Jaime Pineda | The Interpreter Within: Understanding the Role of the Inner Voice in Creativity

Srini Rao


Jamie, welcome to the Unmistakable Creative. Thanks so much for taking the time to join us.

Jaime Pineda
Thank you. Happy to be here.

Srini Rao
Yeah, it is my pleasure to have you here. So you have a new book out called Controlling Mental Chaos, which I think just right when I read the title, I thought, yeah, I think every one of us has a little bit of mental chaos going on in our lives just as a natural byproduct of the world. That was extremely intrigued. But before we get into the book and your work, I wanted to start by asking, what did your parents do for work? And how did that end up shaping and influencing the choices that you have ended up making with your life and your career?

Jaime Pineda
Ha ha ha!

Jaime Pineda
Oh my goodness. So my dad was a lawyer who became a judge in, so I am originally from Central America, Honduras, so he lived in Honduras and was a judge. So he was educated, middle class, educated individual, very bright. My mother was a homemaker. And so she was very loving.

took care of us. And so my upbringing was quite good, actually. At the age of nine, they decided that I needed to go to the U.S. to get a better education because they couldn't provide that for me in Honduras. And so we had relatives living in L.A. at that time. And so nine years of age, they took me out of my...

you know, out of the family home and brought me to the US where I had to learn a new language. And I think that led me into the reason why I later became a researcher scientist, because it led me to ask all sorts of questions about, you know, my identity. Who am I, really? Because I went from one culture to the other, lost, you know, my language and my siblings.

in parents and so on. So it led me through this quest of trying to find out who I was, my true nature if you will. Yeah.

Srini Rao
Yeah. Well, so from what it sounds like, correct me if I am wrong, it sounds like what you are saying is that from the time you were nine years old, you were not actually raised by your parents, but by your relatives?

Jaime Pineda
Yes, yes.

Srini Rao (02:36.79)
All right, so what does that do for the relationship between you and your parents? Because on the one hand, their intentions obviously are for you to have a better life and to get educated in a way that you can't. At the same time, as a nine-year-old kid, I can't imagine that you are not thinking, wait, why are my parents leaving me here? So how did that impact the relationship that you have with your parents?

Jaime Pineda
Oh yeah.

Jaime Pineda
Yeah, I know it was interesting because at nine years of age, you are just really beginning to blossom into an adult mind, right? And I went through a period where I had a lot of doubts about the reasons for why my parents sent me out of their home. I mean, I thought maybe they couldn't take care of me or they didn't love me enough. And, you know, I went through all those questions.

But then I realized after a certain amount of time that they did it out of love. They really did it because they thought I would become a better person, more educated, have more opportunities. And so I had a switch in perspective. Now I think that in the long run, it helped our relationship.

And I say that because when you are young, when you are growing up as a teenager, you tend to rebel against the parents that are around you. I didn't go through that. I was at a distance from my parents and rebelling was the last thing that occurred to me. In fact, I think I grew to love them more because of that. So I think in the long run, it actually helped our relationship.

Srini Rao
Yeah. Well, there is one other thing, you know, as somebody who has been raised all over the world, I always wonder about sort of adapting to new cultures and kind of what you found shocking when you first got here. Like, you know, because it is funny because when I have lived in other countries, I even come back and have a bit of reverse culture shock. Like, you know, I have spent six months in Brazil and the reverse culture shock at times is almost worse. But I am wondering, like, you know, when you are nine years old and you are, you know,

Jaime Pineda
Yeah.

Jaime Pineda
Yeah.

Srini Rao
being forced to give up language, family, culture. What did you find shocking? What did you find funny? What did you find absurd when you first came to the United States?

Jaime Pineda (04:56.85)
Hmm. Well, I think initially it was a shock. Well, keep in mind that I came from a very poor village in Central America, in Honduras. Even though my parents were middle-class compared to the U.S., I'd say they were not that well-off. And so when I came and saw the wealth of things in this country, it was just overwhelming.

I mean, the first impression I got was being on the plane, flying into LA, the LA airport, and seeing all these lights across my window on just the countryside, just full of lights. And I thought, I must be in heaven. You know, that was my first thought. And then you'd land and you realize, these are people just like me.

Unfortunately, I went through a period where, once I started school, a period where I felt picked on, you know, because I came to live with family that lived essentially in a white neighborhood where they hadn't seen a lot of Latinos. And so the school was, I was one of the very few Latinos. And so...

kids responded to me in a certain way that took a while to get over. You know, I was the other, if you will. Now, once I got over that, went to high school, things began to change. I realized that I had more control of who I was, what I was, et cetera. And so things began to change.

