Here's a thing. I like the concept behind mindfulness. I think it express pretty well what being focused means to me. It's not just about doing something and knowing you're doing it. It's about knowing that you're doing it and being aware of what is happening in that exact moment. You've got to be aware of what you're doing, what you're feeling, what you're thinking, what is going on around you and whatnot. But, at the very end, what's the big benefit of this whole state of mindfulness? What's the real gain and at what cost?
Inspired by flaper87, I'll also be sharing my thoughts on this subject.
The abstract has a powerful appeal. It's too easy for me to get carried away and lose track of many others aspects of my life. I think this is something that needs to be fought against, because software isn't the only important thing in my life.
More thoughts on this later.
I dug more on my previous thought.
I concluded it yesterday by questioning the benefits behind 'mindfulness'. What's the real gain and at what cost? I'm not really into the 'experimental' - which is weird coming from a developer - side of things but I gave it a try this time around.
According to what literature says about mindfulness, it's a state where you're aware of what's happening right now. In order to know what's happening, you've to be aware of what's around you as well, otherwise, you'd be aware of just a fraction of what's really happening.
I was taking a shower and I decided to be mindful, I started breathing and focusing on the water, the air around me, the temperature of the water, the noise outside my shower, the brightness of the light, etc. I focused on what I was feeling, the fact that the temperature was changing in the bathroom. I kept focusing on things, I focused, I focused, I... wait, I'm literally focusing on things... focusing...
Isn't focus - or attention - a cognitive process of selectively concentrating on one aspect and ignoring everything else?
If I need to focus on every little thing around me in order to be aware of what's happening right now, Am I really actually being aware of everything? or Am I selectively paying attention to one thing at a time for small fractions of time?
After all, isn't seeing the big picture something that brings clarity?
More on mindfulness, before continuing with the disconnect:
10 Ways to be More Mindful
- Stop and breathe. Take in the moment and breathe.
- Look around - who do you see? What do you see?
- Stop thinking about how well you are doing. Do what you are doing.
- Stop thinking about what others are thinking about.
- Take a look at your hands. Take them in.
- Don't think about yesterday or tomorrow - think about now.
- Don't think about deadlines.
- Instead of avoiding what bothers you, accept it.
- Accept that there are things that you don't know - and that's okay.
- Sit. Do nothing.
There is a connection between mindfulness and the disconnect that comes from working with the abstract. It's something I'm going to explore here. For me, there's a tension between the two that I'm very familiar with. More on that tension later.
Part of the goal of working with mindfulness is to be more aware. More aware of my internal processes, how I feel, what I want, and who is around me. I believe this is important for keeping myself honest. If I don't know what I want, or how to analyze my emotions and what they mean, then it's easy for me to lose myself, and it becomes harder to come back.
That's been my experience.
With the abstract and programming, I can dive into exciting and interesting projects for hours and hours. It's happened before, where my wife was trying to talk to me, and it was obvious I wasn't there. My mind was off trying to solve a distributed parallel problem, and she was wondering why I didn't have an opinion on what she was talking about. I was listening to her, and I was responding, but I wasn't communicating effectively. I wasn't there enough to actually process what she was saying and connect it to my own experiences and beliefs. This has caused me some strife.
That's the disconnect.
That's where mindfulness comes in. How do I stop for a moment and bring myself to the now?
I did the list above as an opening to this post as an exercise. I wanted to see how much I could come up with if I stopped to think about mindfulness. It wasn't my effort alone, to be honest. I went as far as 4 before I started reading an article about mindfulness to get the juices flowing. Mindfulness isn't something I'm very experienced with.
I feel anxious about being in the now because it goes against what I've been taught and what I've been raised with. The very act of mindfulness means that for a time, I am in the now. This implies that I'm not working on improving myself (an action towards the future), I'm not trying to solve any problems, and I'm not avoiding my weaknesses. I live for that constant improvement. Yet...
If I spend all my time improving myself, it comes at a cost.
That's why I'm interested in mindfulness.
Alejandro said in one of his cards:
If I spend all my time improving myself, it comes at a cost.
This is a really interesting thought and I'd like to dig more into it.
How does 'self-improvement' actually happen?
Theoretically, being mindful should help with self-improvement. By being aware of what's happening right now, people should be able to notice things that would've passed unnoticed otherwise. Furthermore, by noticing things, people should also be able to improve the noticed aspects of their lives - or the things they're doing - that don't feel right.
