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hgomersall
SimonPStevens
It's called default mode thinking. Or the default mode network [1].
And I agree, not letting your mind do this from time to time results in higher stress and less ability to focus.
ethbr1
At some point on William Gibson's now defunct micro blog*, he's about to embark on the book tour for Pattern Recognition (so circa 2003).
I'll butcher his insightful phrasing, but he remarks to the effect of
> I think I'm going to stop blogging. The act of sitting at a laptop and writing these posts seems incompatible with my life as it exists on a book tour. The only free moments available for it to occupy would be ones where I'm sitting, momentarily caught between two scheduled activities and staring off into space. I have a suspicion these moments are crucial for my soul. So, until we meet again.
The comingled ambiguousness and specificity of the observation stuck with me.
* https://web.archive.org/web/20070123212506/http://www.willia...
throw0101c
> William Gibson's now defunct micro blog
Isn't that what X/Twitter basically is (was?), a "micro blog"?
MassPikeMike
"All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone." -Blaise Pascal
ryanmcbride
Eh, I get what he's going for but I think it has more to do with our inability to see others as human.
pcblues
I thought that was Einstein, Lincoln, or Keller :)
sersi
And mostly reduced creativity.
I'm addicted to reading, I take my kindle and phone everywhere, so will grab them when I'm walking, taking a shower, waiting in line, going to the restroom... Between my kindle and my phone, I read a lot more books than I ever did but I don't digest the information as much as I used to. I also don't make as much associations between what I read and things going on in my own life. So, in a way, despite reading a lot more, I don't think I benefit as much from it.
Now, I'm purposefully forcing myself not to reach to my kindle when taking a walk so that my mind can wander as much as I do.
topnde
This is a bit outside the point, but how do you actually read while taking a walk, logistically speaking? Do you mean you take a walk somewhere, sit down on a bench, then take your kindle out? Or actually read WHILE walking?
rigonkulous
>biggest problem with smartphones
Disattention is happening because the user isn't actually in control of the smartphone, the smartphone is in control of the user, because that control is a commodity upon which a grand economy has been built. That control is only possible because the smartphone itself represents an extraordinary degree of managed control in the way it works, a fact which is used to obviate the users own agency over the product they supposedly own.
So I think the biggest problem with smartphones is that significant parts of the smartphone product no longer belong to the user, but they are in fact rented and leased out to other third parties for the exclusive use of attention-gathering.
We wouldn't have third party applications stealing our social media property as individuals - indeed they wouldn't be necessary anyway, in a functioning operating system - if the operating system of the smartphone was designed to make the user able to do social media without requiring a third party.
But smartphones are, literally, sanctuaries for third party economics, against a captive user. They have been designed, as such. Third-party social media is necessary because the operating system vendors are no longer designing operating systems for the users - but for themselves, and others, for which they are handsomely rewarded ..
Insanity
'boredom' is how I'd call it but it has a negative connotation. Being bored is useful, it lets your mind wander and it's where real creativity can happen.
I read "Non-Things: Upheaval in the Lifeworld" recently and since reading that I make an effort to not pick up my phone as much. I'd recommend reading the book, if you're looking for something to do instead of doomscrolling.
herbertl
This resonates with me! In a blog post, I wrote, "It has never been easier to avoid boredom. Distraction is all around you, offering to cover up the painful things you’re avoiding that boredom can sometimes be a gateway to.
Yet without boredom, there can be no inspiration. Boredom is the mud from which the flower of imagination blossoms. Your next creative idea is just one boring moment away." https://herbertlui.net/deliberate-boredom/
aselimov3
Thanks for the suggestion. I’ll check it out!
conception
John Cleese had an amazing talk on this - https://youtu.be/nvKeu46jgwo?si=vIRHSJWXff8Kyf2l on being creative
Otterly99
I also immediately thought about his book on creativity. Thanks for the talk. For me, instead of staring at a wall, I just take a short walk. I think doing any activity with low mental load helps creativity.
jvican
What a gem! Thank you for sharing.
