We only really know what is new, what suddenly introduces to our sensibility a change of tone which strikes us, that for which habit has not yet substituted its pale facsimiles.
~ Marcel Proust
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Pale facsimilies →
A glimpse →
The best way to get a vivid impression and feeling of a landscape, is to sit down before it and read, or become otherwise absorbed in thought; for then, when your eyes happen to be attracted to the landscape, you seem to catch Nature unawares, and see her before she has time to change her aspect. The effect lasts but for a single instant, and passes away almost as soon as you are conscious of it; but it is real, for that moment. It is as if you could overhear and understand what the trees are whispering to one another; as if you caught a glimpse of a face unveiled, which veils itself from every willful glance. The mystery is revealed, and after a breath or two, becomes just as great a mystery as before.
~ Nathaniel Hawthorne from, Nathaniel Hawthorne on How to Look and Really See
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*sigh* Some people can write.
There’s a practice to reaching that effect. At first, I couldn’t pull it off. After much practice, I can now arrive at this state quite regularly. Alas, at no time have I ever imagined as delightful a description as Hawthorne’s. The interesting part of the effect—at least, the effect I’m experiencing—is that it is quite clearly me that is different. Our brains are powerful filters; salient is how we describe that which our brains admit. In experiencing this effect, it feels like the salience filter is transparent… as if, instead of feeling swamped by sensory input, the window to the world is momentarily perfectly clear.
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It’s all problems →
Spearman was right that people differ in their ability to solve well-defined problems. But he was wrong that well-defined problems are the only kind of problems. “Why can’t I find someone to spend my life with?” “Should I be a dentist or a dancer?” and “How do I get my child to stop crying?” are all important but poorly defined problems. “How can we all get along?” is not a multiple-choice question. Neither is “What do I do when my parents get old?” And getting better at rotating shapes or remembering state capitols is not going to help you solve them.
~ Adam Mastroianni from, Why aren’t smart people happier?
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I’m left wondering if the very intelligent are those who can figure out if a problem is, or is not, well-defined. I blast through all sort of work—well-defined problems in Mastroianni’s article—but it doesn’t seem to fulfill me. As soon as I know the problem is well-defined, I lose interest. As soon as I can see a path provided by a solution, I lose interest. Sometimes, I go through the steps to actually do the work. But mostly I just lose interest as soon as know how it would be done.
All of which makes for a vicious cycle: my ability to generate work vastly outstrips my ability to do that work. And I feel the weight of guilt for not doing that work which I feel should be done.
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More present →
A million years from now, when alien anthropologists begin gathering evidence about what humans were like, they will definitely want to dig up the Self-help and Spiritual/Religion sections of our bookstores and libraries. There they will find direct evidence of what we yearned for and struggled with.
~ David Cain from, Trying to Be More Present Isn’t Enough
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For some reason ( <- sarcasm alert ) my mind went directly from my title, to More cowbell. Which I’m linking to, on the off-chance you’ve not seen it. But to Cain’s topic I’ll simply add that it’s really (really REALLY) clear to me that I am the source of all my stress, anxiety, and problems. Certainly, there are injuries and trauma in my past—oh the stories I’ll not tell. Every time I turn and face the strange (hat tip David Bowie, rest in piece) I find it’s all smoke and mirrors. Every. Single. Time that I stop, and ask myself: What exactly is the thing that I’m anxious about, wigged-out about, pissed-off about, and—yes this too is a problem—excited about… Be clear, Craig. Use “i” language. Then I simply do it, or I delete it from my life. Bliss. Calm presence. The sun comes out and my mouth makes that strange shape y’all call a “smile.”
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Salience →
I get the impression, reading about his method, that what he’s doing with all the “awareness” and “fine focus” activities is pre-loading information into his unconscious mind so that, at the critical moment, he can respond automatically.
It is not possible to “decide” what to do about a ball coming at you at 90mph. What you can do is make sure your mind is pump-primed with all the available context cues, with the highest signal to noise possible, and then act.
~ Matt Webb, from Don’t keep your eye on the ball but prime your intuition
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I’ll admit that I wound up following Webb’s links about Cricket (the game, not Jiminy.) It’s worth the click just for that. All the while as I was reading Webb’s article, I was thinking this feels like an intentional application of our brain’s power of salience detection; “hacking our salience power” I would say. Our brains only work by ignoring everything—except for a small rounding error’s worth—that our senses detect. Sometimes, a thing or two appear to be salient, and they rise to level of our conscious awareness. Noticing when that happens, and sharing what you’ve noticed, is one way to ask great questions.