If you were fully focused while reading the previous paragraph, you should have noticed that I said 'people should' as opposed to 'people will'. The reason I did that is that, somehow, people always feel that self-improvement comes with future plans and that the present is unfortunately already gone, which means there's no way to improve anything there. Therefore, being fully aware of what's happening won't help with making what will happen next any better.
Is there actually such a thing as 'present' ?
This may sound really weird but I sometimes doubt about the existence of such thing like present. I've come to the conclusion that present is a way to group past and future events within a loop.
This pretty much follows from Albert Einstein's 'Special Theory of Relativity' , more precisely from Relativity of Simultaneity . Einstein phrased this as: People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion
And I couldn't agree more...
On Mindfuless and Navigating the Present
Flavio said on his ThoughtStream:
...being fully aware of what's happening won't help with making what will happen next any better.
I don't agree here fully. I'll share a story-ish to elaborate.
There have been many times in the past where I've allowed myself to throw tantrums (even as an adult!). I didn't stop to try to understand what or why I've been feeling. In the present, however, I've learned techniques to navigate what I'm feeling and to manuever through these difficult situations that are overflowing with emotional energy.
In order to do that, I needed to be as aware as I could be not only of what I was feeling, but also of what: 1) my wife was feeling, 2) about what I wanted, 3) and what I wanted to happen. I can't control the final outcome all on my own, but I am able to influence my own actions.
I'm not sure if this is called mindfulness, that ability to navigate one's self, but it's helped me. By pairing it up with writing like this, as well as some private journaling, I've made my own progress in an area that would freak me out previously!
On the Relationship Between Now, Then, and Previously
More from Flavio:
Is there actually such a thing as 'present' ?
"People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion" - Einstein
I love this concept - and I agree! It's something I've discussed with people close to me and that I'd like to think on further. So here are some thoughts:
Most of our society at this time is ruled by deadlines and schedules. We have to get to school at 7:30am or we'll be late. We have to delivery this software by Dec. 27th or it'll be late. If you get there early, you'll have more time.
Stressful. That's the first word that comes to mind. We're placing unnecessary constraints on ourselves in order to increase the likelihood of some event happening.
I've lived most of my life in this framework of time: deadlines, schedules, and appointments. Even my personal endeavors were tainted by these concepts, e.g., "I should only play Diablo 2: Median XL for the next two hours if I hope to finish this homework that is due tomorrow*".
I think the two things that have suffered the most in my life as a result are my ability to reach for a personal balance and my ability to identify what's really important to me.
Balance depends on choosing the things that you want to carry and commiting to them in such a way that you don't drop them. It's identifying that there's a subset of all the things that matter to you enough to keep them in mind. It's difficult, both keeping them balanced amongst themselves and protecting your commitment to them from external pressures.
Identifying what's really important comes with the prerequisite that you know yourself well enough to choose what you want. There's dangers here, too. The psyche is very vulnerable to subtle influences (Check out Thinking Slow and Fast for more on this!). The day to day influence of marketing, especially that which crops up every 10 minutes in standard cable television is poison. Without paying mind to these influences, you'll slowly be influenced to desire something that you didn't choose for yourself.
So that's the crux of it for me. Reducing the importance of time in life is powerful. I say reducing rather than eliminating, because I still live in a schedule-bound society.
Let me quote myself:
... being fully aware of what's happening won't help with making what will happen next any better.
I know this thought is a bit extremist but here's why I think it's true.
Things happen because people act. If you don't act, nothing will happen. If you don't apply any force on an object, it'll resist to change its current state (inertia). Your actions depend on the things you are thinking and the things you've been aware of. You can't experience things that will happen, you can experience things that are happening, though. Things that will happen are meant to occur, until then you can just be aware of what's happening.
With that said, think about how the things you're doing now, which you are aware of, can make the things that will happen next better. If you can't, for sure, change the things that will happen, how can be aware of what's happening make those things any better?
What you can do, though, is to act in a way that will eventually influence the things that will happen in the way you expect. Your actions will certainly influence the things that will happen but you don't know if they'll make them any better.
Trust isn't easy.
It doesn't matter whether it's in relationships, secure system design, or what have you - it's the same problem.
No secrets. Be honest - to yourself, especially! Be aware.
There's no shortcuts, and doing the above still isn't 100%, both for gaining trust or for gauging the trustworthiness of another.
I'd like to meet new people this year. All kind of people. I want to learn from them and give them all the things I've to share. All this has got me thinking about many things related to what human relationships are built on.