INTPenis
I used to be addicted to cannabis and one quote that snapped me out of it, and made me move on with life, was Randy Marsh in South Park saying something along the lines of "Weed makes it fun to do nothing and be bored".
That's the same with smartphones and those scrolling apps, they make it fun to do nothing and be bored.
el_oni
I wouldn't even say they make it fun, they make it "rewarding" they make it feel like you did something, but I feel worse after scrolling, like some vital essence has been drained from me.
I can't find the motivation to do anything at the moment. But if reddit or facebook get opened up i'll just scroll. It's almost like i've replace doing things with watching other people do things and that somehow makes me less likely to work on my hobbies because i'm not as good or far along.
AI has added to this, almost like, why bother bettering myself when I could probably shit out my idea in a handful of prompts? I need a dopamine fast or something. Might try staring at a wall
gostsamo
I remember an Asimov short story about a guy who wished that he never waits on queues or for a taxi or for something to happen. He had his wish granted and deeply regretted it for it stall from him the moments of contemplation where his best ideas were coming from.
pmg101
An incredibly prescient parable for the modern information overload age, if so. Do you recall the title? I'd love to give it a read. Asimov was a master.
gostsamo
here it is, not sure where you can find the text unless you traverse the high seas. I've read it in a story collection called after Azazel.
zem
"Writing Time". it was the first thing I thought of too - the story definitely made an impression on me at the time!
layman51
You reminded me of a post I had read on a math-related website. I think it was a math association where different authors could post articles, but it was one about a series of advice columns by people pursuing PhDs or graduate studies in math.
Anyway, the article I'm thinking of was about a guy who had advice along the lines of "keeping up your hygiene" or "maintaining your cleanliness habits" and his anecdote was about being stuck for a while in making progress on a problem, but he would have a habit of taking a daily shower. There was a detail he shared about getting an insight and then being able to write some ideas on the window with the condensation.
I wonder if I can find it again.
giancarlostoro
When I go on vacation on cruise ships I never pay for internet and my phone is only used for tracking time and photos. Why be on vacation just to doom scroll?
SeriousM
I put my phone in the safe until the vacation is over. And for the mind I do Sudoku at times and collect all my new ideas. It's like a harvest time!
Al-Khwarizmi
Is this not a form of meditation? I've never been able to keep a meditation habit, but my understanding is that meditation techniques often feature closing your eyes and focusing on breathing, body parts or some other irrelevant thing, it sounds like staring at a wall would serve the same purpose.
reg_dunlop
As someone who's maintained a meditation practice since 2013, this is definitely meditation.
And by "maintain a practice", I mean it's more like something I return to with frequency and less a daily compulsion.
Focusing on the breathe or ambient sounds is "easy", and is precisely the reason meditation is seemingly difficult. The mind craves more than simplicity; for some this occurs after a few seconds, for others after a few minutes...it all depends on the day. Learning to observe when the mind wanders is one part of the practice. Labelling the quality of thought that caused the wandering (planning, worrying, visualizing, replaying, etc)and returning to the simpler act of focus on breathe or sounds is another part of the practice.
This article is very much the author discovering some variation of meditation; if they feel the need to "invent" something and share it in a blog post...then here's hoping it promotes more people to give it a shot and maybe it'll lead to at least one person developing a new practice for themselves.
smeg_it
I was taught basic breathing meditation from a Vietnamese nun; but I'm not an expert. There are so many variations that I don't understand. I don't know much about Zen or it's take on meditation or mindfulness. On meditation, I know when I do it right, but have trouble helping people learn. I have trouble when I most need it (highly stressed), as I have the most trouble taking the time to relax without feeling too guilty.
As far as "inventing". I know what you (@reg_dunlop) mean but I don't see too much real harm. My father was into a book that talked about "not thinking". It was just a re-framing of part of mindfulness. If it helps... I'm not going to fuss about it.
As far as eyes. I was taught to not close my eyes completely but most of the way. I saw a documentary that explored Tibetan monks and their meditation. From what I recall, one of the monks said to use the eyelids as adjustable window blinds(or a valve... I'm paraphrasing to my understanding of what he was saying) so that if they got a bit sleepy they would open them more.
