Trivial Relief:

[Moose]

I just had an odd experience: I was looking to reinstall Neverwinter Nights and expansions, and I'd realized that I'd misplaced the Hordes of the Underdark expansion at some point in the move.

So I went through my CDs with a fine-toothed comb, twice, three times with no luck. I checked all of my old CD drives and burners and used to manual unlock just in case I'd neglected to remove the CD before the last major device upgrade. Still no joy.

Trying to stifle my rising frustration and anxiety (Yeah. What? It's just a game. Chill dude.) I'd even contemplated taking a drive into town to locate a bargain bin copy, if I could.

And just as it came time where the CD would have been necessary to continue the installation, (and moments before I was about to go get my car keys and wallet), I had the thought to check my PSOne CDs, just in case it'd got mixed into those.

Sure enough, there it was, along with two other of my top-shelf games I would have eventually missed.

And I'd felt a surprisingly strong sense of relief at the discovery.

Now, I sat here thinking about that. Why on earth did I experience anxiety and relief at the loss and finding of an expansion pack I could have reobtained for five-to-ten bucks with only a little effort?

(This, having undergone REAL stress and relief in the past ten years or so.)

Anyone else go through something similar, and experience relief for an utterly trivial reason?

[Gillianren]

I've always felt that, the greater the stress in my life, the less important something has to be before I experience great relief. Found a book that I bought for a quarter at the library? Great! Found same book while I'm worried about, say, my mother's heart problems? Beyond great!

I think it's a release mechanism. I need the relief more.

[ToSeek]

I react very badly when plans I've made go awry, even if those plans were trivia. I tend not to like surprises!

[Ozzy]

I believe frustration is defined as being caused by the difference in how much you want something and your actual capacity to achieve it. This is often unresolved but fortunately sometimes we eventually get what we want ...... aaaaaahhhhhhh the relief.

[Tog]

I knew a guy that had an odd way of finding things like that. For those who saw or read Dreamcatcher, it will be a bit familiar, though he told ma about it about 16 years ago.

In his world there is a little guy in your brain whose job is to file and retrieve all the bits of information that you know. If you wonder where you put something, it pages the guy and he comes up to see what you need. You tell him you need that CD and he heads off to see where he had you put it. If you wonder again, he has to come back to the front, then start over again. This is why you look in the same place over and over. his method of inding something was to say to yourelf, "Little Man, I need that CD" three times, then go watch TV and not think about it again. During the show, it will hit you and you'll go right to it. I've actually done this, and it's worked for me about 1/2 the time.

The same guy also explained why people do stupid things like lock thier keys in their car. Your brain knows there are X steps n getting out of the car.
Turn off motor
Turn off lights
Take off seatbelt
Take out keys
Open door
Get out
Lock door
Close door.
If you do anything other than those things, your brain still runs the same number of steps. If, as you take off your seatbelt you drop your sunglasses. Picking them up replaces Take out Keys on the list, and they get locked in the car.

In my world, the Blue Dudes are real and I yell at them often.

[Ozzy]

The more you use the little guy in your brain (LGIB) the better he will perform. It is a well known technique used by many successful people. Think about what you want (object, solution etc), then put it right out of your mind. Then poof! the answer comes.
A classic example is when you are trying to remember the name of someone. The more you try to member, the more name options come to mind Tom, Todd, Bog..... The person leaves, you carry on with life and then aaaahhhhh ......Tog!
I often sow the seed of an idea and then sleep on it.

[Tog]

I can't sleep on something like that. If I have anything rattling around in my head, I just lay there and twitch. I think it's because I really messed my self in high school and jr. high. I thought it would be cool to be able to be able to thing of two or three things at once, so I'd practice it. I could go over mental notes on may last class while talking to a friend about whatever the topic at hand might have been, while some song played in the background of my head. For a while it was really cool, but now it's just impossible to focus. I've tried a couple of different forms of meditation to try and get my head cleared for a while, but the only thing that sort of worked was Tai Chi. Even then, the form I was learning was an older one that still had obvious combat applications, so I had to learn the breakdowns (applications) too. Every now and then, when I'm tired I'm able to zone for a bit, but as soon as I realize it, it all starts up again.

I've never been good with names, but I've always been really good with numbers. I can memorize a credit card number in the time it takes to pass it from on person to another, but I have no clue what the name on the card is. In the Army, there was another guy there that had a really good memory so we'd take turns seeing who could memorize both sides of an ID card that fastest. We had it down to about three seconds with about 5 minutes of retention. One day we were learing how to perform guard duty and challenge a person that approached. The Drill Sargeant happend to pick him. Someone tossed him their ID card, he glanced at it and answered every question the DS asked about it. The poor DS knew he'd been had but had no idea how.

I never knew the little guy was a real technique.

[Ozzy]

nostalgic sigh....... when I was younger I could easily do my homework, listen to the TV, argue with my siblings, and talk on the phone at one time. I believe it has been found that young people do not actually do it all at once, but are able to switch very quickly between mental activities.

I guess my switching mechanism is wearing out!

I've found that the busy frontal lobe is greedy for brain space, and even though a sensible part of your brain says you really need to sleep, it just keeps interupting. Perhaps you could try delegating the problem at hand to the LGIB. I find that focusing on what my toes feel like works well. When my thought process try to take me off on a tangent I insist that we? think about my toes.

[farmerjumperdon]

Similar thing with getting on a good run and recognizing that the planets must be aligned for me (or something like that). For example, the lawn mower start acting up, the day after one of the kids RC cars stops working. Putz with the lawn mower for a moment and find it is something trivial and easy to fix. Turn to the car and it ends up being a teeny little wire that needs soldering, and the task comes off without a hitch. At that point, it's time to roll with the karma and find other things to fix (from the never-ending list).

Let me at that sticky door jamb that wouldn't respond to my crude engineering last time; maybe change the brake pads while I'm in the everything-is-going-smoothly zone. See if there's anything the spousal unit wants to talk about - might be pushing it.

As Richard Dreyfuss said in Let it Ride, "Sometimes you can be walking around lucky and not even know it."

[mugaliens]

eBay: http://search.ebay.com/Hordes-of-the...20UnderdarkQ22

[mugaliens]

eBay: http://search.ebay.com/Hordes-of-the...20UnderdarkQ22

As to the psychological problem, I get that too, when things don't happen the way I'd hoped they'd happen. Middle-aged senility? Since I'm middle-aged, that's the only explanation I can conjure. I'm also noticing that on occasion I know I know the answer, but can't quite put my finger on it. Then I do put my finger on it and realize it was the half-eaten slice of pizza I'd left on the counter the night before.

Ghastly, if you really want to know.

But I still appear to be banging on all three cylinders, so....

[Ozzy]

I dont understand the hordesof darness ebay connection. Please explain?

[Tog]

I dont understand the hordesof darness ebay connection. Please explain?

Re-read the fisrt post. in this thread. That's the game disk he was looking for that started it all.

[Moose]

Yeah. Of course, I did find the CD after maybe a half hour of searching, as I'd mentionned.

[Ozzy]

Doh!

It seemed strange at the time, but when I just now opened up this forum there it was ... the first post! ... gulp...

See .... like I said ... dumb question (No 0043792).