Scientists always seem to think that everybody should only believe things that are true.

Let’s say I have a million thoughts and ideas. I want a lot of the things I believe to be highly questionable.

For example:

• I don’t believe in numbers.

• I don’t believe in ADHD.

• I think Buddhism is the devil in disguise.

These are real beliefs of mine.

Now, let’s take the mind of a scientist:

• Evolution theory is true.

• The world is round.

• The underlying mechanism of nature is stochastic.

If you were to plot this as a neural network, scientific thinking would be overly weighted toward truths. Basically, the parameters are off. It’s far more efficient to combine things with a low probability of being true with things that have a high chance of being true and set the whole thing up as a belief system. This lets you reach the end goal faster because your bandwidth is wider. You see possibilities that others don’t see, because they only run feedback loops on a very small slice of the whole cake.

Basically, what you do is question everything everybody believes in. As a bonus, this also sharpens your mental blade.

I am also a huge supporter of the ADHD way of working:

• You start a task.

• You start a new task.

• You start another one.

This is how you gather information fastest, as long as you finish tasks over longer periods of time.

Back to the brain. Truth is a funny thing. What is true for you is not true for me. That alone is strange. Only believing things that are true gives you the feeling that you are moving on a stable position—until you aren’t. It creates a sense of control. I want the opposite. I want to be amazed. So I take as many unstable positions and questionable ideas as possible.

Why You Can’t Solve 1 + 1

The answer to 1 + 1 should be something like “this left 1 and that right 1.”

It’s confusing: once you treat it as an abstract, you suggest that 1 + 1 here is the same as 1 + 1 there—which it isn’t.

A uniform 1 + 1 = 2 doesn’t exist in real life. It exists only in your imagination.

I’m still waiting for the moment I see a number 1 flying around, or the moment I can multiply two apples by two in real life. I have a vague feeling this will never happen.

The problem with mathematics is similar to the problem with thoughts. It suggests that two identical things are the same thing. But a dark thought when you are in bad shape is not the same as that exact same dark thought when you are in good shape. The thought reflects a state.

It’s smarter to start with observation in real life. You start with two apples, and then you notice that “adding” two apples is really something like taking them from somewhere else and placing them into this frame.

If you don’t do it this way, important information gets lost. Which apples are we talking about? Is one already rotten? Even if you only “work” with green apples, you’re still missing information.

So start with real life.
Then frame the object.

Thoughts and ideas that help me

You don’t have a problem if you feel sad. You have a problem if you never feel sad.

Sadness means that you are able to feel. And that you consider things important enough to feel sad about them. That is actually a good sign.

I lived for years in which I was never sad. Those were the years when I was actually doing the worst.

A lot of intelligence is not doing things.

Je kunt niet echt spreken over evolutie, omdat elk individu te uniek is.

En met uniek bedoel ik écht uniek: er zal nooit meer iemand komen die ook maar in de buurt komt van wie jij bent. Dat klinkt misschien als een cliché. Maar als je er zo naar kijkt, zie je het bijzondere aan jezelf, in plaats van het generieke.

Maar wat is eigenlijk generiek?

Algemene labels zoals ADHD, of het begrip ‘ego’ in het boeddhisme, suggereren dat er meerdere dingen zijn die ongeveer hetzelfde zijn. Dat is niet zo. Elke persoon is zó verschillend dat elke vorm van ADHD ook totaal anders is. Dan zou je dus moeten kijken naar wat jouw ADHD uniek maakt.

Hetzelfde geldt voor dieren. Elke kip die je eet had een ander karakter. Het verdrietige is dat we vaak alles in één bak gooien — mensen, dieren, cijfers. Dat klopt ergens wel, maar het haalt het unieke uit elk levend wezen. Dit heeft niets te maken met borstklopperij, maar met het zien van het bijzondere in iedereen.

Het is ook verdrietig dat veel mensen zelf niet zien dat ze op hun eigen manier heel bijzonder zijn, zelfs als die manier afwijkt van wat als ‘normaal’ wordt gezien.