Personally, I'm a big believer in mindfulness but I do have some questions on some finer points. I might even aspire to teach it, but need further help myself first. Let me know of any resources that helped you (anyone)
krunck
A meditation practice(in the Soto Zen tradition) over the course of five years changed my life. Daily 40m of sitting facing a wall watching the breath and returning the mind to the present moment when it strays. No judgement. Just returning the mind to the present, again, and again, and again.... The BS starts to drop away. No enlightenment moments. But later, away from the practice you have more patience, more acceptance, more little moments of joy, less fear.
praptak
> Let me know of any resources that helped you (anyone)
For me it was "The Mind Illuminated" by Culadasa. A meditation textbook which tells us what to practice, how to practice and why. Especially useful if you need the finer points.
reg_dunlop
Yeah, I think the actual "invention" I originally attributed to the author of the blog post should be attributed to the YouTuber. But if this version of meditation is helpful for the YouTuber and/or the blogger, then fantastic. That's 2 people who are benefiting from it.
I'm reluctant to say more about my own mindfulness practice; I feel the finer points about how or when to meditate are open to interpretation. Anyone can be as superficial or dogmatic as they'd like when it comes to choosing a practice, and how they adhere to it.
The point, for me, isn't strict adherence; It's both simpler and more interesting to let go of the preconceived notions of attempting to achieve something.
One thing I will say: If I believe I can't meditate for 5 minutes, I meditate for 15. This makes me more open and receptive in life when I find myself saying "....I should meditate".
mlboss
The meditation I practice is based on non-duality techniques. Mind needs a problem to solve so ask the question "Where am I ?". Anything that you can see both physically and mentally is not you. You are not the table, the chair, your hands, your legs, your face, your sensations, your feeling, your thoughts, your emotions. Neti-Neti (not this, not this).
You are something beyond all this. Try find it.
By going through the mind goes in a trance unable to think any thoughts. I find it better approach compared to try to disciplining the mind.
wonnage
Aside from sleepiness, closing your eyes shut also tends to make daydreaming worse.
bitexploder
Staring does something interesting. It does slowly reduce brain waves, but it is harder to hit theta with eyes open. And it works very differently initially. With eyes closed meditation where we, say, follow the breath we use the salience network to slowly chill the DMN for a bit. When you stare at a wall the salience network is what deactivates letting the DMN rip to try and figure what predictions are useful. But it runs out of steam and slowly the state converges with a traditional meditative state. With one important difference: your visual field is still active. Traditional meditation lets you hit theta brain waves. Eyes open is harder to hit theta with but you can definitely hit alpha waves.
So I agree it is meditation, but its quality and mechanism is interesting and different by a bit. It does make me wonder. When we traditionally meditate we grow the salience network (physically). Wall staring trains the brain to simply not seek attention in the first place. Wall staring doesn't strengthen the Salience Network's ability to act as a manager. It recalibrates the Salience Network's threshold for alarm. It trains the dACC to stop firing when nothing is happening.
So both are useful. And provide different neural wiring and myelination.
reg_dunlop
I'm curious what is meant by
> ...recalibrates the Salience Network's threshold for alarm.
Superficial googling reveals superficial information about the SN.
And more specifically, i'm curious what sort of physiological signals could verify recalibration.
ammmir
staring at a wall is basically the zen practice of shikantaza [1], except you’re not staring, it’s more of an eyes half closed yet alert gaze. you don’t do anything, not even counting the breath. you just sit, that’s the entire practice. in my experience, the more you intellectualize it, the more difficult it becomes!
ganymedes
It is, but just sitting can be a little deceiving in its brutal simplicity and I think some thought has to be put on the technique. I would often would just sit and think, not just sit. I wasted a lot of time sitting and thinking I am meditating. It's more like "just sit and be extremely watchful, alert". I also found it useful to have a timer nearby and evaluating how slow the time passes. The emptier the mind, the slower the passing of time. It also helps to tap into feeling the body, I would find that it's completely impossible for me to focus, if I do not have a good sense on feeling my body. Posture also plays a very important role. It's something to note that the average modern day person has posture that would take weeks or even months of focused practice to fix, especially one browsing this site. It's just sitting, but there are many things involved. * If you tell a beginner to just sit, they will drown in their own thoughts. Something more practical is, stare at the timer and try to not think, just perceive each second passing by, do not think, see how long can you last without a single thought **. Shikantaza is basically willful suppression of the thought process and pretty much the opposite of what the wikipedia article describes as a "similar technique" - "Do Nothing Meditation".
