Dear Amore, in his book, The Divided Self, the noted psychoanalyst/psychiatrist R. D. Laing describes a process that can happen in the mind (especially of intelligent people) which he terms abstracting. This abstracting then forms a loop which leads a person to go nowhere (while they are in the loop) and also, the process is alienating (i.e. a person ends up separated from their true senses and emotions for a while and/or are confused about them all, with no clarity about their meaning in terms of the action/s they should take).
The reason this abstracting process causes this, Laing describes, is because when we abstract emotions, scenarios, events, dreams, desires, etc, as abstractions they lack a certain 'solidity' and realness (sense wise), which are the very qualities needed for us to make confident decisions in the first place. However, this is not the end point, rather, when a persons thoughts have become overly-abstracted, it is very easy for a person's thoughts to flip-flop right into their opposite, and then back again, and then back the other way again, in an endless frustrating and demoralising loop. White is as good as black one moment and the next, black is as good as white, etc. He does explain what he thinks is the very simple way out of this catch 22 situation, but first, a simple example illustrating the above.
Let us say, a young person is feeling extremely confused about what career path to take in life, so much so that they are quite paralysed by the situation. Yet at the same time, they are quite obsessed with ascertaining their 'one and only true vocation' - i.e. despite their confusion, ascertaining their true-vocation is the single most important thing to them and an obsession they can't stop thinking about. So much so, that week after week, their mind picks up on a certain vocation and runs with it completely: air-stewardess one week, then business person, then lawyer, then business owner, then nurse, then airline pilot, etc, etc. The dynamic is that their mind is profoundly taken by an 'idea' that seems to fit, but frustratingly each time (after a number of days), it either flips into it's opposite of not wanting to follow that career path, or it flips into something else. Laing explains that the end result, is that after many months, of this abstracting and flip-flopping a person can feel very lost and unclear about what path to pursue - which in a way, is so ironic given their inner commitment and dedication to divining that information in the first place!
Note, that it's not that at core this isn't a process which all of experience as part of ascertaining our way forward, but rather the particular degree of abstraction that takes place in the person at this particular time. As above, abstraction is one of the foundation stones of intelligence, philosophy, meta-pyhsical thinking, engineering, etc and this is why the process can sometimes (but usually temporarily) effect those with such qualities more.
The way out of the loop within the loop, isn't glamorous sounding (I'm afraid), but Laing explains that it is profoundly simple. He makes the case that to give overly-abstracted thoughts more realness and solidity, that a person has to start making very simple but practical actions in their life. For instance, in the example above with the airline pilot week, I believe Laing might suggest that the person begin writing to the airlines enquiring about training possibilities and what is required. Maybe then attending an exhibition - making contact with other pilots - go for one single short flying lesson now, rather than abstracting the process of whether to invest the next 5 years in hundreds/thousands of flying lessons! Whatever - as long as it is moving towards, solidifying or 'concretising' the abstractions and giving them more form in our minds. He describes that it is only in this process of concretisation (of abstractions) that we begin again to start having a natural sense of which direction we should go in - and once that natural sense starts to re-manifest, the natural courage to pursue what feels right also comes along too - automatically and/or the ability to let go of a certain direction, if during concretisation, it just doesn't feel right. For Laing, this process of concretisation is all to do with stopping the process of the minds endless flip-flopping - yes, no, no - yes - yes, no no - yes...!!! [Of course it's a given that in this process of concretisation, that we have to stay safe and care for ourselves.]
Though I hope this extremely brief exposition of one of Laing's concept/s will be of assistance to you, of course, I have no idea if it actually will be or not - but haha, I'm writing it out anyway. All I can report is that Laing's insight has been profoundly useful to me at times when I have got stuck in overly abstracting things (and paralysed by the minds flip-flopping) and as you mentioned you are doing computer science I am wondering if it might well be useful as I have a very technical/computer background as well.