You can’t really speak of evolution, because every individual is too unique.

And by unique, I mean truly unique: there will never be anyone who even comes close to being like you. That may sound like a cliché. But when you look at it this way, you start to see what is special about yourself, instead of what is generic.

But what is generic, really?

General labels such as ADHD, or the concept of the “ego” in Buddhism, suggest that there are multiple things that are more or less the same. That’s not true. Every person is so different that every form of ADHD is also completely different. If anything, you should be looking at what makes your ADHD unique.

The same applies to animals. Every chicken you eat had a different character. The sad part is that we often put everything into one single box — people, animals, numbers. In a way that makes sense, but it strips away the uniqueness of every living being. This has nothing to do with showing off or self-importance; it’s about seeing what is special in everyone.

It’s also sad that many people don’t see for themselves that they are special in their own way, even if that way differs from what is considered “normal”.

Je bent niet je gedachten, zeggen boeddhisten weleens. Het is precies andersom: een gedachte is een heel klein stukje van jou. Als je al je gedachten optelt — en je kleine teen, en je buik, en je gezellige karakter — dan vormen al die dingen samen één jou.

You are not your thoughts, Buddhists sometimes say. It’s exactly the other way around: a thought is a very small part of you. If you add up all your thoughts — and your little toe, and your belly, and your warm, friendly character — all of those things together form one you.

Blijf dicht bij jezelf.

Stay close to yourself.

Why Knowledge Is More Dangerous Than It Looks

When you think you understand something, you start seeing everything through that lens. Right now, we think we understand ADD and ADHD. We don’t. Yet we interpret everything in that light.

Once you put on those “glasses,” it becomes almost unimaginable that we might be dealing with something else entirely. Or that two people labeled with the same “ADHD” can be so fundamentally different that the term itself may not be useful at all. Individuals are so unique that broad labels often obscure more than they reveal.

It’s the same with the animals we eat. There are no two identical chickens, no two with exactly the same character. Yet we treat them as if they are interchangeable.

Physics works in a similar way. If reality is a cake, physics is just one slice of it. And there is more than cake. Far more than we can imagine. Not less to discover—but more.

You can’t simply say, “The world spins because of physics.” I genuinely wonder whether the world felt the same before the “invention” of physics (and yes, I know this quickly becomes a definition game—whether physics is invented or discovered).

Still, I wonder whether the world is the same when you don’t look at it through the lens of physics at all. Because it feels different.

I have a very simple proposal.

The uniqueness of everything should be at the start of every equation.

Ego in Buddhism? A generic label that takes out the individual.
E = mc²? A generic formula that doesn’t work at every geographical location or time.
ADHD? A generic label for people who are very different.
Numbers? There are no two identical “1”s, so you can’t really solve 1 + 1. The left 1 is different from the right 1.

In other words: you start by observing the uniqueness of a given state instead of finding generic rules.

Thought patterns that fit with psychosis (experienced)

• A constant feeling that you are being followed.
• Extreme paranoia — you think everyone is secretly talking about you when you see people at a distance.
• The feeling that nothing will ever turn out right again.
• Having no positive feelings at all.

The strange thing is that your thoughts seem to adapt to the situation. I didn’t used to have delusions of being followed. At some point, I did.

You also think negatively about everything. As if everyone is out to harm you. I found it mentally very heavy.

What helped:

• contact with other people
• exercise
• healthy eating
• moments of silence, and believing that things will turn out okay
• routine, work, etc.
• creative, writing, drawing

In short: acting normal. That’s why I think that for many people, psychiatry isn’t healthy, or just staying at home all the time. It’s important to let as many people as possible participate in society. The rest doesn’t work.

My thoughts now:
Color is slowly coming back, but it was gone for a long time. Occasionally there are good and optimistic moments. The sun sometimes shines through just a tiny bit, but that took a long time after the diagnosis of psychosis.

I estimate that the buildup toward psychosis takes 10–20 years, and the recovery, if you change your life around, takes at least 5 years.