As for the article, I am actually doing 1 - 2 min shikantaza regularly while working. I'm staring at an empty screen. I do it multiple times per hour regardless if I feel focused or not.
* Don't try to fix the posture while attempting shikantaza.
** Obviously something even more practical for a beginner is to gain focus by counting breaths and then breath awareness, before trying the most difficult type of zazen. I'm just describing what would be a way for someone that does not practice to imagine what correct shikantaza feels like.
lanstin
>The emptier the mind, the slower the passing of time.
In a good way :) like the present moment opening up into pure stillness/infinity - slightly different than sitting and having the thought pop up "It must be 20 minutes now" and then glancing at the incense to see its just the beginning :)
I personally wondered if the growth in general goodness over the last 100 years has been at least partly because some jobs, like driving, involve more practice at evenly suspended attention; good driving is at a surface level like sitting; maybe the uptick in general wickedness recently is because we are distrupting our evenly suspended attention thru networked addictive devices. Just idle speculation of course.
ErigmolCt
Maybe the useful framing is: just don't optimize the break
teeray
Reminds me of the “Wallfacers” in Cixin Liu’s “The Dark Forest.” I believe the term was derived from that meditative practice you refer to.
twilo
Precisely
raincom
suyash
Very powerful but takes much practice
lanstin
There's two aspects to meditation: focus and insight. Focusing the attention on one specific thing, whether a statue, flame, the breath, a mantra, increases the ability to direct focus. When focus is reasonably steady and one relaxes into just being a bit, then the insights about how what we think of our unitary self is a composite set of conditions and how composite sets of conditions constantly change, and so on, start to affect our understanding of our body/mind and life and all that. This practice sound like a focus based practice, which are useful and give rise to all sorts of enjoyable mental states (and can indeed be very instrumentally useful for managing anxiety or increasing performance or that sort of thing), but not really the same as loosening attachment to the ups and downs of each moment.
swah
How so? Compared to the mindfulness focus-on-breath that we hear about?
throwforfeds
> Is this not a form of meditation?
It could be, but it depends on what you're cultivating. If you're spaced out, day dreaming, then you're practicing distraction. Meditation is practicing the opposite of distraction, to become aware of the mind's true state.
FrustratedMonky
I predict this thread will now spiral into a dozen different definitions of meditation.
timacles
it almost is but meditation, is done with more intent.
In Zen Buddhism for example you are always striving to increase awareness, by constantly monitoring your internal monologue, pulling yourself back from day dreaming, expanding from focus on the breath to all near by sensation and phenomena.
True meditation, in the zen sense, is an order of magnitude more difficult to do consistently, and takes intense willpower.
CPLX
I am a practicing Zen Buddhist and I wouldn’t agree with this description, at least not in my experience and the community that I’ve participated in.
Specifically I would say the concepts of “striving” and “intent” aren’t ones I would use.
What it actually is takes a little more to pin down (famously) but I would consider the concept of surrender to be more applicable. In fact I would say the absence of striving would be a good sign you’re on the right track.
I would consider staring at a wall without intent to be completely compatible with Zen practice.
timacles
Ah nice to meet you!
This is where Zen gets tricky and most people drop out.
All spoken words have duality and as a Zen practitioner I’m sure you know the ultimate goal is non duality, so you can never say it directly
But to your point, yes non - striving is the ultimate goal also, but you cannot ever aspire to it without striving in the first place. Being a zen practitioner is all about understanding nuance, so some level of striving is necessary.