In my humble opinion, there are many factors that come into play when we relate with other people. There's a bit of trust, curiosity, empathy, faith and perhaps even love. Neither of these things are mutually exclusive nor inclusive. They all can be combined together based on people's mood, personality and interests. I'm pretty sure there are more than five things that come into play when people relate with each other.
From the above, I'm personally more interested in what trust and love mean. I've been in love my whole life. I simply love being in love. It's not like nothing bad has happened to me. I've had ups and downs my whole life but it's been a whole lot of fun so far. All that said, I think trust is a very complex one.
People tend to trust each other. When I meet new people, I automatically trust them. I'm not saying I'd give them my credit card but I trust them based on what we expect from each other. This trust exists from the very beginning of the relationship and lasts forever, unless one of the parts breaks it.
One thing about trust that makes it even more interesting is the fact that it can be regenerated. When the trust is broken, it can be rebuilt. Betrayers can gain other part's trust again. This obviously depends a lot on the part that has been betrayed, but essentially trust can be rebuilt.
Whatever matters to human beings, trust is the atmosphere in which it thrives - Sissela Bok
What to work for? What to live for? What to work on?
I've been exited about so many things my whole life. I love everything I see, everything I read. I love learning new things, reading, studying, challenging myself. I love that feel of success when I get to do something I wanted, I love it when I finally beat myself. I love that "YEEEESSSSS" coming right out of my lungs, it's hilarious, glorious. It tastes like success.
I've those moments many times per day. Lectures, thoughts, code, books, life. Everything.
Not everything is as straightforward as it seems, though. There are things that I simple can't beat. Time, for instance, is never enough. I'd love to have enough time to do all the things I'd love to do. This all makes me impatient, which then leads to frustration.
Thing is, that I - and most likely you too - should understand that it's not possible to do everything. It's necessary to give up something, it's simply impossible to dedicate time to every single thing we want. This obviously means we've got to choose. No one wants to do that.
What should I choose? What task? What project? What benefits does X have over Y?
It's hard. Even picking something to work on requires time, Nonetheless, it has to be done.
Before doing so. Take a deep breath, write down the things you'd like to spend some time on. Take another deep breath. Pick one thing. Just one. Work on that, feel good about it and don't think about the things you didn't pick. Enjoy your moment.
Just one more thing. Do it! Don't try to do it all, you can't! You're capable of doing anything, which is different from being capable of doing it all.
Rationality is the quality or state of being reasonable, based on facts or reason rather than emotions or feelings.[0]
Rationality is one of the mind concepts I stick to very hard and I really don't want to say much about it. But I'll drop this tiny thought here:
If only humans were less emotional and more rational.
Shall we seek a good résumé or a good life? Why not both?
I've heard several times - in presentations, conversations, books - that one should either seek success - work for a good résumé - or a better self - work on things that make for a good eulogy. The reasoning behind such statements vary between spirituality, science and conciousness. However, no matter how hard I try, I can't agree with that. Here's why.
For starters, I can't trust someone that states human beings are limited beings. I believe the environment we live in is limited whereas we are not. I believe the more the environment we live in limits us, the more we'll try to overcome those limits. That's part of human being's nature.
Despite that, I don't believe seeking success in our daily tasks should keep us from communicating, connecting, loving or simply being. I believe we're well capable of working an all those things that make for a good eulogy while still trying to excel in everything we do, while still trying to build that perfect résumé.
In my very humble opinion, there's no such thing as "the spiritual / scientific side of me", there's just one "I" and that's what we should care about. Splitting ourselves into several "selves" won't help with overcoming our limits, it'll just make it harder.
To what extend should life be faced with emotions or rationality?
80% of the time, I'm a fully rational being. That is to say, that I try to face every aspect of my life from a rational stand point. I analyse things, try to gather as much explicit information as possible and then infer whatever is not clear to the best of my abilities. Although this is not bullet-proof nor always possible, it works fairly well most of the time.
The biggest gain here is that I'm able to abstract myself from most of those situations and be a passive actor. This brings some extra objectivity to the matter. The biggest loss is that I don't get to fully live every aspect of my life. In order to be rational, I need to constantly observe and analyse every single thing I'm involved in.
But what does "fully living a moment" actually means?
I believe each one of us has a different interpretation of what the best way to live each moments of their life is. Some may think that by being emotional they're able feel thousands of different things, emotions. Others, may think that by being rational they may be observers of what their living, hence they'll be able to gather more information from their experiences.
As of now, I believe that fully living a "moment" means finding the right balance between emotional and rational commitment for that specific moment.