Srini Rao
Yeah. What advice did your parents give you about sort of making your way in the world and career paths? Because, you know, like, I don't imagine any immigrant parent, at least any Indian immigrant parent, would be like, hey, we are sending you to the US so you can go become an artist and a creative. Like, that is the last thing on their mind. They are like, we are sending you there so you go become a doctor, lawyer, engineer. But I wonder about that. And then the other thing I always am curious about, particularly when people have, you know, come from other...

Jaime Pineda
Thank you.

Srini Rao
countries to this one and they have spent the bulk of their life here is you know how do you retain you know a sense of culture and heritage and of course you know passing those on to children if you have children how does that happen like for you at least

Jaime Pineda
Mm-hmm.

Jaime Pineda
Yeah.

Jaime Pineda
Yeah, no, that is such a deep question. So my parents, because they were educated, they valued education. And that is the reason why they sent me. They did want me to become a doctor, or an engineer, or something like that. But the one thing my dad said to me, right at the airport when I was taking off, he said, be anything but a lawyer.

Srini Rao
What?

Jaime Pineda
And I thought, why? You are a lawyer, why shouldn't I become like you? You know, I think it reflected a lot of his insecurities and problems that he had and all that. But in fact, that shaped what I was interested in, because I never considered law as a career. Now, because I did come...

to live with relatives who had an aspect of the culture, you know, I kept some of it. So I kept, I still speak Spanish a little bit, not fluently. And even though they were trying to assimilate, they also retained a little bit of the culture. They would cook, you know, the meals from back home and celebrate the holidays from back home, et cetera. And so I...

I was raised by relatives who maintain a certain amount of the culture, even though they were really embedded in this sort of unique English culture. I have tried in my life, I don't have children, unfortunately, so I can't speak to communicating that to my children, but I have tried to maintain those aspects. I read literature in Spanish and poetry in Spanish and that kind of thing. I listen to the music.

current music. So just try to retain that connection a little bit.

Srini Rao
Well, you know, the other thing I am always curious about when people come from places like Honduras is sort of what misperceptions the media creates about countries like yours, because it is funny because I took a surf trip to El Salvador. And of course, anybody who goes to El Salvador, like in the United States, when you say the word El Salvador, what is synonymous with it is MS-13, unfortunately. That is just the reality, because that is the way the media talks about El Salvador. And of course, you know, the moment you leave San Salvador, you kind of realize this is like not this

Jaime Pineda
Yeah.

Srini Rao
you know, war zone that people make it out to be. Although I heard in San Salvador, the youth hostel there at nighttime, they tell people like after seven o'clock, don't go anywhere. But so what do you, what misperceptions do you think that the media creates and what is the reality that we are not seeing?

Jaime Pineda
Right.

Jaime Pineda
Yeah.

Jaime Pineda
Yeah. Yeah, you know, unfortunately, the perceptions are sometimes based on truth, right? So if you think of Honduras, a lot of people think of poverty, drugs, and to a certain extent, those things exist. But what they don't emphasize is really the beauty of the place. I mean, I used to live close to the ocean.

In fact, my parents, when I was growing up, lived on the beach itself. And, uh, and I just remember the most amazing beaches there. And when I go back and visit, they are the most amazing beaches, you know, very calm waters of the Pacific ocean, warm waters, not a lot of surfing, but it is almost like a, a huge swimming pool kind of thing. I, and I love it. And so the beauty of that, the beauty of nature, you know, those things aren't, aren't emphasized.

And I think that that is the misperception. When you go there, you do see the poverty, but you get outside the big cities and what you see is just beautiful places.

Srini Rao
Well, talk to me through the trajectory that has led you to the research that you do in eventually writing this book. Like, what has led you here? What was the impetus for writing this book?

Jaime Pineda (11:39.27)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, so I started mentioning that at the beginning that at nine years of age with my move to the US, it got me started on these questions. And I think that led me to my interest in psychology. And so I got an undergraduate degree in psychology because I wanted to know, you know, what is it that makes me do the things I do? Who am I really? Why do I act this way?

So those were the kinds of things that interested me. And then I became really dissatisfied with psychological explanations. I wanted to know more about, well, what about the hardware? Well, how does that involve? How does the brain actually create these psychological feelings? And so I thought, well, maybe I should study that. And so I went into a PhD in neuroscience, which is basically the study of.

you know, the neurophysiology, neurochemistry, and all that of the brain, of the hardware. And again, I thought, yeah, these questions, I mean, this domain of knowledge helped me answer some questions, but there were still a lot of other questions that I wasn't satisfied with the answers. And so somewhere along the line, probably early in the beginning of my PhD career,

I got interested in meditation. I was introduced to it by a fellow student who was doing Zen meditation. And I didn't know anything about it, but he gave me several books to read and I got hooked. I realized that this was another way of actually studying the mind and the brain and answering questions of who am I, what am I really, et cetera.