The most famous zen trap is trying to not try, which is inescapable and also impossible to explain to a layman. The discipline I speak of is being committed to walking that fine line of trying to induce not trying… for years.
Staring at walls is compatible yes. But true zen is a difficult discipline. We have to be inclusive though, so yea 5 minutes of mindfulness is good if it works for them
dijksterhuis
i’m not sure but they may be speaking about rinzai zen. watched a few bits and bobs about rinzai and some of the practices are kinda of that “willpower” ilk. dunno, never practiced it, not my vibe.
they definitely were not describing soto-zen tho, that’s for sure.
edit — i find it almost koan-esque that there’s two schools referred to as “zen”, both of which generally dislike the label “zen”, both of which have very different practices and methods.
cogman10
> it almost is but meditation, is done with more intent.
> True meditation, in the zen sense, is an order of magnitude more difficult to do consistently, and takes intense willpower.
There are different forms of meditation and the one with the most evidence is also the easiest to do, mindfulness [1].
Very little intent is needed to get the majority of the benefits from meditation. I don't know that zen meditation offers more benefits, perhaps it does. But I do know that the "fake" forms of meditation are still beneficial.
timacles
They are beneficial on a superficial scale. It says a lot about the state of society when quietly sitting for 5 minute can bring about positive effects instantly
But I’m speaking about the discipline of meditation on the scale of years in order to change your character
adolph
> True meditation, . . . takes intense willpower.
This seems counterintuitive. Maybe I'm doing it wrong but in my newbie practice it seems to be like resistance or cardiovascular training where there is effort in the moment and a sense of one's limits and a sense of unfolding and gains toward more depth and weight and duration. Like the gym it can be disappointing to lose ground after a break but there is also the contentment of regaining strength similar to rereading a familiar book and seeing it in new light.
There have been times that required more purposeful scheduling and preparation that is my default mode and times when whatever was in my head made me just actively hate sitting there and fail to realize that sensation as an ephemeral state. I accepted the door was closed that day and came back the next to pick up at the stopping point.
timacles
There’s sitting quietly here and there and there is the practice and discipline of meditation.
You’re on the right track, keep it up for 5-10 years and you will understand.
The willpower aspect is maintaining a discipline, for years. With no motivation.
FrustratedMonky
But also. Is there really a 'true zen'?
I have heard of zen described as 'just sit down and shut up' and stare at a wall. With no goal, no purpose.
quantumink
This! The famous Zen Koan of the Master, the Professor, and the overfilled tea cup illustrates this beautifully... I'd highly recommend checking it out! (Overall, the Blue Cliff record is a treasure trove of Koans, for anyone keen on the theme comes highly recommended)
The Zen approach, more than any other, seems to precisely emphasize the purity of 'sit down and shut up'. Shikantaza - literally means 'simply sitting'. It fundamentally involves no staring at walls, no koan to grasp and struggle over, even following your breath is not really a part of it... It really, really is 'just' sitting, in every systemic sense. A practice which has no clear goal or intent, instead focused on removing anything that could act as such, act as any tether over awareness. Awareness untethered, unbounded, past distinction.
Lao Tzu comes to mind... he said it much more succinctly: Wei - Wu Wei (do - not doing). The action of effortlessly being adrift with the flow, the action of surrender of your 'self' and the infinite schemes/designs/narratives that it builds (as someone in the discussion above here aptly suggested). Another quote comes to mind from elsewhere: 'Let go your earthly tether, enter the void, empty and become wind.'
antiframe
No need to gate keep meditation. The wall stare does have intent: to increase focus and calm the mind.
lanstin
The effort to still the mind moves the mind so much. Zen also teaches one to stop fiddling with the mind/body so things unfold into a natural smoothness. One may have stupid thoughts filling the monologue without becoming upset and without having the current moment obscured - busy monologue is just more color like the clouds above or the ants around.
saimiam
After reading your comment, I was reminded of my first and last visit to a zen meditation center where we had to meditate by staring at a wall sitting on some sort special cushion designed for this sort of meditation.
