How to recover when your thinking stops

It seems the rainy season has ended here in Kyushu.
The humidity remains, and the intense heat is upon us.

With this intense heat, it's just too much!!

…See, even the dad jokes I come up with are just too much and lame in this heat.

The reckless act of firing off a double combo of lame jokes lol.
Someone help me!

With all that, I'm Michael, whose brain is starting to melt and turn into bubble slime.
Are you all okay? You haven't melted, have you lol?

I was born in winter, so I'm extremely weak against the heat. I wish it could just be winter all year round. (Though that would be a problem in its own way!)

By the way, my wife was born in summer, so she loves it.
Married couples really are complete opposites, aren't they lol. What? Is it just us?

I genuinely think, "I envy people who are good with summer!"

There are many downsides to the "heat," but for me, in this season, my thinking tends to stop. It happens every year.
Well, I can't deny that I use the heat as an excuse lol. Oh boy.

Starting this year, my activities on this Note platform have been added, but for me, "thinking stops" is quite troublesome when it comes to "active pursuits" like music.

This time, I will talk about my own interpretation of this and how I solve it.

What's so troublesome about "thinking stopping"?

First, I think there are two main reasons why thinking stopping is troublesome.

1. It's hard to notice when your thinking has stopped.

2. It's difficult to recover from a stop in thinking on your own.

You could say the first one is the most troublesome.

To put it simply, the "thinking" I refer to is "coming up with ideas to make the present and future fun." Ideas that can get yourself and those around you involved and excited.
The nuance might be a little different from the general definition of "thinking."
When things are going well, I think it's something everyone's brain does unconsciously.

This "unconscious" part is also troublesome lol, and because it's unconscious, you often don't notice when your thinking has stopped.

So, how can you tell if your "thinking has stopped"?
This is my own personal interpretation, but I will continue.

The indicator of a mental block is "charm"

People who are thinking are basically "excited," so from the perspective of others, they inevitablybecome more charming.

Isn't there at least one person like that around you?
Someone who is always lively, liked by everyone, dynamic, and full of charm.
That person is definitely someone who is thinking.

In other words, your own state of thinking might be the hardest thing for you to understand, in a sense.
You might just have to be constantly conscious of it. Let's check your heart's movement every morning: "Am I excited?"

"You have to be excited every day, or it's no good!"

…I won't go that far lol, but if days go by where you don't feel excited at all, that's a danger signal.
Your thinking might be about to stop, so please read this article to the end.

But, it's okay to let your brain rest with a mental block sometimes

That said, it's realistically difficult to "keep being excited" all the time.
Because "the brain also gets tired."

"Mental block" simply happens due tobrain fatigue, and stopping temporarily also has the effect of recovering the brain.

So, it's okay to have a mental block and take a break sometimes lol.
Sometimes

zoning out

and immersing yourself in thoughtlessness is also good.
I do this all the time whenever I get the chance lol. (Am I doing it too much? lol)

Since there are times when you can't do this and your brain freezes (= depressive state), I actually recommend periodic thoughtlessness lol.

Recovering from a mental block can only be done by "relying on others"

Now, thank you for waiting, let's move on to the second point: "It is difficult to recover from a mental block on your own."

This is something I have experienced often, but when ideas don't come, no matter how hard you try to force them out, they really don't come lol.

At times like this, it feels like you are desperately thinking and "thinking" very hard, but in reality, it is usuallya state of mental block.

As expected, you can't tell for yourself... lol.

"No ideas = mental block (= loss of charm)"

That is what I choose to believe.

A state of mental block is truly troublesome, and nothing you do seems to work.

It is like a gas stove with a dead battery in the igniter. No matter how much you turn the gas knob, it just won't light!

However, if you think about it calmly, you realize that no matter how desperately you turn the knob, it will never light. If you want to light the stove, you have no choice but to
bring fire from an external source.

A small spark from the outside. The fire you use to light it doesn't have to be big at all. Of course, it doesn't have to be a special sacred flame.

You know how it often happens in suspense dramas and anime, right?
The protagonist hits a wall, worries and worries, and then a casual remark from a family member gives them a flash of inspiration that leads to solving the case! That kind of development.
That classic trope, yeah, that one.

A tiny flame from a single match can sometimes save you when your thinking has stopped.

I will tell you a story about how I was saved by this very platform, Note, just the other day.

I perform acoustic music (as I always say).
I participate in live shows, but I had been feeling a bit stuck lately.

“To attract an audience, I have no choice but to cover popular songs.
But I also have genres of music I want to play myself.”

Well, I think it is a wall that every musician hits at least once.

Then, I happened to read an article on Note.
Gratefully, an article by someone who had followed me a few days prior contained exactly the content I needed at that once-in-a-lifetime moment.

Why do you need to cover popular songs?
Is the audience you want to gather just a random crowd? That's not right, is it?
Wouldn't it be ten thousand times more interesting to gather people who like 'you' covering the 'artists you like'?

…I can't explain it well, but that was the gist of it.

I felt the wall crumble away in an instant.

“So that's it!!”

Once the fire is lit, everything else happens quickly.
From there, my thoughts began to race all at once.
I feel like my goal, where I should be heading, has finally been set, at least a little bit.

Thinking itself is life itself

We are born to enjoy life. It would be a waste to just live it aimlessly.

Whether you can make your life enjoyable depends on your ideas and how you execute them.
Honestly, the people around you and your environment have nothing to do with it.

This is because, depending on your ideas, you can handle the people and environment around you however you like.

The very thoughts you envision become your life itself, and I don't think it is an exaggeration to say that.

It may sound cruel, but in my experience, "thinking" will never start moving if you just worry about it by yourself.

I have someone else "help" move my thinking a little, and then I use that moved thinking to generate "ideas."
I have made my life more enjoyable by repeating this process.

More exciting, more lively, and more fun.
I hope your life will surely become that way too.
Michael is wishing for it!

Thank you for staying with me until the end! This was Michael.