And so for about 30 years now, I have been doing contemplative practices, mainly Zen and Vipassana meditation. And again, this is just another perspective, another way of asking or trying to get at the truth of who we are. And so the book really came together as a kind of fusion of all these interests in psychology and neuroscience and these contemplative practices, which gave me some insights into.

Jaime Pineda
into things. And like everybody else, I was experiencing my own anxieties, my own fears, my own mental chaos. And so I tried to apply the things that I was learning. And behold, I realized that some of these things actually worked. They were effective. And so at the end, after 30 years of this, I decided I need to

put it all together and try to help others who are going through kind of similar feelings of anxiety and fear and depression and mental chaos. And how did I deal with that? How did I approach it? How did it help me? And then try to explain from the biological perspective, the neuroscience perspective, what may be going on in the brain that causes these changes and that creates the opportunity to...

Do something about it.

Srini Rao
Yeah. Well, you open the book early on by saying your mind at birth was original mind, an active, adaptable, energetic, curious, creative mind, one encumbered by problems and with an attitude of openness, eagerness and lack of preconceptions. While you may no longer identify with such a mind, you may not have lost this treasure completely and it is possible to recover it. This is a journey you are starting. And so I wonder, how do we go from that

to mental chaos. Like how did we end up in a place of mental chaos if that is where we start? Like what is the explanation for what causes that? Obviously, you know, the joke, I always think of the TV show, Parenthood, when the very end the guy looks at his daughter and she apologizes for all the things she is messed up and he looks at her and says, parents, screw their kids up. That is just what we do.

Jaime Pineda
Yeah, right. Well, I think most parents who have children, who have infants will recognize what I said at the beginning that we come into this world with this sort of openness to us that is infectious. It is a curiosity and it is a sense of energy and creativity. You watch kids play.

They will entertain themselves with the simplest kinds of things. You know, we don't need to give them all these fancy toys because, you know, their minds are just active, right? So, yeah, so the question is how do we then turn to, you know, or become this mental chaos? And what happens is that because we are very vulnerable at the very beginning of our lives, when something negative happens,

You know, life itself brings all sorts of positive and negative experiences. But as we experience the world, we begin to react to it. And when things are quite negative, we develop strategies to minimize the harm of those things. And slowly, little by little, we develop ideas and thoughts and expectancies and experiences to protect ourselves from the world.

especially the negative consequences. And of course, we can think of that as our ego or our sense of self develops where we need to be careful about this and you know, watch out for this, you know, etc. And and in my mind what happens is this begins to cover over that initial energetic curious sense of self. It doesn't get rid of it. It doesn't transform it. It simply covers over like a mask.

You know, we put a mask of the ego. And it, this filters how we see the world, right? And how we respond to it. And so the anxieties and the fears come out of that filtering process where we sense a lack of, you know, lack of things, lack of resources, et cetera. So I think...

Jaime Pineda
The construction of what I call the virtual self, this ego self is slow, but over time it gets more and more concrete. And so at some point we then begin to believe that is our self, this set of ideas that we have developed when in fact our true nature is really buried deep inside, that creative energy source is still in there and you can get to it.

using all sorts of techniques.

Srini Rao
We will talk about techniques, but I am so glad you brought up infants because I have a one-year-old nephew. And to your point, it is just beyond fascinating and inspiring to watch how he navigates the world. Like everything is interesting to him. And funny enough, like you said, like, you know, my sister said, you guys went and bought him a drum, and instead we handed him a tin can from his milk, and he is more interested in that. And so there are things that I am personally curious about, like this kid finds rhythm.

Jaime Pineda
Yeah.

Srini Rao
in every single sound, whether it is a coffee machine, water. Like the minute you, like my cousin was holding him, we were driving back to Colorado, and my dad was backing the car out of the driveway. And he said, dude, he was like, he is dancing to the sound of the car backing out of the driveway. And I am like, this is amazing. Like, and it doesn't matter what the sound is. Like that is what is mind boggling to me. So one, I am curious from your research, like I just want to know from my own personal interest what might be going on there.

Jaime Pineda
Ha ha.

Jaime Pineda
Hmm.