I think your parallel is spot on!
proee
When I was a kid, I would often sit on my bed and stare at the wall. My Dad would walk by my room and ask if everything was ok. I would always say "yeah", since I was literally just thinking.
It's a great feeling to just stare at a wall and think.
My first thought is usually, "If I could think about anything right now, what would it be?" And this frees my mind up to think about what I want to think about.
patatino
I sometimes went to bed early just to think! I was excited about it and looking forward to it. I don't do that anymore, but going for a walk without smartphone, no music, no audiobook reminds me of that time.
ErigmolCt
A lot of "doing nothing" advice gets framed as clearing the mind, yet sometimes the valuable part is finally letting the mind choose its own direction
tomwheeler
> When I was a kid, I would often sit on my bed and stare at the wall. My Dad would walk by my room and ask if everything was ok. I would always say "yeah", since I was literally just thinking.
Me too. And all I wanted was a Pepsi.
gosub100
Great reference.
lasftew
OP mentions they are a coffee drinker, and use caffeine a lot to fight tiredness and brainfog. While the suggested methods to refocus are great, maybe there is some improvement potential by looking at root causes?
As a former heavy coffee consumer, I experienced varying degrees of tiredness over my workday, and inconsistent sleep patterns.
Ever since I stopped drinking it, my energy levels have been far more predictable and decrease rather linearly until bedtime. There is definitely no more "hitting the wall" in the early afternoon! Living caffeine free has generally been a considerable QOL improvement (after initial withdrawal).
quietbritishjim
A couple of observations from when I quit coffee (after being only a pretty mild drinker):
- I'd still get the feeling of "oh shit it's 4pm and I've not really started doing anything productive today". But then I'd look at the clock and it would be 10am and it turns out I still have the whole day ahead of me. The day passes so much slower that, even if it feels like your pace of work is a bit slower, you still get much more done overall.
- I'd get to sleep much faster (measurably because I would fall asleep before my partner, having previously got to sleep reliably after her). That applied even compared to days where I'd have coffee only before lunchtime. The idea that late-day tiredness from caffeine withdrawal helps get you to sleep is nonsense.
Having said that, I've relapsed back to a few cups a day. Logically I know I need to quit again.
profstasiak
same experience here. I had similar hitting the wall problem in early afternoon. After stopping caffeine it's exactly as you describe
hellohihello135
Do you have any advice on how to quit? I would love to try not drinking caffeine but it just seems too hard.
lasftew
I quit cold turkey about two years ago. It wasn't enjoyable at all, as I felt dizzy and very unproductive for weeks. I was also suffering from prolonged headaches and slept two hours more per night than usual.
The upside of this though was that it showed me how heavily dependent I was on caffeine to just function. Which helped me to endure the withdrawal, and I guess that's the only advice I have: Turn it into positive energy and let that insight power your determination to get your body into a more natural state. After a few days, I definitely noticed that I got better, which also helped.
Now I feel better, fresher and more balanced than ever. Waking up in the morning is much easier, and have no reason or intent to ever go back to cafeinated life.
scrivna
Switch to decaf, same habit and ritual and mixes things up from plain water all day (which I enjoy).
Olshansky
I hope people see this comment.
Meditation is to mental training and focus, as going to the gym is to physical training.
Socials killed our attention span. Agents are literally making us context switch even more.
Putting aside the whole "I am at piece and one with the world" part of meditation, it is extremely hard.
I'm also no expert. When I'm waiting for something to finish (agent, compilation, etc), I've found that staring at a wall ends up in a net positive in productivity rather than replying to a message, going on X, or kicking off another agent.
HerbManic
One thing I do point out to folks is that meditation comes in many shapes, there is no one size fits all. For some it is silent sitting Zazen style, for others it is walking mediation, or a sort of physical almost martial arts type thing. There is a thousand different style in between that. Do what works for you. If that is staring at walls, neat!
Olshansky
Thanks for mentioning this.
ErigmolCt
The hard part is that the training looks like nothing from the outside, so it's easy to dismiss (in a way)
Olshansky
This is great. Puts Rick Rubin's appearance into perspective.
oersted
Much like the gym, meditation seems to me like an artificial alternative to an actually healthy lifestyle. Perhaps it is necessary to have such explicit and focused "exercising" to really get what you need nowadays, there may be merit to that.
