METATTENTION

January 21st, 2020

One aspect of mindfulness meditation, or Vipassanā, as it’s referred to in the original Pali, is developing the ability to notice what your attention is focused on and realize when this focus changes.

This might at first sound a little odd.  Doesn’t this require two sources of attention?  First there’s the attention that’s focused on say, our breathing, but does it not require another perspective to notice when that focus has wandered off to thoughts about lunch?

Or are we simply ricocheting very quickly between breath, lunch and the realization that thoughts of lunch interrupted focus on the breath . . .

. . . which was in turn interrupted by the realization that thoughts of lunch were interrupted by the realization that a switch had taken place.

It’s bizarrely recursive, just to try and describe it. 

But two examples come to mind in order to dig into this conundrum.  First there’s watching a movie.  Often times we can get so engrossed in the movie that we totally forget where are, and we can even forget the fact that we’re watching a movie.  And yet, with other movies, perhaps less compelling movies, we can pay attention to what’s going on in the story while still being very aware of what’s going on around us.  Perhaps this is a single attention bouncing between the movie and the larger situation quickly enough so that both threads of attention appear seamless.

Another example involves young kids, or even animals.  As we watch them, perhaps to make sure they don’t hurt themselves, we have the ability to realize what the child or the animal is focusing on. Perhaps a toy a few feet away that the child is crawling towards.  It’s this ability to imagine the child’s source of attention that allows us to look ahead, see that a potentially hazardous paperclip is near the toy and that we should remove it.  We might call this awareness of the situation.  Again, perhaps it’s a single attention of ours that has the ability to quickly bounce between different things, zooming the context in and out, but it can happen so quickly that it’s easy to suspect or wonder if there’s not two cameras of attention keeping an eye on things, like two eyes that can look in different directions. 

With the practice of mindfulness, our seemingly second attention, our meta-attention, can begin to take on the role of a movie goer.  After enough time it’s as though our better self is always present, and most of the time, this better, more thoughtful self, just watches the movie of our life as it happens. 

But unlike the movie goer who is bound to the whims and turns of a predetermined script up on the silver screen, this metattention that we develop in mindfulness creates the constant opportunity for our better self to step in and change our default behavior. 

For example, those who have anger problems can seem practically drunk on the emotion.  Some people even experience memory problems regarding their spells of anger.  With enough practice of meditation, a metattention of the situation allows for a more thoughtful version of this angry person to eventually have the ability to step in and decide that the default actions that are usually taken in anger, won’t be this time.

This is one of the true benefits of meditation.  So many of us are simply on autopilot, doing the same thing day in and day out, unable to break the pattern, even if we want to, because the moments when we truly and thoughtfully pause are few and far between.  Meditation not only gives a person the ability to see themselves more clearly, but eventually it provides the avenue to step in and make changes in the moments when it is most needed.

RIVALNYM CASE STUDY: ALONE

January 20th, 2020

If you are unfamiliar with rivalnyms, they are a particularly juicy class of words that exist between synonyms and antonyms. They often define the exact same thing but with completely opposite emotional valences. 

Here’s an example from episode 558: Conspire & Cooperate

Both words describe people who are working together to bring about a commonly desired goal.

But cooperation is generally positive and conspiracy is generally negative.  As is often noted, history is always written by the winners and those winners then, in hindsight identify the losers as conspirators, whereas the winners who have the final say in the matter, that is, they get to write the history books, these winners define their past actions as cooperation.

The importance of rivalnyms derive from their ability to be a mirror for our own thinking.  If we are aware of rivalnym pairs, then we begin to notice them in our own speech, and the particular word in a rivalnym pair that we use reveals fundamental aspects of how we are thinking and feeling.

There is, for example, a rivalnym pair that surrounds the phenomenon of being alone.  As with all rivalnyms one word in this pair describes the experience of being alone in positive terms and the other describes it in negative terms.  Or in this case, we might rephrase positive and negative as desirable and undesirable. 

These words are:

Solitude & Loneliness

No one wants to be lonely, but at the same time it’s not unusual to crave solitude.  Is this not somewhat of a contradiction?  If no one wants to be lonely, then why on earth would we ever seek to be alone?

This is too simplistic of course, and it’s only to further highlight the question: what exactly is the difference between solitude and loneliness?

