Writing is my artistic expression. My keyboard is my brush. Words are my medium. My blog is my canvas. And committing to writing daily makes me feel like an artist.
Yesterday at my archery practice my thoughts were my enemy. I got into a negative flow of thinking that I couldn’t break. It seemed as though every thought I had related to reasons why I would not hit the center of the target. My scores weren’t horrible, but they also weren’t anything close to what I’m capable of. It wasn’t so much the score that bothered me, it was my inability to get out of a negative loop of thinking.
I often wonder what goes through other people’s heads when they think. Are their minds as busy as mine? Do they have a constant internal dialogue that doesn’t shut up? For me, there is always a dialogue going on, and it isn’t always helpful. I sometimes wonder if I have some kind of attention deficit issue, with my mind bouncing from idea to idea.
Sometimes I feel like this is a super power, because I can make lateral connections to things others don’t see. Other times it’s more like a disability, with an inability to truly focus. And still other times (though less common) my thoughts can sink me into a zone of singular focus. This can happen when I’m writing, and I can start to put words on paper, intuitively knowing the beginning, middle, and end, before the world can get from my mind to the page. I love these moments, but they don’t come often.
What comes most often is a busy, somewhat clouded mind that is easily distracted. One that requires constant reminding to stay on task. I’ve figured out how to manage this, how to be effective, even when my mind wants to wander and wonder. But sometimes, like yesterday’s archery practice, I become my own worst enemy. I try to convince myself that I can focus and get away from the negative thoughts, but I can’t. Negative thoughts prevail. Negative internal dialogue persists.
I can get this way with meditation too. I can get so that every attempt to focus on my breath lasts only seconds before I’m fighting off distraction. And then the distractions become the only thing I can think of. These sessions don’t prove to be very meditative. They become 10 minutes of thinking that I need to be better at mediating, rather than actual meditation.
Yesterday, a clouded mind took over my archery practice. I didn’t practice archery, I practiced the art of negative thinking. The art of getting in my own way. The art of distraction. I need to learn a strategy to get my head out of these dark clouds when they come. I need to metaphorically clear the skies, and let the sun shine through… or at least pack an umbrella.
This was the first weekend all year that I didn’t shoot arrows. I could have made the time but I didn’t. I’ve also been going through the motions for my workouts, getting my cardio in, but not doing a lot more. I think I need to change things up a bit. I am also finding my daily blog a lot harder to get started each morning, the blank page feels daunting.
I tend to be an even-keeled person who doesn’t hit extreme highs and lows, and so it can be hard to know when I’m feeling low. Often it’s only after I recognize my own lethargy towards the things I enjoy doing that I realize that I’m in a bit of a funk. While there are disadvantages to not feeling the high highs, there are advantages to not feeling the low lows… I can identify where I am and make small adjustments to unstick myself.
I’m going to wake up a bit earlier so I feel less rushed. I’m going to shoot arrows after school 3 times this week. I’m going to give myself a physical challenge that reinvigorates my workouts. I’ve hit a low cycle and I’ve realized it. I’m going to act my way into a new way of thinking, because that’s easier than thinking my way into a new way of acting.
I’m lucky that I’m able to do this, I know many who struggle to do the same, some who simply can’t. They get consumed by anxiety or depression and can not (as opposed to will not) move themselves out of it easily. For those that struggle in this way, we are unhelpful when we tell them to snap out of it, or just to think of something else, or to cheer up.
For them we can be helpful by listening, not judging, by acknowledging, not instructing, and by engaging in active conversations, going for walks, being outside, and being social. We can share our energy and time. I think too often we don’t give people we care about our time.
For me, I need to give myself the time to do things I enjoy… and I need to remind myself that I enjoy these things. It’s like I need a reminder that I get joy out of the things I enjoy. I like shooting arrows, even if my score doesn’t constantly get better. I enjoy writing daily, it’s a positive outlet, not a chore. I enjoy getting my heart rate up and feeling the endorphins of a good quick workout. And I’m blessed that I can cognitively make this shift simply by thinking about it.
And so my workout beckons. I’m going to try my new headphones on my treadmill, then do a light all-around workout keeping my heart rate up the whole time, rather than pushing any one muscle group. And I’ll put my current audio books on hold and listen to some music today.
It’s time to shift into a good cycle, and I’m already on my way simply by writing about it today.
I’ve struggled with my morning meditation recently. My mind drifts and wanders, and I can’t seem to keep my thoughts on my breath for more than 30 seconds. Today was the 3rd day in a row that my mind wandered so much that I could barely call it meditation.
I like the Calm App, and use the 10 minute Daily Calm meditation. It starts with focussing on your breathing and for the last couple minutes there is always a lesson or topic that Tamara Levitt shares. Today’s was on Mudita. However I can’t tell you what that means despite the fact that I’m writing this immediately after meditating. I have no idea what Tamara spoke about? My mind had drifted for the entire lesson.