But why not just go for a nice walk with no headphones?
dr_kiszonka
I am a pretty peaceful person, but working with agents frequently (daily) makes me furious. I wonder if the context switching you mentioned leads to more fatigue, which makes me much more irritable.
Olshansky
That's the case for me.
I still use agents for everything, but started on doing my best to single-task.
Think or plan while it's running.
Feels wasteful, but it's powerful.
DoctorOetker
This reasoning seems flawed:
>This calculation includes audio, visual, and text data and incorporates quality into the measurement, i.e. 10 minutes of HD video has more information than 10 minutes of 480p video.
From a video compression or storage perspective this is of course correct. But I argue it results in the opposite direction when it comes to mental taxation:
Consider how actors/agents/brains process information: we subconsciously model the world around us. Imagine you drop a tiny screw on a carpet, you really need it, its part of a digital caliper and helps align the capacitive PCB's... With high visual acuity, you quickly find the screw. With low visual acuity uncertainty increases and you need to model a "superposition" of multiple possible worlds: is this glint the screw? (ah no thats one of many solder blobs that fell from the table), is that glint the screw? (ah no thats one of the many clipped leads that fell on the carpet)... having more information in and of itself lowers the lack of information (entropy). entropy is logarithmic in number of states. number of possible alternative states is exponential in entropy. clearly having better acuity allows to track things more effectively and resolve detected doubts more quickly, decreasing the stack of mental "TODO's".
Its just a criticism of that sentence and its reasoning, I am of course not denying the effects of using deep learning and mass collection of user behavior to increase addictivity and "user metrics". That can explain continual increase of mental overload. But a mere increase in detail for the senses should actually decrease mental overload...
amelius
In case someone wants to look at a wall:
bsza
Nice find. I'm going to print this and put it on my wall.
rankdiff
haha, great one.
femto
As captured by the Leunig cartoon "TV sunrise"
https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/68809bfcd88dbd...
NDlurker
I live in an old warehouse converted into apartments. The walls are made of yellow brick and they're nice to look at because of the variation in texture/wear/color
shmeeed
Honestly, looking at this photo even for one second only triggers intrusive thoughts about how badly it needs to be corrected for distortion...
But maybe that's exactly the lesson.
cfors
The spirit of this is correct, but a better approach to this is going for a walk with just your thoughts.
Yes, that means no phone, no headphones, just you and your brain enjoying a walk. Let your mind wonder and be free.
aselimov3
There’s a lot of research on restorative environments (usually nature/outside)being good for focus. I definitely try to spend as much time outside as I can, but for some reason the wall works better for that 5-10 minutes. Being outside is much more enjoyable though haha
Sir_Twist
I remember first hearing about this from the book Deep Work: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attention_restoration_theory
pvab3
Interesting. I hadn't heard of that directly, but I've never found it to be true. I've found momentum and continuation to be more useful than rest or relaxation when it comes to tackling big things.
HerbManic
It depends on who you ask.
Some Zen teachers think that it is impossible to meditate while walking as it keeps the mind moving rather than still. These are the folks that go against any kind of seasoning in food for the same reason. I always thought that was a very restrictive way to box in and needlessly constrain what meditation can be. If it works for you, great but don't sell it as the only path. That is the thing with a lot of folks, to try and overly define 'the only way', the smarter ones know there is a thousand paths to the top of the mountain.
Thích Nhất Hạnh used to swear by walking meditation, others would scoff at that. Each to their own.
'There is a thousand paths to the top of the mountain, the view is the same for all at the peak'
dgb23
Rumi (the Sufi mystic) apparently walked and turned in circles in order to contemplate. The tradition merges music and movement with philosophy and religious mysticism.
Walking, dancing or manual labor (for example gardening or cleaning) can all be done in a meditative way.
But these are likely different types of meditation that have different effects. Even just a calm, sitting meditations might be vastly different from another, depending on the meditation object.