While alone, the perspective of loneliness is focused on an absence – on the fact that someone could be with us.  This is not something that we have immediate control over.  Without changing our perspective from which loneliness arises, we cannot necessarily snap our fingers and poof someone appears.  We can of course go find someone to alleviate this loneliness, but the condition and the solution here generally demonstrate far less agency for the person experiencing these things.

Solitude, on the other hand, is more purposeful.  A person seeks solitude or enjoys solitude with more of a mission.  Even if that mission is to practice meditation in order to relax the notion of having a mission in the first place.  Solitude provides an undistracted space to work, contemplate, and to feel.  In contrast, loneliness consists of a completely distracted space that impedes work, derails any meaningful contemplation and absorbs our feelings in what could be.

Notice it only impedes work though.  We can crack the spell of loneliness by diving into some work more fully, and by doing so flip the coin of being alone so that we see it as solitude instead of loneliness.  We might further delve into the idea of purpose and solitude.  Mere busy work is less likely to transform our loneliness into a gratifying experience of solitude.  But if our work is meaningful and sufficiently difficult, then any progress in that work is going to provide a sense of achievement, which in turn is likely to make our experience of being alone more satisfying, and hence, we might be more likely to think of it as solitude as opposed to loneliness.

The difference between solitude and loneliness is the gift of perspective that we bring to the experience of being alone.

This point about perspective and our opportunity to analyze our own perspective is what can make rivalnyms so useful.  If we can catch ourselves feeling lonely and identify it as loneliness, we can ask: how might I transform this experience of being alone into a gratifying instance of solitude?

Often the feeling associated with any experience is simply a hint about what we should do next.  How we react to that feeling is everything.  And sometimes, a feeling pops up as a useful counterpoint, one which we would to best to rebel against, or see as a danger sign, one that tells us to turn around or explore a new direction.  Unfortunately, we’re often likely to entertain that feeling and proceed down a path of which that feeling is meant to stand as a warning.  The study of rivalnyms, however, as mere a concept we can keep in the back of our mind can serve to remind us that there might be an equally valid and diametrically positive way of interpreting or navigating the exact same experience.

For more on Rivalnyms, check out Episode 293: Rivalnym.

A LUCILIUS PARABLE: WELL USED

January 19th, 2020

The old wooden table was packed. Cured meats, sliced, imported cheeses, pickled vegetables and olives, patés and biscuits, and a tall beaker glowing red with Negroni in the afternoon light, all cluttered the view of fine inlayed patterns of wood.  Lucilius and a friend chatted, nursing the time with the taste of enough food fit for many meals, sipping the sweet bitter from beaded glasses.  It was an eternal afternoon with no plan and no aim to end, where time seemed to leave people alone for once.

Lucilius leaned back, the gorging of food beginning to beg him to stretch out.  He carefully nudged a little space into the clutter of the table with his heels, crossing them and relaxed.

It was the first time he took notice of the table, having had a hand to woodworking before, he was impressed with the designs.  The interlocking surface of different woods, once seamless and smooth had grown blocky with gaps as the different woods had swelled and shriveled at different rates through the years.

“Beautiful table,” Lucilius remarked.

“Antique,” his friendly host remarked.

“Really?  The woodwork is amazing.”

“15^th century, England.”

Lucilius jolted upright pulling his feet from the table’s edge.

“What? Are you kidding?”

Lucilius was greeted with a slightly amused look.  “No, not at all.”

Lucilius, flustered, stumbled over his own words.  “I’m sorry I had my feet up on it, that wasn’t very thoughtful of me.”

“What are you talking about?  Put your feet back up, relax, that’s the point.”

“But 15^th century?  This thing must be worth a fortune, it could be in a museum.”

His argument landed and bounced back a short laugh.

“And what good would it do in a museum?  I bought it because I think it’s beautiful and leaving something untouched in a corner or behind some glass is no way to appreciate something beautiful.  Just look at this lovely afternoon we’ve been having?  All of this delicious food, our conversation.  It wouldn’t necessarily be any less enjoyable if perhaps this were a table I’d picked up for ten bucks at a yard sale, but if you have something beautiful like this, why not honor it by using it?”

Lucilius liked the logic but he still didn’t feel at ease.

“I mean it, put your feet back on it.  Relax, enjoy.  That’s the point.”