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Or soon every day will have gone by →
… and soon the day has gone by and we wonder what we did with the day.
~ Leo Babauta from, Interstitial Ritual: Finding Focus & Mindfulness in Your Day – Zen Habits Website
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I marked this for “read later” back in December 2021, and am just getting around to reading it. I know that many—most? all?—of the amazing coincidences I find in my life arise from my innate, monkey-brain drive to see patterns and causation where none actually exists. I don’t care. It’s a nice coincidence that I’ve just gotten around to reading this, while in the past couple of weeks I’ve been simplifying and focusing on a small number of things that I want to be working on.
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Surface area of concern →
Our “surface area of concern”—the number of events we pay attention to on a regular basis—has expanded alongside technology. This is not an inherently negative thing, but becomes one when it adds chronic stress, leads us to burnout, and affects our mental health.
~ Chris Bailey from, Your surface area of concern
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This is a precise and powerful way to describe something which lies at the root of many other phrases: Information overload, multi-tasking (as a way to fail), and spreading our attention too thin (as another way to fail), are just three examples. I’ve long since decided that I do not need to have an opinion on most things, and that frees me from feeling I need to notice as many things as possible.
For many years—but explicitly I have 3 years of journal entries where this is glaring—I’ve lamented wanting to spend more time on some specific things. And yet my days slip past doing other things. I’m not talking about things which get planned—a day at the beach, dinner at someone’s house, or weekend work in the yard. No, I’m talking about that, “where the hell did today go?” stuff. If you like visuals: The glass jar that I filled slowly all day with the sand of small things, only to realize at day’s end that there’s no way to put these larger rocks in. Ever. Because every tomorrow is like today. Dammit.
About a week ago I decided—memento mori, ya’ know—it’s time to flip that shit over. For several years now, I’ve been starting with pretty consistent morning routine. After that, I have four things that I want to do, and I’ve been doing those next. Sometimes that means I don’t touch anything else—not my phone, not my email, not other people, not bills, not even voicemail from roofers—until 4 in the afternoon. It sounds crazy, I know. Guess what? Every day I look at those four things and go: Shazam! Progress! …and it turns out that I then go on to pour in a ton of sand too—return that call [from yesterday], mow the lawn, run an errand, interact with people, etc..
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Deliberate practice →
Deliberate practice is the key to expert performance in writing, teaching, sports, programming, music, medicine, therapy, chess, business, and more. But there’s more to it than 10,000 hours. Read to learn how to accelerate learning, overcome…
~ Shane Parrish from, The Ultimate Deliberate Practice Guide: How to Be the Best
I was dubious at their title, but this article—a tiny book actually—is exquisite. With an estimated reading time of 43 minutes, there’s a lot in there. For example, it mentions…
There is a place, right on the edge of your ability, where you learn best and fastest. It’s called the sweet spot.…The underlying pattern is the same: Seek out ways to stretch yourself. Play on the edges of your competence. As Albert Einstein said, “One must develop an instinct for what one can just barely achieve through one’s greatest efforts.”
The key word is ‘barely.’
~ Daniel Coyle
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Has anyone read the book, The Little Book of Talent, by Daniel Coyle?
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A tiny commitment →
To suddenly “go mindful” and try to be present all the time is about as easy as running a marathon when you’ve never even run around the block. Since most of us are not present the vast majority of the time, occasional stabs at “being in the moment” are quickly overrun by the colossal momentum of a lifetime of being lost in thought.
~ David Cain from, How to Make Mindfulness a Habit With Only a Tiny Commitment
There’s much worth reading on David Cain’s Raptitude website. For example, his How to walk across a parking lot, is one of the greatest things I’ve ever read. But the piece I’ve quoted from above stands out as a terrific “how to…” for working on mindfulness.
I’ve been actively working on first self-awareness, then self-assesment and finally mindfulness, for many years. (And writing about my journey as I’ve done so.) But mindfulness is still something that comes and goes for me.
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Be here now →
Be here now. […] That’s all there is, is what’s happening right now. The fear of the future or the regret of the past has no real bearing in their own place. Just what you’re doing right now.
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