61–70 of 76 posts
There's a plenty of occasions, causes and distractions to make your mind wander. To me personally the most prominent ones are when reading a book (which is also the most infuriating) and while riding some sort of public transport. The latter one helps me to reduce head buzz which is generated by randomly reading HN posts or working on a demanding task. Reading a book, where I actually need to concentrate on the book,…
There's a plenty of occasions, causes and distractions to make your mind wander. To me personally the most prominent ones are when reading a book (which is also the most infuriating) and while riding some sort of public transport. The latter one helps me to reduce head buzz which is generated by randomly reading HN posts or working on a demanding task. Reading a book, where I actually need to concentrate on the book,…
I think the problem is not the wandering itself, but self-focus of the wandering. Great eureka moments come from wandering, but they are about external, objective questions.
John Stuart Mill (the utilitarianism guy) developed an "anti-self-consciousness theory" and overcame his depression/ennui.
"Ask yourself whether you are happy, and you cease to be so. The only chance is to treat, not happiness, but some end external to it as the purpose of life. Let your self-consciousness, your scrutiny, your self-interrogation exhaust themselves on that." --- http://theliterarylink.com/anti_selfconsciousness.html
https://books.google.com.au/books?id=nSprYzk7q40C&pg=PA180&l...
There's a plenty of occasions, causes and distractions to make your mind wander. To me personally the most prominent ones are when reading a book (which is also the most infuriating) and while riding some sort of public transport. The latter one helps me to reduce head buzz which is generated by randomly reading HN posts or working on a demanding task. Reading a book, where I actually need to concentrate on the book,…
I don't think of the associated depression, loneliness and boredom as being good or bad, they are simply part of a rich mental life.
I am often frustrated by difficulty concentrating, though, and frequently have invasive thoughts as you describe. The things that have helped me most with those are eliminating caffeine, meditating regularly (particularly compassion meditation, peculiarly), and exercise.
But yes, I can relate! I'm very grateful for having a mind that wanders, despite the irritation (it's not unlike caring for a small child I think)
I wouldn't know what happiness is anymore, since I work for a living. I wasn't happy in school because attendance was compulsory, but I do remember summers being okay. It's been decades since I've enjoyed a "summer time" but once, when I lost my job for about 6 weeks, I was almost happy during week 5 until I landed a job offer, and spent week 6 stressing about returning to work. It took me a month to feel like a huma…
If everybody would do most of this, we would live in paradise.
There's a plenty of occasions, causes and distractions to make your mind wander. To me personally the most prominent ones are when reading a book (which is also the most infuriating) and while riding some sort of public transport. The latter one helps me to reduce head buzz which is generated by randomly reading HN posts or working on a demanding task. Reading a book, where I actually need to concentrate on the book,…
Solve this with a "catch": something you use to empty the distracting ideas from your head, then get back to what you're doing. The original suggestion for a catch I found in "Mind Performance Hacks" by Ron Hale-Evans was a piece of paper and a writing utensil. These days with all sorts of apps to "catch" ideas, you have plenty of options. I've become very comfortable with org-mode myself.
I’m curious what this means for mainly intellectual jobs/skills. What’s the difference between mind wandering and, er, thinking? We can easily separate “programming” from “thinking about what’s for dinner,” and say the latter is wandering - but what about “could I do this another way? What was that technique I read about yesterday? But if I use that, then it might have this downside, which would mean x happens, and i…
I wouldn't know what happiness is anymore, since I work for a living. I wasn't happy in school because attendance was compulsory, but I do remember summers being okay. It's been decades since I've enjoyed a "summer time" but once, when I lost my job for about 6 weeks, I was almost happy during week 5 until I landed a job offer, and spent week 6 stressing about returning to work. It took me a month to feel like a huma…
Today we might rush after digital clocks and adapt our waking lives to the never extinguished electric lights that encircle us, all while the power of science has still failed to reduce our working times which have been rising ever since the agricultural revolution. In earlier society people felt the need to please the Gods - whatever their job situation was.
Even as lone hunter-gatherer your mind would be stressed because life itself continuously coerces you into doing inconvenient things in order to survive. You need things and they aren't just popping into your hands. Society made it massively easier to simply survive and not die.
But the factor we are REALLY after and which stresses us out without end is status. For you, for your children, for the rest of your family. Until status doesn't matter, stress will exist. No matter how much we secure and automate in the rest of our lives, be it health or hunger.
I wouldn't know what happiness is anymore, since I work for a living. I wasn't happy in school because attendance was compulsory, but I do remember summers being okay. It's been decades since I've enjoyed a "summer time" but once, when I lost my job for about 6 weeks, I was almost happy during week 5 until I landed a job offer, and spent week 6 stressing about returning to work. It took me a month to feel like a huma…
There's a plenty of occasions, causes and distractions to make your mind wander. To me personally the most prominent ones are when reading a book (which is also the most infuriating) and while riding some sort of public transport. The latter one helps me to reduce head buzz which is generated by randomly reading HN posts or working on a demanding task. Reading a book, where I actually need to concentrate on the book,…
There's a plenty of occasions, causes and distractions to make your mind wander. To me personally the most prominent ones are when reading a book (which is also the most infuriating) and while riding some sort of public transport. The latter one helps me to reduce head buzz which is generated by randomly reading HN posts or working on a demanding task. Reading a book, where I actually need to concentrate on the book,…
I could be wrong but your mind wandering off on a tangent while you're reading might be a sign of creativity. Creativity could be when you find relationships between two things that might not have been initially connected in your head. Your mind wandering could be your brain literally making new connections between the new material you're reading and existing material in your brain. Also, I think comparing and contra…