Srini Rao
But the other thing that I think is really striking about him, and I had mentioned this in a previous episode, he is just learning to talk and he learned to say hi. And my sister takes him to places and he literally says hi to everybody. She took him to Target and she said, he said hi to every single person there. And so I wondered, you know, you are talking about these sort of layers that we start to build like ego and self, is it even possible to prevent that? Or is that kind of necessary for us to navigate the world? Like, because...

Jaime Pineda
Mm-hmm.

Jaime Pineda (20:02.99)
Yeah.

Srini Rao
I am guessing that all these things that, you know, layer on top of what you call original mind probably serve some positive evolutionary purpose, right?

Jaime Pineda
Absolutely, absolutely. Great question. So one of the things to keep in mind is that we don't come into the world, we used to think we were blank slates. But in fact, we come into the world with all sorts of pre-wired ways of behaving, pre-wired ways of learning, if you will, simple rules of associating things, etc. And with that simple mind,

it also comes with a high degree of adaptability. You know, we call it neuroplasticity in our field, where you put this brain into any environment and it will adapt to the things in that environment. So if you put it in a really enriched place where it hears music and it has a lot of people to interact with, it will grow into this amazing brain.

On the other hand, if you put it into a deprived environment, and this has been done with animals, where there is no food, no friends, no resources, the brain shrinks. It adapts to that environment. It literally shrinks. And so we come with a highly adaptable organism and with some basic functions already there. And things like language.

we believe, some believe, is a necessary skill that we evolve to communicate with others, right? And so you can probably inhibit that if you place somebody in an environment where they don't have other people to talk to or relate to, et cetera, but the impulse to communicate is innate, I think, in us. The other thing that you were mentioning about your...

the baby that you have.

Jaime Pineda
There was a point I was going to make now. I sort of lost that point. Oh, the rhythm, yes, the rhythm. Yeah, so it turns out that in fact, if you look at other animals, humans are unique in the sense of having that kind of rhythm where they can follow a music and tap your foot to the music and so on. There are very few animals that can do that. Most animals don't have that sense of rhythm or ability to follow a rhythm.

Srini Rao
Yeah, well, it was about the finding rhythm in every sense. Yeah.

Jaime Pineda
So that is how you, one of these unique things that we are born with, which we think is innate already there, and predisposes us to things like dancing and music and, you know, and so on. But there is already some predisposed behavior.

Srini Rao
Well, I mean, it is making me think back to, you know, sort of when he was born. I mean, we have been playing music for him since day one. Like I basically got him in the 90s hip hop when he was three months old. Every day we'd play the Fresh Prince of Bel Air and he would smile. But, you know, one thing that I am curious about is the sort of role of both genetics and environment in all of this, because you sort of mentioned, you know, being in a rich environment and, you know, I have been thinking about the way that my nephew.

Jaime Pineda
Great.

Jaime Pineda
Hmm.

Srini Rao
has sort of like grown up and you know for the first probably four months of his life my sister was at my parents house and our entire family was there so this guy woke up like Eddie Murphy and coming to America every day like literally seven people surrounding a crib smiling at him and he must be thinking I am a prince so my sister is like if it were up to him we would all be living under the same roof like that is his ideal environment he loves it when people around and so I am kind of thinking I am like oh I wonder if that has played a role in the fact that he is so outgoing and you know

feels this need to talk to every single person he sees.

Jaime Pineda
Yes, yeah. No, I mean, that is another sort of one of these innate behaviors that we come to a certain extent pre-wired and that is social interacting. From the very beginning, babies recognize their mother is face and they respond to that face and very quickly then they start responding to other faces. And what is interesting is that they will do anything to get that other to respond.

Srini Rao
No.

Srini Rao
Mm-hmm.

Jaime Pineda
They will smile, they will cry, they will draw you in basically because they want to have that kind of social interactivity. And that is an important aspect of being human because we have a need for the social interaction. So, yeah.

Srini Rao
Yeah.

Srini Rao (24:51.67)
You know, it is funny you say that because I, there were days, you know, when my nephew, like you just have to walk him around or he would get annoyed. And I remember I would take him upstairs and there is pictures of my sister when she was three years old. And every time we stood in front of that picture, he would just stop and stare. And I was like, wow, you actually recognize her even though that is a picture of her when she is three years old, you somehow know that is her.

Jaime Pineda
Yeah, no, incredible, right? And that takes, you know, memory and it takes attention and it takes all sorts of processes behind the scene to do all that, all the capabilities that we come with.

Srini Rao
Okay, so you go on to say that older brains still keep the ability to learn new skills or languages into advanced old age, although not as quickly or efficiently as before the reduction in ability may result from the larger volume of information accumulated. So let is talk about sort of how we go from this original mind to this sort of you know chaotic and out of control mind and mental chaos and how we basically you know sort of

Jaime Pineda
Mm-hmm.

