I have lots of points of contact with the world, but it feels really effortful to be always mindful and noting down observations (downright overwhelming if I don’t narrowing my focus to a single cluster of datapoints I’m trying to understand)
yeah, a key principle is something like “start light, stay sustainable”. or maybe “start with space, make more space”.
there’s a large range of naturalism infrastructure it’s possible to lay. some people want to dive all the way in immediately: evening journal, pocket field notes, a weekly time block for focused investigation, a weekly time block for analysis, a big “catching the spark” exercise to get things started, and a full predict-observe-update loop practice. but most people are better off choosing one single TAP: “I’ll snap my fingers when I think I might be confused”, “I’ll tap my leg when I notice an opportunity to exchange money for time”, “I’ll tap my toe when I suspect my code will [whatever].”
the reason this particular kind of merely-noticing TAP is the single most important part of the practice, the one to keep when anything else might be too much, is that it makes space. it creates these tiny little bubbles where additional attention is likely to be worthwhile, and the bubbles have a way of expanding over time.
before you start doing a thing like this, it might seem like there are so many times when you’re confused, and they go by so fast, and there’s just no way you can pay enough attention all the time to extract useful data from those itty bitty moments. but if all you have to do is tap your leg, nevermind extract data or do anything else at all with your mind, that’s more manageable—and you’ll likely find that the longer you do it, the easier and less overwhelming it gets. you find yourself realizing after you’ve tapped your leg that confusion just happened, because the practice has become automatic. you’re not paying a bunch of attention all the time; you’ve learned to concentrate your attention into those tiny moments when it matters. and once you’ve concentrated your attention like that, the moments themselves seem to expand. they don’t seem to go by so quick. it’s like you’ve put them under a microscope, and over time you’ve zooming in and in with more and more powerful lenses. it’s not overwhelming at all. it’s sort of the opposite. by a gradual, sustainable process, you become an expert at observing the thing you’re interested in, and it’s easy.
then once it’s easy, and you are not at all overwhelmed by the practice, then you might want to consider something like capturing some of your observations in a pocket notebook, or keeping a list of times when you tapped your leg, or adding another thing to try noticing. start from spaciousness, and create more space.
I have lots of points of contact with the world, but it feels really effortful to be always mindful and noting down observations (downright overwhelming if I don’t narrowing my focus to a single cluster of datapoints I’m trying to understand)
yeah, a key principle is something like “start light, stay sustainable”. or maybe “start with space, make more space”.
there’s a large range of naturalism infrastructure it’s possible to lay. some people want to dive all the way in immediately: evening journal, pocket field notes, a weekly time block for focused investigation, a weekly time block for analysis, a big “catching the spark” exercise to get things started, and a full predict-observe-update loop practice. but most people are better off choosing one single TAP: “I’ll snap my fingers when I think I might be confused”, “I’ll tap my leg when I notice an opportunity to exchange money for time”, “I’ll tap my toe when I suspect my code will [whatever].”
the reason this particular kind of merely-noticing TAP is the single most important part of the practice, the one to keep when anything else might be too much, is that it makes space. it creates these tiny little bubbles where additional attention is likely to be worthwhile, and the bubbles have a way of expanding over time.
before you start doing a thing like this, it might seem like there are so many times when you’re confused, and they go by so fast, and there’s just no way you can pay enough attention all the time to extract useful data from those itty bitty moments. but if all you have to do is tap your leg, nevermind extract data or do anything else at all with your mind, that’s more manageable—and you’ll likely find that the longer you do it, the easier and less overwhelming it gets. you find yourself realizing after you’ve tapped your leg that confusion just happened, because the practice has become automatic. you’re not paying a bunch of attention all the time; you’ve learned to concentrate your attention into those tiny moments when it matters. and once you’ve concentrated your attention like that, the moments themselves seem to expand. they don’t seem to go by so quick. it’s like you’ve put them under a microscope, and over time you’ve zooming in and in with more and more powerful lenses. it’s not overwhelming at all. it’s sort of the opposite. by a gradual, sustainable process, you become an expert at observing the thing you’re interested in, and it’s easy.
then once it’s easy, and you are not at all overwhelmed by the practice, then you might want to consider something like capturing some of your observations in a pocket notebook, or keeping a list of times when you tapped your leg, or adding another thing to try noticing. start from spaciousness, and create more space.
My new response to this is the TAPs section in Duncan’s essay “Concentration Of Force”.