So, my two tests for koan design are the following:
1. Work despite fatigue
2. Cold approach
These represent peak difficulty for conscientiousness and social adaptation respectively.
Interestingly, focus/conscientiousness and social adaptation are inversely correlated. I am naturally good at working with laser focus, because my brain architecture relies heavily on filtering, abstraction and barriers. I am naturally bad at extrovert socializing, for the same reasons.
Likewise, a koan that produces intensely focused work is likely to bomb socially, and a fuzzy feel-good koan that works socially is likely to ruin discipline when working alone.
That is what happened when I put my chains koan to the cold approach test. It failed, so I started changing it, which then caused it to fail test #1 as well. Building a koan that passes both tests is absurdly tricky.
I passed both tests yesterday. The passing design is too complicated-yet-simple to attempt explaining yet. I don’t know where to begin. Also, I should test it longer.
It’s still chains, but with a few core and a lot of periphery upgrades. The wordless reactor core is bimodal, one for alone and one for in company. The primary trigger has several variations to manage switching and regulate reactor temperature. Then the whole is wrapped in concentric rings of peripheral adherence triggers and inflectors.
I have to say it’s about as intricate as my proof, which also appears deceptively simple to those who haven’t waded through Kant.
I’m not sure it’s useful for anyone but me. My hardware/software combo is vanishingly rare. Perhaps the process is useless as well. Koanic experimentation is like editing the main operating system of the host PC – apt to blow up in your face repeatedly. Still, I can’t imagine living without the results. In fact, given the choice between permanently losing internet or koans, I’d keep the koans.
Since I am an unnatural being in an unnatural environment pursuing unnatural objectives, I would be utterly stupid to use my natural operating system.
One other fun bit:
1. Alone working needs a depressed state, because comfort breeds stasis.
2. Together socializing needs a comfortable state, because effort breeds incongruence.
3. Yet the introvert’s norm is comfort alone, anxiety together – which is inversely optimal.
Thus the price of victory is Pyrrhic – isolated hours must be experienced as suffering to maximize discipline. The contrast in affect then fuels socializing.
I speak of a wordless, general, mild, pervasive depression that induces realism and makes the lizard brain get up and move. Not the crippling, pathological varieties. I simply let my face relax into stone, and a slow emptiness begin to beat in my heart, as the natural barriers of my mental architecture choke off emotional life. The capacity to enjoy procrastination dies and right action becomes natural, but is not accompanied by distracting pleasure.