PTSD with a brain injury of this magnitude. So there's no need to write "in addition to". The PTSD is part of the symptoms of this kind of injury.

The first year was especially tough, with a lot of suicidal thoughts and constant self-doubt.

For what it's worth, my son has this injury (severe brain trauma), approximately 30% of brain is non existent. He doesn't have PTSD as it happened when he was a baby along with a large number of complications. I got PTSD with all of the multiple surgeries (and wishing goodbyes), EVDs, shunts, life and death decisions, and witnessing near death on a few occasions for him over months. The only positive is I can see PTSD in other people from once having it myself, and it is heartbreaking because I know exactly what they are going through too.

The "in addition to" was to note the change of behaviour she's noticed, not the fact you couldn't have PTSD after an injury. :) For example she mentions she forgets stuff (the injury probably) then also mentions about not feeling motivated (the PTSD).

So much of this article resonates with me. Fortunately ours was not as horrific. Last year, my family was in a car crash while stopped at a stop sign. Someone from the crossing road veered off directly into my driver's side without slowing, about 40 mph. My pregnant wife and two year old daughter were in the back seat. My wife sustained a concussion and extreme anxiety about the condition of our unborn child for the remainder of the pregnancy. My nose was broken and face scarred. My daughter was physically unharmed.

Everything she says about feeling like its important to tell people that you did nothing wrong, that it wasn't an 'accident' (oopsie, I almost killed your entire family!), that somehow you have to just keep on living your same life again and driving like this couldn't happen any minute ever again - I feel in my bones and don't think I will every be comfortable on the road or around cars ever again.

The person that hit us fled and was not pursued or found. Sometimes I wonder if they ever get curious about what happened to us. Also, turns out uninsured motorist coverage only applies if you can prove they didn't have insurance, hah.

My todo list item to install driver cams has gone for way too long, I need to bump it up in priority.

Hope you’re doing better.

This is a really interesting account. One thing I found myself wondering was how much is the shift in her caused by the TBI, and how much by the assertion that she and her family are mortal?

This sounds like an head-on collision that happened on a high speed rural two-lane road with an impatient driver thinking they could complete a tight pass in time. I absolutely hate these roads, for this reason.

It is possible that the idiot in the truck just didn't see the oncoming car.

It baffles me often how distracted drivers just pull out somewhere and hit a car that would be impossible to miss if the driver bothered to look at all.

Possible, yes, but I know of a stretch of road that sounds identical to the one from the article. Single lane each way and the natural curve upward completely obscures your visibility of the opposing lane. There's "no passing" signage but I still see drivers continually pulling exactly the same maneuver going uphill and it's the most dangerous driving situation I can imagine.

It's not the road's fault. It's the psycho drivers who attempt speeding or worse passing at speed who are the danger. May I suggest you redirect your hate? If enough of us do it maybe we will see some change in driver's behavior one day.

It can absolutely be the road's fault.

Why does a two lane rural road, often without a shoulder, often cutting through large swaths of unpredictable wildlife need to be rated for 70mph?

I'm a cyclist and love walking. I've seen way too many drivers simply not give two fucks about pedestrians, cyclists or even other cars. I've seen way too many drivers pull out their phones at stoplights or on freeways where "nothing is going on". I've seen way too many drivers drive 30mph+ through parking lot spots thinking nothing of it.

Meanwhile, public transportation initiatives and city landscapes get shot down and destroyed constantly in favor of adding "just one more lane" because people can't be arsed to drive 30mph and NEED 45mph stroads they can blast through at 60mph.

Driving is one of the most dangerous activities we do on a daily basis and so many people treat it like absolutely nothing bad can happen. I hate it.

There will always be psycho drivers on the roads. Road designers should take that into account and design roads that make it harder for psycho drivers to endanger others.

Perspective granted. A good reminder of how often I take basic cognitive function for granted and a reminder that we’re entirely dependent on this system our existence is wired into.

Long time ago I had a concussion resulting from a skiing accident. It wasn't immediately apparent, but it was severe enough that I lost my job and spent ten months on unemployment. For the worst of it I was stupid, I couldn't be funny, and I was overall greatly diminished as a person. Luckily, it wasn't as bad as concussions can get, and it faded with time.

This type of injury terrifies me though, and from what I read about the long-term effects of Covid, I can't believe people are just going along with it as if it was a common cold. To lose my mental faculties, long-term, is prospect beyond depressing.

IDK why you are getting downvoted. Evidently some Covid-deniers here? I hope you get better soon; no question losing your mind is terrifying. I'm watching it happen to my FIL, formerly a very sharp engineer and excellent writer, who can no longer even roll dice and move a gamepiece. Seems terrifying indeed.

Any updates on how she’s been going?

Here's her facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/hanaschank

She seems to be doing well and her writing and snark are on point. After reading her posts I'd wager 50% of you will think she's still brain-damaged and 50% will say she's never been in better shape -- such is the contemporary zeitgeist.

She doesn't seem to have a (public) twitter account anymore, so I'm on the better shape side.

Interesting that even in the middle of recovering, she was still such a strong writer. There are a few really excellent turns of phrase and gut punches in a pretty short article.

Is there a follow-up?

My mom always used to say "if you want to be happy, get a lobotomy"

Paywalled, who’s got some snaps on the petro?

https://archive.is/hm5Ai

Reading mode (iOS) also gets rid of the paywall.

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