I know that bringing my focus back to my breath is meditation as much as staying focused. In the past couple years I’ve gotten better at doing this without being angry at myself, and understanding that this is a natural part of meditation. I’ve also started catching myself drift and bringing my thoughts back to my breath before Tamara reminds me. But my past few sessions have all seemed to involve my mind drifting, and me completely forgetting that I’m meditating. Then I catch myself and almost immediately drift again, unaware that I’m doing this. I’m hoping that writing this, and thinking about my intentions to stay focused will help… but I’m also open to suggestions.
My sister recently reminded me of how I used to write essays in school. While doing research, I’d write all my ideas down on Post-it notes. Then I’d take these notes and group them into big ideas. Then I’d take the big ideas and put them together into paragraphs.
I never wrote my introductory paragraph until I’d stitched all my Post-its into a cohesive essay body, then I’d decide what my thesis was and write my introduction. Then I’d go back and tweak the essay to fit.
The process looked chaotic, with these sticky paper squares completely surrounding me, sitting on my bedroom floor. Some of them stuck together in groups, others orphaned until I could figure out if I needed them. My dad would laugh at the sight, and make comments about my brain being filled with sticky notes.
Today, when I write on my office whiteboard, I see this come out in a different way. I don’t have Post-its stuck everywhere, but I see ideas stitched together and orphaned thoughts that I want to fit, but don’t. I have neat and tidy final drawings and ideas, and messily scratched words and thoughts that will be erased once I figure out how to expand on them and connect these ideas to the ones I’ve already decided to keep.
In a way, I’ve kept the same system, I just don’t use the post-its. I enjoy big thinking and stitching ideas together. I like making connections between unrelated things. I might have given up the process of writing with Post-it notes, but I haven’t given up on thinking the same way as when I used them. Over the next week, I’m going to pull out my post-its and see if they can’t help me advance my whiteboard thinking that has been stagnating recently.
Let’s see if this helps me… I’ll keep you posted. 😃
I had a meeting yesterday morning where we did small breakout sessions, and we discussed a topic that I’ve talked about a few times here on my Daily-Ink. I wanted to share something I wrote, but decided not to. Then we met a second time but it ended up being me and just one other colleague in the room. We continued the conversation and afterwards, I shared a link to one of the pieces I wrote via email. I got a really positive response, and I’m glad I did share it, but I’m always hesitant to do this.
It’s kind of weird, I write every day, and my post is automatically shared to Twitter, LinkedIn, and my Facebook page, so I obviously don’t mind sharing my work publicly. Yet I always feel like sharing my own writing at work is like shameless self-promotion rather than sharing my thoughts. It feels like I’m trying to show off, or that I’m bragging. Sometimes I’ll use my writing as a reference to what I say, but don’t mention the blog post or share the link.
I think that part of the challenge is that on social media people can choose to read or ignore my posts, and there is no price to pay if someone chooses to ignore the post, However, if I share it directly with someone, well then I’m kind of expecting it to be read. I’m forcing it on someone. This is me just thinking ‘out loud’ about this. I don’t think I’ll change my habits. I think I’ll continue to be overly cautious about sharing my writing in conversations with colleagues.
It’s not that I’m shy, it’s that I’m trying to be respectful. I don’t want to push my writing on people. But sometimes I articulate things better in my writing than I do trying to formulate my thoughts on the spot. I’m a slow processor, a slow thinker, and work through things better through writing than speaking.
That said, I can be quite vocal and no one has ever accused me of not participating in a discussion. Maybe that’s part of issue? I am vocal enough, and spreading or sharing my writing is just ‘over the top’. I’ve spent a few years developing my listening skills, and redirecting my thoughts to what’s being said, rather than what I want to say next. This is a skill that needs to be practiced, especially since I tend to be a lateral thinker that sees connections to things rather than seeing a single track of a conversation. So my brain wants to bounce to related things, off topic things, and maybe something I’ve previously written. But is that thing I wrote truly relevant to the conversation, or is it just relevant to me?
I don’t think I’ll share my posts at work any more than I already do after writing this. I think it’s probably a good thing that I hold back, and I’ll continue to do so.
The last few weeks have been busy. That is a statement I could probably say at any given point in the school year, but specifically I’ve been task busy recently. What I mean is that my day disappears with me doing what I need to do and not at all what I want to do. I haven’t had much thinking time.
So at the end of last week I started a drawing on my office whiteboard. It a hero’s journey metaphor for our school. I’m not ready to share the drawing yet, ideas are still being put together. But I can share a couple parts I’ve already written about:
I’ve probably only spent about an hour and a half over 4 days on this, not too much time… But this time has allowed me to think… It has given my brain permission to go beyond the tasks at hand… It has excited me about the journey ahead.