Jaime Pineda
Mm-hmm.

Srini Rao
redirect it to the point where we can learn. Because to your point, there are people who learn things at older ages. I remember talking to Daniel Coyle about this and asking him about the talent code. And this is something that struck me and I'd be really interested to hear your take on it. We are talking about musical instruments in particular and musical talent because I played a musical instrument and I was telling him, I was really good, I picked it up really fast. But then in adult life, whenever I have tried to learn a musical instrument, I am not as patient, I am annoyed that I am not getting good as fast and I always abandon it.

Jaime Pineda
Mm-hmm.

Jaime Pineda
Mm-hmm.

Srini Rao
And he told me that he said, look, he said, is there a lit, are you going to be limited to a degree with age? He said, yes. Like some of the neuroplasticity is going to be gone. He said, like, he is like, are you going to open for Guns N' Roses at their next concert? No. He said, can you get good enough to impress the hell out of your friends and family? Yeah. So talking about that, like, what happens to, particularly motor skill development, because I have noticed

Jaime Pineda
Right.

Jaime Pineda
Ha ha ha.

Srini Rao
this in musical instruments. And I see it in the ocean when I am surfing and I see it on the mountain when I am snowboarding. Kids are quick to pick up things. I mean, I have seen little kids like just skiing circles around their parents. Like I remember this little girl going down moguls, looking back at her dad who was talking to me at the top of the lift. He is like, come on dad, you are dragging. I am like, wow, okay. Like that is going to be my nephew someday.

Jaime Pineda
Yeah.

Jaime Pineda
Yeah, that is interesting. Yeah, our brains when we are young, they are highly plastic and they learn very quickly. As you get older and you get more information, that plasticity gets reduced to a certain extent. But again, it never disappears. So you are still able to learn languages. You are still able to learn to ski.

But what happens, I think, is because we have so much more information. You know, we now worry about falling and breaking our leg. Right. And that impedes the, that sense of learning how to ski without any worries. Right. Um, and, and so part of the issue is the more information we have, the more it constrains our ability, our ability to learn. Right.

unless we are able to sort of let them go to a certain extent, right? And then it is easier, it gets easier. And that goes into, you know, I am sure we will get into, you know, creativity, because for me, creativity is an innate thing. We are all creative, but we cover it up. But letting go of that cover up is what we need to do. Yeah.

Srini Rao
Well, let is talk about that because I think that that, you know, that is something that I see over and over with people like people who have creative impulses and you mentioned sort of information and we are effectively drowning in a sea of information thanks to the internet. People like me are contributing to that with podcasts like this one. There is no shortage of access to information like, you know, I mean, my sister has been very intentional about limiting screen time for my nephew like the only screen time he gets is when he talks to us on FaceTime.

which I am actually very happy that they are doing that. But it got me thinking, one thing I hear so often when I ask people about what is inhibiting them from doing some creative thing that they say they want to do, like I have surveyed our audience multiple times about this, often it is fear, fear of judgment, fear of public opinion, fear of the things that they have absolutely no control over are often the biggest inhibitors. So one,

like, I think we have kind of touched on that fear, but let is talk about one, how that fear gets to the point where it just paralyzes people and they don't do this thing that they deep down want to do that is innate to them. And then we will talk about how to actually get past it.

Jaime Pineda
Uh-huh.

Jaime Pineda
Yeah, fear is really at the core, at least, excuse me, in my mind, it is at the core of the problem of covering this up. So, we all have different abilities, right? But it seems to me that the key, again, to creativity is,

is being able to open yourself up to your senses to the world. Right. But we need to do it in a very controlled way. Right. And what happens is that in order to do that, because we are faced with this overwhelming amount of information coming in, if you were to suddenly tell the brain, OK, open yourself up to all that information, it would create problems. Right. And so you need to do it in a controlled way.

what I call controlled way. And in order to do that, you need to have a number of things. You need to be able to have kind of flexibility to respond to things. You need to have a kind of an openness to seeing what is out there, experiencing what is out there. But you also need to have a good amount of memory, a good working memory.

Jaime Pineda
And we can develop these things. We can, to a certain extent, increase our ability to remember, for example, by doing certain practices. But you also come with a certain amount already set. And so you can't take somebody who has a poor memory and turn them into an Einstein. They can improve. But.

there are limits to that improvement. And so we need to work with what we have. And part of what I argue is that the first step is really to really recognize and accept the limitations that you have. How much creativity, how much musical abilities, how much you have, and then see if you can work with them. If you can expand those, fantastic. If not, just...

just as well to realize where your limits are. And so you need to come to a stable place where you accept who you are, you accept your skills, you know, and then move on from there.