Of course there are people who lean into specific types over the others as you describe, but I think many of these activities share a common core and experience.
silisili
I buy it. I'm not really into meditation, but am deep thinking/reflection.
I found I got by far the most intense deep thinking sessions while mowing the lawn with a push mower. It was a large-ish yard, took around an hour. It's boring, monotonous, requires no thought. Keeps your hands occupied so you won't be tempted to 'check something real quick'. And lastly, loud enough to block any other sounds that could make your mind drift(sirens, birds, dogs barking, etc).
MiDu16
Yes, everything can be mediatative but it's more the matter of how you do it. You can do gardening but still renumerate about past and future. It's all about focusing on what you're doing and nothing else, centralising all 6 senses to one point of fucus.
MiDu16
"a walk with just your thoughts" can lead you to many places include good and bad places. A mediative walk is to focus on nothing else but your body including your breath, your arms, your steps, the sensation of skins, the smell you breath in and out, the sound you hear. You don't need to focus on all of these at once but you can just pick one and focus on it for a period ideally as long as possible, but you can switch between them at the start. All of these is very difficult but not impossible if you do in a crowded city when everything changes very fast and you're exposed to many things that you tend to like or dislike. Of course, if you're a zen master, you can meditate everywhere but personally I feel I'm very far from it. The fact that I struggle to focus even in quiet places tells a lot about how much I need to practice.
zug_zug
I feel like this is on to something. I remember earlier in my career whenever I hit a really, really hard problem I'd have an instinct to try to stare of into the far distance (especially if there's like a distant skyline) and sort of zone-out. It was like shower-thinking or almost sleeping, and then come back with a deeper understanding of the problem.
Psychology research backs this up -- I think there are studies that show students who have a break between two classes before better in both classes (it's called interference).
Anyways it felt weird to me that our work never accommodated this, I think peak performance requires tuning the environment to the human biology, not management optics.
latortuga
It's funny you said "shower-thinking" because showers are one of the few places where it's not practical to use a device and you really are alone with your thoughts. A normal day to day activity that is the same sort of "stare at walls" state that the OP describes.
kelseyfrog
Shamatha/Zhine practitioner here. The wall staring practice described is not too unlike these. The main difference being that while practicing Zhine, I'm counting breathes.
I really want to point out that the purpose is not to concentrate so hard that focus remains. It's simply to be aware of attention drifting, and gently bring it back. Repeatedly, over time, this becomes easier and easier.
There is a sense of unwrinkling the mind that I achieve after a session. The inner voice drawing me toward the anxieties of life becomes quieter and quieter. The ability to choose to disregard thoughts and move on becomes stronger and stronger.
w10-1
Staring at a wall, or relaxing, is not meditation or a cure for losing focus.
Losing focus could be e.g., (1) lacking the attention span (ability, fatigue, disinterest), (2) lacking the working memory to hold the problem; (3) distraction (by more important or interesting things); (4) focusing too hard on the wrong things (and getting no where); etc.
Solutions differ, but like talk therapy, most any approach will have some positive effect just via escape from oblivious continuance or self-defeating (mental) behaviors, if not development of insight (i.e., self-observation).
To me the key is that thoughts are motivated (interesting) and amplified (concerning or exciting); the key is to recognize that you are the source of that energy, and learn to notice and decide whether this energy is helpful in the situation. Usually that means letting it go, but sometimes you need to raise it (e.g., to address an instance of ongoing injustice). Then focus is a function of having the energy needed for a given situation - no more or less.
dktp
Loosely related, though I don't think Benjamin Bennett's intention was ever to improve focus/productivity
But it never ceases to amaze me the consistency and time spent sitting and smiling and other similar endeavors by Benjamin - https://www.youtube.com/@BenjaminBennetttt/streams
Cider9986
That is insane.
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I've recently realised that the biggest problem with smartphones is not that they steal your attention (which is bad enough), but that they steal your disattention
I don't know of a better word for it than disattention. Perhaps downtime? But it's not so structured. It's just those moments where you'd previously let your mind wander. Gone forever.