I Know the secret to the quiet mind. I wish I'd never learned it (2021)

Traumatic brain injury, PTSD, and identity

• Several commenters with TBIs or severe psychotic episodes describe long-term changes: memory holes, brain “fog,” reduced sharpness, and altered motivation.
• Distinction is made between familiar mood symptoms (e.g., bipolar) and qualitatively different “damage” sensations.
• Some argue PTSD is essentially part of severe brain injury; others note PTSD can also affect caregivers.
• The thread connects burnout and major psychiatric episodes with potentially lasting, brain-level trauma and slow recovery.

Migraines, daith piercing, and anecdotal medicine

• Multiple people report chronic migraines, including chronic daily migraines and cluster-type patterns.
• A daith ear piercing is credited by two family members as dramatically reducing or eliminating migraines; another ties this to muscle tension near the ear/neck.
• Others suggest it may be placebo but note low risk and high potential benefit may justify trying it.
• Broader point: anecdotes often precede formal research; many won’t pan out, but some spark useful hypotheses.

Automotive and road safety

• The crash is seen as evidence of modern car safety; comparisons drawn to likely deaths in 1970s/80s vehicles.
• Examples of families walking away from serious side impacts support the value of newer designs, though some argue specific brands differ in safety.
• Concerns raised that heavier, taller modern vehicles are more lethal to pedestrians and cyclists.
• Discussion of dangerous two-lane rural roads, high speed limits, and passing behavior; some blame “psycho drivers,” others also blame road design and policy.

Health, randomness, and meaning

• Commenters reflect that healthy living reduces risk but doesn’t guarantee longevity; many know very healthy people struck by cancer, stroke, etc.
• Several stress that statistics feel irrelevant at the individual level; you still “can eat whole grains and get hit by a truck.”
• Debate over extreme health optimization vs enjoying life; some see obsessive fitness as another addiction or identity performance.
• Mixed existential views: from “life is suffering and meaningless, so enjoy what you can” to “meaning is created by living and extending life.”

Helmets, cycling, and injury risk

• Multiple personal stories of low-speed falls or minor crashes causing major brain injuries when unprotected, contrasted with incidents where helmets likely prevented severe damage.
• Some argue helmets are an obvious “bare minimum” protection for a person’s most valuable asset: their mind and accumulated knowledge.
• Others counter that mandatory or overemphasized helmet use can make everyday cycling tedious, reducing cycling rates and overall public health, and note many fatal incidents (e.g., truck crushes) where helmets don’t help.
• There is disagreement about risk trade-offs, but shared recognition that even minor head impacts can be devastating.

Fragility and value of cognition

• Several describe moments of acute terror when realizing their memory or reasoning had suddenly failed (post-concussion, migraine aura).
• Experiences of temporarily being unable to read, speak, or do math lead to long-term perspective shifts: prioritizing time, relationships, and mental health.
• Some report being noticeably “less smart” on migraine days, which increases empathy for people with lower or fluctuating cognitive capacity.
• An anecdote about reversible low-oxygen brain function suggests being “less smart” can sometimes reduce frustration and increase acceptance.

Animal cognition and comparative minds

• Side discussion on whether human cognition is uniquely complex.
• Chickens are cited for sophisticated social dynamics and highly tuned visual processing (e.g., threat detection, fine-grain foraging).
• Others point to parrots and crows as independently evolved, complex nonhuman intelligence.
• Octopuses are highlighted as possibly having more distributed and alien cognition, with significant processing in their arms, challenging human-centric notions of “mind.”

COVID, concussion, and long-term fears

• A commenter with a past concussion expresses fear about potential long-term cognitive effects of COVID, viewing brain impairment as more frightening than physical injury or even death.
• Another describes watching dementia-like decline in a relative as similarly terrifying.

Follow-up on the article subject

• Some readers ask for updates; another links to the writer’s social-media presence and suggests her current tone will be interpreted differently depending on one’s politics, implying at least partial cognitive recovery but no consensus.