READER RETURNS

January 18th, 2020

A great professor once said that authors simply write the same book over and over.  Each book is simply an attempt to capture something more and more accurately.  To word the underlying truth with more elegance or simplicity.

Alas aren’t the stories of Shakespeare’s plays all derived from prior stories?  It’s perhaps the best example that the story actually doesn’t matter, it’s the human truth that can be evoked by using the story.

Each writer digs into themselves interminably.  The well of inspiration, once struck is an infinity game that can be mined forever, but always at the peril of never exactly finding what the words search for. 

It’s no different than the addict who chases the perfect high.  The behavior is much the same in it’s routine and it’s quest.  It’s simply the effect on health and the outcome that is different. 

The writer pursues and produces; the addict pursues and consumes.

There’s a whole onslaught of nouns, both positive and negative that might slide sensibly into that last sentence.

The crucial difference is that the writer isn’t worse for the wear, and actually comes out of the experience with something that can be shared, or better yet, something that might help support the virtuous addiction into tomorrow.

And why does the reader return?  Why do some like Hardy and others Hemmingway?  Though they might dabble in the other, why do we return to the writers that we like?

Why do our minds light up with possibility when a favorite author releases something new?  If that professor at the beginning is correct, aren’t they writing about the same old thing again?

Perhaps.

But this time they might get closer to that tantalizing goal, the terminus of that Sisyphean task.

Or, it might be that each iteration that pours from the pen is trying to cover ground.

It’s always a surprise when someone remarks on an episode of Tinkered Thinking that before hand was gladly swept away into the archives for missing the mark.

Different things can resonate unexpectedly with other people.

What feels like a missed mark for the author might be a bull’s eye for a quiet anonymous reader.

But who’s to say.

All the writer can do is,

keep writing.

ONE PLAYER CHESS

January 17th, 2020

Self-improvement is akin to playing chess with yourself.  You can try to stack the moves in your favor, but fail to remember that you’ll remember the stratagem when the board spins it’s 180 degrees.  Thinking you might be able to control the game from just one side and let the other side be blind to your own stratagem every time is no better than lying to yourself.  Inevitably, you fall victim to your own mistakes again and again by such lying.

But let’s define the players a little more clearly.

Who exactly are we playing against when we think of the uphill struggle of improving ourselves and our life?  What exactly are we battling?  What creates so much resistance when we just want to make the better choice: eat the healthier option, save the money instead of spending it, be calm, cool and collected instead of lashing out in anger? 

Who exactly is the little demon behind these undermining machinations?

Our “rational” mind constantly observes our behavior in frustrated astonishment as our reasonable plans crumble in the hands of some insidious double-agent that seems to exist within our own mind.

Those impulses, of course, arise from an emotional source.  We can think of this split in our self-understanding in a neurologically overly simplistic way as the difference between our executive cortex and our limbic system.  While this glosses over a lot of our understanding and lack of understanding when it comes to the brain, the simplicity is good enough to aid our aims for building a practical and effective strategy for changing our behavior, and ultimately the results of the behavior that manifest as our life.

The two players for this game of chess are the Rational executive cortex and the Emotional limbic system.

The Limbic system is that devious agent that seems to have a secret back door  through which it whispers all sorts of seductive commands that override our better thinking and make us crush a box of cookies or turn on the TV instead of opening the blank word document.

Somehow, in these moments, the executive cortex is rendered silent, almost absent. 

It’s almost as though these two structures are taking turns with our behavior.

But one of these players has an advantage the other is blind to.  The executive cortex, that is our thinking self, the part that can give great advice that we never seem to follow, that narrating, problem solving self – it can make plans.  This ability to plan is a superpower.

The limbic system is totally dumb to plans.  It acts purely in the now.  It’s completely myopic in this way.  It can only see as far as the donut in front of the mouth and Netflix icon.

But the thing about chess is that a person can get very far with a strategy rooted solely in the now.  That is, if you look at each iteration of the board as though you don’t remember how it got there, and you simply make the best move based on the current lay of the land, this will prove to be very effective.

Now enters a crucial point in this analogy.  The limbic system is constantly trying to win.   And frankly this has less to do with beating it’s opponent than it has to do with the fact that the limbic system isn’t even aware it has an opponent.

