The Perils of Ignoring Floppy Bunny Ears

How Focus and Being Obsessively Productive Can Lead to Failure

Welcome to Overthinking/Underthinking! In this format, I “pretend” like I’m that person who won’t shut about about everything she’s learned about a topic.

If you’re interested, there are bullet points at the end. Enjoy!

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OVERTHINKING

BEING OVERLY FOCUSED MAKES US MISS COOL THINGS

In 1954, the researcher Lewis Thomas hit an impasse while studying rheumatic fever. He was injecting rabbits with an enzyme that should have mimicked the fever’s symptoms. Instead, he got something else: four hours after the injections, the rabbits’ ears began curling at the tips; 18 hours in, they were completely wilted, flopping at the sides of their heads like tired flower petals. Thomas’s findings in the changes to the cartilage led to breakthroughs in our understanding of connective tissue what we now know about rheumatoid arthritis.