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Men who stare at walls

alexselimov.com

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Re: Men who stare at walls

#201

Post by latortuga »

zug_zug wrote: post #37

I feel like this is on to something. I remember earlier in my career whenever I hit a really, really hard problem I'd have an instinct to try to stare of into the far distance (especially if there's like a distant skyline) and sort of zone-out. It was like shower-thinking or almost sleeping, and then come back with a deeper understanding of the problem. Psychology research backs this up -- I think there are studies t…

It's funny you said "shower-thinking" because showers are one of the few places where it's not practical to use a device and you really are alone with your thoughts. A normal day to day activity that is the same sort of "stare at walls" state that the OP describes.

Re: Men who stare at walls

#203

Post by strken »

dkenyser wrote: post #191
Al-Khwarizmi wrote: post #10

Is this not a form of meditation? I've never been able to keep a meditation habit, but my understanding is that meditation techniques often feature closing your eyes and focusing on breathing, body parts or some other irrelevant thing, it sounds like staring at a wall would serve the same purpose.

Yes. I swear every day I see a "new" fad targeted at fixing one's attention and every time they're doing so much mental gymnastics to not use the word "meditation."

The problem with the word meditation is that, if this counts as meditation, then I meditate every time I take a long train trip or go for a walk.

That might actually be true! But there are people who claim they cry, or experience infinite bliss, or that meditation gave them long lasting mental health problems and is dangerous. When I've emptied my mind and let the trees and houses fly past on train trips, I've neither cried nor experienced infinite bliss nor broken down mentally.

Re: Men who stare at walls

#204

Post by pvab3 »

Sir_Twist wrote: post #130
aselimov3 wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s a lot of research on restorative environments (usually nature/outside)being good for focus. I definitely try to spend as much time outside as I can, but for some reason the wall works better for that 5-10 minutes. Being outside is much more enjoyable though haha

I remember first hearing about this from the book Deep Work: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attention_restoration_theory

Interesting. I hadn't heard of that directly, but I've never found it to be true. I've found momentum and continuation to be more useful than rest or relaxation when it comes to tackling big things.

Re: Men who stare at walls

#207

Post by swah »

NDlurker wrote: post #95
amelius wrote: post #16

In case someone wants to look at a wall: https://unsplash.com/photos/red-bricks-wall-XEsx2NVpqWY

I live in an old warehouse converted into apartments. The walls are made of yellow brick and they're nice to look at because of the variation in texture/wear/color

Is this fair game? Looking at the details of the texture? Or wall here means "something plain, without characteristics".

Re: Men who stare at walls

#208

Post by throwforfeds »

feb012025 wrote: post #160
throwforfeds wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've never liked the way meditation makes me feel This is common. A true meditation practice brings up a lot of stuff, from general body aches and pains to deep emotional things you may be unconsciously suppressing. With time and persistence, and with the right teacher, it becomes liberating though.

I don't think that's it. I've never been one to shy away from any difficult emotional experiences I have (maybe I'm wrong though who knows) I just end up feeling emotionally "flat" after doing it. Which sometimes feels like that's the goal, but I don't like the feeling

Ah, I see, that's also very common. Taken all the way it can develop into nihilism, which is one of the two extreme views in Buddhism [1]. I fell into that early on and abandoned my practice for many years. I found that once I found the Mahayana teachings on emptiness [2] and then the stories of the Vajrayana masters [3] the practice became joyful again and not bogged down by some narrow view of what meditation is.

[1] https://www.rigpawiki.org/index.php?title=Two_extremes

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%9A%C5%ABnyat%C4%81 and particularly as formulated in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prajnaparamita

[3] for example Saraha: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saraha and Tilopa: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tilopa

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