That impulsive, emotional part of our brain doesn’t really have access to the logic and the narration, and the advice constantly spun by the executive cortex.  Meanwhile our rational, executive self is constantly going nuts as it sees us take action that isn’t in our best interest.   

It’s a bit of a parent-child relationship.  And we often devolve into the sort of negative self-talk that is reminiscent of very bad parenting. 

Why do I always do the wrong things?

Why can’t I just eat properly!

Why can’t I just get stuff done!

I’m so stupid!

I hate myself..

Anyone who has spent any meaningful amount of time with children knows that children have an uncanny ability to get on our nerves in a way that is eerily similar.  It makes sense from a basic neurological standpoint: children don’t really have much of an executive cortex.  They are limbic system monsters and the executive cortex is the last part of the brain to finish growing, and that doesn’t happen until... our mid twenties.  Long past the time we are considered “adults”.

The limbic system, however, never grows up.  And the crucial switch that the executive cortex can make is to realize that while the limbic system will never stop trying to win at this behavioral game of chess. . .

the point isn’t to win.

The point is to play an infinite game.  To play as long as possible.

With this new flavor of aim in place, we begin to look at the game differently.  We know the limbic system is going to have it’s turn after we make our move, and knowing this, we can then begin to plan for it.

We can realize that we simply don’t take our own advice outright, but we can start to experiment with structural ways in which we design that advice into our daily life.

Discipline comes into the picture here, but not necessarily in a way that we have to dread.  Discipline and willpower compose this milieu of cultural mythical power that only seems to be on offer to those who seem incoherently successful.  The point is, we only need relatively small sprints of discipline and willpower. 

We use discipline to set up a structure that is then powered by the limbic system.

What does this look like in a real, practical way?

Let’s say a person has a constant ambient experience of anxiety and stress.  And they hear all the time that meditation reduces this anxiety and stress, but every time this person sits down to meditate, it feels like torture.  There are so many thoughts, it’s overwhelming.  It’s a disaster. This isn’t working.

The conclusion:  This isn’t working.

That’s the limbic system talking.  That’s an emotional response saying, this doesn’t feel good so it must not be something that works.

Meanwhile, we eat a tub of ice cream and our limbic system screams: this is amazing!

And yet an hour later our rational self pleads in horror: what was I thinking?

The lesson here is that the limbic system rarely has a reliable opinion on what’s going on.  But it can still be used to our benefit.

As said before, discipline needs to be implemented for a short, effortful amount of time.  Like working out, we don’t work out all day, we spend 45 minutes or an hour working out and end up feeling pretty good for the rest of the day.  In the moment the limbic system is yelling: what are you doing?  This isn’t fun! but later on in the day the limbic system is constantly noting: hey, today is great! while totally forgetting about the workout.  It’s the executive cortex that can see the whole story.  Workout enough and the limbic system slowly starts to make the connection.

The same goes with meditation.  The executive cortex can read up on the scientific literature, realize that people generally don’t experience any sort of benefits for a few months and realize that it only takes a month for a habit to dig a solid root into our routine of behavior.  Our rational self can then realize: Ok, I’ll put a solid month of effort into making this a habit, even if it’s uncomfortable, I know that eventually it’ll sort of feel good, and once that happens, the limbic system will take over where discipline was required.

In this way our “rational” self can plan life in a way that includes our impulsive, pleasure seeking, limbic system self.

The goal isn’t to dominate the limbic system, but to curate it.

This is the crucial part of the chess analogy.  If you play to win, you’ve already lost.  But if you play simply to keep playing, then you begin to look at your opponent more as a partner, one whom you can rely on to act in a certain way.  You can then begin to experiment with the design of your life so that the limbic system makes predictable choices inside of that structure that ultimately lead to your benefit. 

It requires tinkering, and that requires time, which means patience is a superpower in this respect.  If, however, we can stop viewing self-improvement as a battle and more like a fun game that we can get better at, then the idea that things might not go according to plan becomes less tense.  When things break down, we can analyze why and then try again.

Then slowly, like building sandcastles in the surf, we make headway, fully expecting that we haven’t perfectly designed things for our limbic system and the childlike monster inside of us will wreck things.

Given enough time though, we can build a near perfect playground for this part of ourselves, one whose natural flow of impulse that once undermined our goals, now fuels the effort to achieve those goals.