Srini Rao
Mm hmm. Yeah, I appreciate this idea of accepting limitations because it kind of goes against the sort of, you know, you can do be or have anything you want. And I am like, wait, no, that is like a totally misconstrued platitude where it is like, wait, in the context in which you can thrive is that should be amended accordingly. But

Jaime Pineda
Yeah.

Jaime Pineda
Yeah.

Srini Rao
One thing that you say is while many factors contribute to an uncontrolled mind, the root of the problem is fearful and chaotic thinking, especially one centered on ego-based rumination. One step in the solution is to transform negative, incessant, and obsessive chatter into a more positive form of creative thinking, one that is complex, multifaceted, multilayered, intricate, elaborate, embellished, flexible, and fluent. And then you go on in the second half of the book to give us a model to do that, which you call...

Jaime Pineda
Mm-hmm.

Jaime Pineda
Mm-hmm. Groovy. Yeah.

Srini Rao
Ruby, which is the three stages involve recognizing the problem, understanding the solution, finding balance, and implementing answers. So I think first, before we can get into those three stages, the stages, I think you have to address that sort of incessant chatter, right? Because rumination is one of those things like the most sort of, you know, profound insight I had about rumination from therapy was that no matter how many times I rummied on this thing that basically was a thing I didn't want, after six months, I woke up and I was like,

Jaime Pineda
Mm-hmm.

Srini Rao
holy shit, I can replay this thing a thousand times and the outcome is still exactly the same. And I was like, it took six months to figure that out? Like, you know, and I didn't even know what the purpose of it was. It was like, is this productive in any way at all? Like, why do we even ruminate to begin with?

Jaime Pineda
Yeah.

Jaime Pineda
Yes, that is a great question. And I go into that into the book. And so this is a key aspect of the story that I am trying to tell. And the idea is that I view rumination as unfocused creativity. That is, it is the mind trying to solve a problem, but it just doesn't have the right tools to do it. But it is creativity itself trying to solve whatever issue that you are dealing with.

And so it has this sort of feedback loops that it gets into trying to, you know, does this solve it? Does this solve it? How about this? Right. And we get into these mindless loops. But it is the act of creation that is actually trying to solve the problem. And so I view it from that perspective, that what is needed is not so much get rid of the rumination, get rid of all this noise, if you will, because the noise itself...

is important, right? What we need is to refocus it, redirect it, give it the tools that it needs to get to the right answer. And what has happened is, in my perspective, that we have become overly dependent on what I call the rational intellect to solve problems. Now, the rational intellect is a wonderful tool.

It can do a wonderful job, but we now realize that it is what we call resource limited. The intellect can handle one or two problems and it can do a great job finding you the answers to those one or two problems. But if it faces 60, 70, 80 different problems all at once, it can't. It is not the right tool for that, right? It gets overwhelmed very easily because it doesn't have the working memory capacity,

the attentional capacity, et cetera. And so what we need is, we need another kind of mindset that can compliment the intellect. And this other mindset is what I call non-conceptual awareness, other people call it open awareness. It is a mindset where you are basically opening up your two sensory experience, but in a controlled way. And what that gives you then is access to

Jaime Pineda
number of things that can help the intellect do its job, right? So you need to have the balance between these two things, between rational intellect and non-conceptual awareness in order to effectively, I think, deal with the chaotic mind.

Srini Rao
Yeah, well, I am just kind of like laughing in one way because I am thinking, wait, a neuroscientist is questioning the validity of rational intellect. I am like, okay, this is interesting. But you know, I understand what you are saying because like This is like an example I come back to frequently is like I realized like when I have some of my best ideas for, you know, creative work. It is very rarely when I am actually doing my writing. It is like when I am surfing or snowboarding or

Jaime Pineda
Yes I am.

Jaime Pineda
Mm-hmm. Right.

Srini Rao
doing something that is unrelated to the work. So let is actually bring this down. We have kind of talked about the science behind this. Let is bring it sort of down to earth and talk about practical application of this when we are thinking about something like solving a problem in our personal lives or whether it is in our working lives or whether we are stuck creatively. How do we use the concepts that you have talked about in this book to deal with, let is go through all three examples.

Jaime Pineda
I am sorry, the three examples.

Srini Rao
something, you know, personal problem, professional problem, like in a business, or, you know, when you are stuck creatively.

