Story
Emily sat at her desk, pencil in hand, surrounded by notebooks and the smell of her vanilla latte. She stared at the problem set, trying to apply Professor Johnson’s inadequate explanations of algebraic geometry. But in the back of her mind lurked the heated conversation she’d had with her mother the night before about her decision to pursue a PhD in math instead of a more “practical” career.
“You could be a teacher or work in finance,” her mother had said, frustration thick in her voice. “Why do you have to make it so complicated?”
Emily had defended her passion fiercely. The words echoed in her mind even now, mingling with the symbols on the page. Each time she tried to focus on the homework, her resolve weakened, and the argument crept back in.
Taking a deep breath, she refocused one last time on the problem at hand, determined to let her mother’s concerns slip away—if only for a moment. As she wrote down the steps to the solution, the tension in her shoulders eased. But a seed of doubt remained, reminding her that she was just one thought away from returning to that argument.
Analysis
I suggest that there are three states a state can be in: an active open state, which is present in your conscious mind, a semi-active open state, which still has a degree of influence but is not present in the conscious mind, and a closed state, which is not currently influencing you.
Emily’s argument with her mother is an example of a semi-active open state, while her homework is an active open state. The semi-active open state (the argument) is always there, ready for her to pick it up.
Likewise, as an example of a semi-active open state, imagine that you are reading a book and you come to a cliffhanger. However, you are called away to another task. You want to get back to the book, but the book state is not currently active. It is semi-active. If you wait a few hours or days, you may lose the desire to come back to the book. In that case, the book-reading state becomes closed. You are not interested in coming back to it any more.
Sometimes, as with the book or as with Emily’s homework, an open state relates to a task that is incomplete. This is a task state. To close a task state, you could complete the task. If Emily completes the homework, this task will close. This frees her up to take on new tasks.
Vocabulary
- Active open state: A self state that is in your conscious mind.
- Semi-active open state: A self state that is in the back of your mind, ready for you to make it active.
- Closed state: A self state that is inactive and is buried in your long-term memory. You can reconnect with it through effort.
- Task state: An open state that is related to an incomplete task.
Nexus State Theory 