the downside of learning, courtesy of the red army faction

You know when you learn a new word, or a new song, or any new subject, whether it be the details of the Exxon spill in school or the history of Amsterdam’s leaning architecture while travelling abroad, and then all of a sudden you start repeatedly seeing, hearing, recognizing that information for seemingly the first time? I’ve been thinking about this and I know I’m not alone in this experience. In fact, there’s a name for it - the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon. Imagine being named that (Just looked it up and Baader-Meinhof was a far-left German terrorist group) It’s a type of cognitive bias, so basically it occurs when we think we’re the main character. In this particular situation, I guess there could be bias before we learn something, blurring out information we can’t relate to, as well as after, seeking out information we understand and generally subscribe to. 

Now, what about cognitive TORTURE? I dont know about you, but it’s not always a good feeling to feel constantly followed by a word, a song, or your uncle. I first felt strongly that my cognition was being tortured in the wee hours of 2021, when I began playing casual chess with my friends which facilitated something dancing between frequency illusion and hallucination. Casual chess turned into daily casual chess, which turned into daily somewhat serious chess, which turned into an addiction. I was never very good - I got up to around 1,000 in blitz on chess.com in my prime. But, nevertheless, I was addicted to everything about it - chess history, chess celebrities, famous openings, famous endings, chess AI and deep blue, chess nights in bars. I used chess as a tool to make friends on college campus in Seattle. I scolded my now-ex-girlfriend for not playing with me, even though we both knew I’d win.

Baader-Meinhof started poking guns in my face when I got behind the wheel and started seeing other cars as chess pieces. I was most commonly a knight, or the horse on a chess board, and any car an L-shape away from me was on an endangered square. One right lane over and 30 feet ahead of me? I’ll crank my wheel clockwise and step on it til I capture you, pawn darling. I never got into any accidents because of chess visions. However, the intrusive thoughts were oh so there. I also had frequent chess dreams. The worst ones were the half awake ones. They made me feel sick. An infinite chess board, a ticking timer, have to make a move because it’s the only thing to do in this liminal chess dream world.

It took about six months from the time I really started loving chess and chess apparently loving me back for all the visions and strong feelings to start going away. Then, it was code. Java, in particular. Every movement, decision, creative piece I made was actually just a sequence of functions in Java. I was class Noah,  a part of a large program full of other classes which were my friends, meals, doors, and anything I ever interacted with. It was horrible, living in code. I wanted to vomit 0s and 1s. Like chess, this started occurring soon after my first programming class my freshman year of college. And like chess, I loved coding.

So guys, do the things you love haunt you too? What is it about a peaceful sleep that looks so easily ruinable by the mysteries of the dark side of cognition?