Melancholy, Growth, and Mindcraft: A Working Paper

I've posted a new working paper to the web. Title above, links, abstract, table of contents, and introduction below.

Academia.edu: https://www.academia.edu/129757296/Melancholy_Growth_and_Mindcraft_A_Working_Paper
SSRN: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5282480
ResearchGate:  https://www.researchgate.net/publication/392400067_Melancholy_Growth_and_Mindcraft

Abstract: This document explores the relationship between melancholy, creativity, and mental growth through the lens of personal blogging patterns. The author, William Benzon, analyzes his 14-year blogging frequency data as a proxy for mood fluctuations, revealing periodic slumps initially attributed to Seasonal Affective Disorder. However, examining recent years shows patterns contradicting SAD, suggesting these cycles instead reflect periods of mental reorganization facilitating creativity. Drawing parallels to computational processes like code refactoring and neural network training, Benzon proposes that depressive episodes serve as adaptive "stepping back to better jump forward" phases. The author quantifies his intellectual growth by tracking blog tag proliferation (expanding at approximately 7% annually), representing cognitive differentiation. The document concludes by exploring broader implications for a society where technological acceleration necessitates continual mental retooling, advocating for new forms of "mindcraft" to navigate these transitions. This analysis connects personal experience with wider questions about depression, creativity, and adapting to an AI-driven future.

CONTENTS

Introduction: Tracking my mind across 14 years 3
More about Growth, Melancholy, and Mindcraft 3

The core argument 4
Clarifying the core 5
Where I was headed 6

Melancholy and Growth: Toward a Mindcraft for an Emerging World 7

My Posting Habits Over the Last Decade 8
Depression and Mental Growth 12
Measuring My Mental Growth 15
Some More General Observations: Mind and Brain 18
Conclusion: Crafting Minds 20
Appendix 1: Secondary features of my posting pattern 21
Appendix 2: New Savanna tags as of December 1, 2024 21
Coming out of a melancholy period [down phase] 24

Discussions with Claude 28

Neural maturation, cerebral plasticity, and the adaptive value of vacations 28
Depression and Creativity 33
From a tag collection to a digital companion and beyond 37

Introduction: Tracking my mind across 14 years

This working paper is a bit unusual. It is autobiographical in the sense that it is about events in my life as they have unfolded over time. It is, however, very abstract. The events are the posting of entries to my blog, New Savanna, and they are present in this document only as monthly totals depicted in several charts. The number of posts in a month is a clear indication of my overall mood for that month. The primary objective of this paper is thus to analyze and comment on that pattern, which seems to indicate yearly cycles of creativity and melancholy.

My secondary objective is to analyze the production of tags making blog entries and to take that production as a measure of mental growth. While both of these exercises are somewhat speculative, this is more speculative than the first.

About the sections of this working paper:

More about Growth, Melancholy, and Mindcraft: This both introduces the argument without all the analysis and commentary and clarifies the structure of the argument, separating it into two phases.

Melancholy and Growth: Toward a Mindcraft for an Emerging World: This is the main argument, presenting that basic data about posting frequency and then about annual increase in the number of tags. There is an appendix listing all of the tags as of December 1, 2024 (I’ve added more since then.)

Coming out of a melancholy period [down phase]: This documents my posting and sleeping patterns in October and November of 2024 and my sleeping patterns from November 2024 through the end of January 2025. When I’m coming out of a melancholy phase I tend to wake up during the night and do some work, whether simply cruising the web or writing and posting. During this most recent “awakening” I decided to make entries on my Facebook page to give notice that I was awake and working in the night.

Discussions with Claude: It is now my habit to consult with both Claude and ChatGPT on projects I’m working on. While some sessions are merely informational, others involve more intense working-through-ideas. This contains three such discussions: 1) neural maturation, 2) depression and creativity, and 3) the use of tag count as an index of mental growth