[coldtea]

>What are local minima, in relation to the real life? Are those the "places", mentally speaking, where one feels like they're failing?

They are places where you're doing OK but can't seem to make progress to "better than OK" by moving a little away from them (e.g. for many steps away from that situation, things are getting worse -- you need to travel a lot to get out of the "pit" you're in).

Consider someone obese. They feel worse when doing exercize/diet (compared to e.g. munching a pizza), but the feelings they have are not the best they could have related to their weight situation -- they'd feel best if they could persevere and eventually feel fit/healthy.

Saddle points are those where you can't seem to make easy progress on one direction (one aspect, e.g. how you feel about your health) but you can on another (e.g. how much money you make).

It's a little more involved (because if you're obese you're always best to lose, whereas a function can try both increasing and decreasing values to get out of a local minimum) but that's the gist I think.

[MarsAscendant]

Thank you.

I'm still having trouble visualizing it, though. I reckon it's the kind of an idea where, if you don't give me a clear-enough image, I'm stuck no matter how well you pick your words others.

Not to put any kind of pressure on you, of course. I'm grateful for the explanation. It's my brain that does its tricks.