Jaime Pineda
Yeah. So the argument that I make is that when you are facing a problem, part of it is that you sort of dive at it with this intellect approach. And like I said, the intellect itself

is very good if it is that single problem that you are trying to solve. It will have enough memory resources. It will be have enough energy to deal with it. But keep in mind that you are not dealing with a single problem at a time. And you have, you are thinking about problems at home. You are thinking about the world and all the wars going on. You are thinking about political instability, right? All that is, provides this context that is affecting

your ability to solve that single problem. And so part of what you have to deal with is this other stuff. And this is the approach that suggests that what you do is you open your mind up to this non-conceptual awareness, open awareness, and what that gives you is richness and resources. And we know this from the science that

It also disconnects you from what we call autobiographical memory. So instead of just thinking about things in relation to your own ego and your own self, open awareness gives you, sort of bypasses that. And it gives you another perspective on the whole picture. It gives you a global view of things, right? And again, from the science, it shows that when you are in that kind of state, you have this more global...

perspective where you can see the connections between different things. And it gives you this sort of access to more creative processes. Because once you see the big picture and you notice the connections, then you begin to think of novel ways of addressing those things. Right? So, this is what I think we haven't cultivated in our culture.

Jaime Pineda
is this way of seeing the problem from this bigger perspective. And again, it is really the balance between that and your intellect, right? Because once you see the big picture and you see, okay, out of the 60 problems I have, I see that a few of these are related in this way. I am going to turn that over then to my intellect to help me deal with those issues, right? And it becomes a more solvable problem, right? So it is the balance between the two.

Srini Rao (40:43.47)
Yeah, so we are talking about the balance between the two. So let is take an example of sort of, I guess one way we could look at this is consumption and creation, right? So for example, I read a book like yours and often a lot of the work that I end up doing is inspired by the things that I have read. So what role does the knowledge that we accumulate, whether it is from books, whether it is from online courses, whether it is from the people that have educated us, conversations like.

Jaime Pineda
Mm-hmm.

Srini Rao
How does that play a role and how do we channel, use what you are talking about to channel that into creativity because I can tell you like the, you know, ongoing joke I always say is like, if you are a writer, everybody, you know, every member in your family is at risk of turning, being turned into material in your work.

Jaime Pineda
Right, right. Well, so, you know, from the psychological side, we know that there are at least three kinds of ways in which we process information. One is called insightful information, where we sort of gain insights into

the novel patterns that we see in the world, right, or in the problem that we are facing, and we deal with it that way, right? We come up with new solutions. But another one, which is necessary, is the experiential. That is another kind of way we think, where we then utilize the information that we have accumulated, the knowledge that we have gotten from books and from teachers and so on, which is accessible to us. We bring that into...

into the picture and use that along with the insightful information to then address the problem. Now, one interesting thing is that the third way that we see things is this sort of constant, repetitive kinds of thinking that goes on, which we have already sort of addressed, which I think is the creative is...

self trying to bring both the insightful and the experiential into some sort of congruency, right? And you get into the loops that we were talking about before. So all those three things, I think, combine to sort of address the problem.

Srini Rao
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Well, you know, the interesting thing is that you say creative living or controlled chaos is the essence of the original mind. However, most models of intelligence leave incessant rumination uncounted for in terms of creative living, although some scholars conceive of it as a type of fluid intelligent. What incessant thinking allows for is consideration in a free-flowing, spontaneous way of multiple events to attract as many solutions and identify what works.

Now, the funny thing is that incessant thinking can also become rumination.

Jaime Pineda (43:47.29)
Yes.

Srini Rao
which can be very unproductive.

Jaime Pineda
Yes, and that goes to using the right set of tools at the moment. And so if you are simply using or worrying about things in this incessant loop, then it becomes counterproductive. But if the incessant loop can access your experience and your insight and bring it into...

addressing the problem, then you may have a better resolution of that problem.

Srini Rao
Well, let is talk about the role of mindfulness in all of this, because I know that that is a big part of all this. And the funny thing is I have just been thinking about a problem I have been trying to solve for the last few days, which I have been struggling with, which is a technical problem where I am trying to migrate a set of notes from one tool to another for a client. And I spent half the day yesterday

Jaime Pineda
Mm.

Jaime Pineda
Mm-hmm.

Srini Rao
It is not coming in properly because of the formatting and in my mind I am thinking would I be best suited to just sit and meditate quietly for 10 minutes and maybe that will come to me. But, you know, you make this distinction, distinction between the observer and the interpreter so talk to me about sort of mindfulness because in one way, you know, in my mind I am thinking yeah okay if I am stuck on a problem like if I am going to be mindful and I close my eyes

Jaime Pineda
Hehehe

Jaime Pineda
Mm-hmm.

Jaime Pineda
Yeah.

Srini Rao
productive that is going to be. So talk to me about that. Like, you know, what is the role of mindfulness in taking control of this sort of chaotic mind?

Jaime Pineda
Yeah, yeah. But you brought up one issue that I didn't delve into, and that is what I call the interpreter. So, you know, human beings evolve this ability to make sense of the world, and we have what is been identified as a part of our brain that literally sits there and comments on...

the world and the experiences, trying to develop a coherent picture of the world, right? So this is what is called the interpreter. Um, so it tries to explain the things that we see or are happening around us and to us, right? Now, so the interpreter is this inner voice that we have that is always commenting on, on what we are doing and what we are facing, et cetera.

And that can be very disruptive when you are trying to solve a problem, right? Because it is sitting in the back saying, no, this is, you should do it this way. You should do it that way. Anyway, this is when you need to then approach it with mindfulness. That is, mindfulness is really opening yourself up to that experience without trying to change it, without trying to analyze it, without trying to...

make anything out of it, right? So this is the practice. It is simply seeing things as they are and not saying, oh, I need to change it. Because by simply seeing things as they are, then gives you access to, as I said before, to a set of more creative solutions, to bypasses your ego, you know, does all sorts of things, right? Just taking that moment, pausing, seeing things,

and not trying to change them. And that is the practice. Unfortunately, we don't do that a lot, and our culture hasn't cultivated that sense of being. And what me and others have argued is that we need to cultivate that so that we can call it up whenever we need it, or we are embedded in it at all times, right? The sense of openness and awareness and not needing to change things.

Srini Rao
So the thought I just had as we were saying that was there is a sort of paradox of creating change with mindfulness is that you actually Unlock the ability to create change by not needing to change things

Jaime Pineda
Hmm?

Jaime Pineda (47:59.59)
Mm-hmm. Exactly. Yes, yes, that is very insightful. And the way that you are changing, though, is different. Because on the one hand, you change it by letting things be. Sometimes things will change by themselves, right? That is one way of letting things change. But another one is,

You know, because most of the time we want to intervene. We want to be the cause of that change, right? But sometimes we don't act in the right way or we don't have the right input and we actually make things worse. And so stepping back and seeing the whole picture and letting it be may give you access to that.

Oh, this is how these things are connected. And then you can act, right, from that wiser view. Yeah.

Srini Rao
Yeah, well, you are making me think like right after this conversation, my thought is, okay, you know what, let me put this to the test and I will let you know if I find a solution to this problem. Yeah, now I am like, okay, maybe that is the answer is let me just sit with it for like 15 minutes just quietly and observe and see what comes up.

Jaime Pineda
Well, that is right.

Jaime Pineda (49:26.81)
Yeah, well, you know, we, one of the things is, it is interesting. Like I said, our culture doesn't allow us a lot of time to do that. We are always in this problem solving mode, you know, 24 seven, it seems, but evolution played a trick on us. I think one of, you know, one of the arguments for why we sleep is to give us time to get into that kind of space. And there is a lot of evidence now that, that part of the reason why we need sleep is to forget things.

to let things be and get rid of all the junk that we have accumulated. So that is a really interesting idea that we need sleep because we don't provide our brains that state of mind during the day to just simply be, let things fall away if they need to, come together if they need to, et cetera. And so we need sleep. So that is an interesting perspective.

Srini Rao
Yeah. Well, this has been fascinating. I think that you have given us a lot to think about and you have been very insightful and thought provoking. So I want to finish with my final question, which is how we finish all of our interviews with the unmistakable creative. What do you think it is to make somebody or something unmistakable?

Jaime Pineda
Yeah, so, well, let me, can I read something from, I think summarizes for me all this stuff. So I think that the solution to the dysfunctional, uncontrolled mind is not to get rid of it, but to place it in the proper environment or context. And we can do this by training the mind, guiding the dynamics back to their natural and original state to deal with the challenges of living in the present moment. And we do that.

Srini Rao
Yeah.

Jaime Pineda
by cultivating this non-conceptual or open awareness. And when we do that, this uncontrolled mind naturally returns to its innate creative nature. So I think that to me summarizes.

Srini Rao
Amazing. Well, I can't thank you enough for taking the time to join us and share sharing your story and your insights with our listeners. Where can people find out more about you, the book, your work and everything else you are up to?

Jaime Pineda
Yeah, the book is available on Amazon. I have my website is the unencumbered mind, the unencumbered mind. And so people can dot com people can visit that.

Srini Rao
Amazing, and for everybody listening, we will wrap the show with that.