It’s easy to get caught in the hamster wheel, racing to nowhere, but getting there quickly. It takes intentional effort to step off the wheel and to pause long enough to think, to be creative. My whiteboard has become that space.
Yesterday after lunch, I was working on a section of the board where my secretary could see me making notes and she said, “You are having so much fun on that board.” For about 15-20 minutes I was! I’ve created some thinking time and space in my day. It’s not only time well spent, it’s time that charges my batteries and help me see value in all the other things I must do. It reminds my of why everything else matters, because our personal journey matters… if we make time for it.
Since March there have been so many new demands on educators. The path has not been easy. And the new school year has added many more expectations compared to having 70% of the year already completed, when Covid-19 brought with it the new phrase, ‘remote learning’.
How do I do effective group work with students one or two meters apart? How do I do collaborativeprojects and minimize the sharing of resources? How do I facilitate student-to-student communication when some students are in class and the rest are learning from home? How do I effectively engage students working from home on web conferencing tools. These and many more questions combine to overwhelm educators who are coping with learning on the fly as they navigate a new frontier.
It really isn’t easy.
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Let’s pause here and think about our students:
How does it feel to be new to a country, not know the language, and have to learn, when everything said needs to be translated and most words are not understood?
How does it feel to be introduced to y=mx+b when you struggle with Math, and never really understood how ‘x‘ was a number, and fractions confuse you?
How does it feel to have to learn the krebs cycle when the chemistry and vocabulary is all totally new to you?
How are you supposed to interpret the meaning of a story when every 5th word is either new to you or seems out of context related to the words around it?
How are you supposed to work from home when the home environment is filled with distractions and interruptions that don’t happen at school?
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While educators struggle to learn in new environments and with new tools, let’s pause and think about how hard learning is for some of our kids, who are also learning in new environments and with new tools… and new content they have never seen before.
I’ve been doing daily meditation for about a year and a half now. Just 10 minutes in the morning. I used to do it right away, but I found that if I wasn’t done my daily write, that’s what my mind would go to. So now I usually write first. Yet even with this order, I struggle to stay focused for just 10 minutes. My monkey brain can’t stay quiet.
I understand that meditation isn’t about thinking about ‘nothing’. I understand that meditation is a process of ‘returning to my breath’, meaning recognizing that my mind has drifted and recentering it on my breathing. I understand that when I notice I’ve drifted, that I should not attach anger or frustration to this, simply notice and refocus.
Yet, I can have days like yesterday where I barely spent 2 out of 10 minutes focussed on my breath and the rest of the time drifting. I’m not sure I was able to focus on my breath for more than 3 breaths before my mind was on something else. I’m realizing that I’m still just a beginner. I’m wondering what I need to do differently?
I’m aware that I need to let go of my expectations, but I’m also someone that wants and expects results. These opposing goals are not very Zen. They don’t help each other. I have so much still to learn or maybe just to understand… just not sure if my monkey brain is ready?
I had a conversation yesterday with someone who carries very strong negative memories with them from something that happened many years ago. It wasn’t violent, and didn’t cause any trauma to their body, but it did to their mind. It was essentially an emotional bullying issue, one that especially hurt because it came from someone believed to be a friend. It hurt more because it wasn’t just a one-time thing, it was repeated.
As I listened, I was taken back by the hurt that was still carried. They say ‘time heals all wounds’, but I think sometimes ‘time wounds all heals’. Sometimes the passage of time does not separate us from emotional pain, rather time bathes us in it.
I think that’s why people end up self medicating. It’s easier to numb the pain than it is to face the pain that lurks in our memories, haunting us. The memory, the upset, the anger, or the pain, can seem as present and as relevant as things happening to us daily.
I’m not a psychologist, and I don’t play one on tv or the internet, but I asked this person a question.
I asked, when recalling the incidents, if they saw the experience through their own eyes or if they saw themselves in the memory as if they were watching a movie? The answer was ‘it’s like a movie’.
Aren’t our minds amazing things, that we can recall a memory and see ourselves in that memory! How does that work? We aren’t really reliving it if we can see it happening to us. It’s more like we are watching our own history. This gives us more power than we might think we have:
We don’t have to review our memories up close.
We don’t have to recall our memories in full colour or at full speed.
We can create new endings. Rewind and replay it.
We can literally put the memory into a television screen.
We can recall memories as still, black & white, blurry photos in old frames.
We can move memories into the shadows of our minds rather than have them fill our brains in full technicolor and splendour. We don’t have to get rid of them, (I’m not sure we can), but we can reduce their power over us. We can relegate the memories to less significance.
It’s similar to controlling anger. When something upsets us and makes us mad, how long do we hold on to that anger?
Let’s say you are driving to work one morning and someone cuts you off. I mean really cuts you off, you have to break hard and swerve into the curb lane to stop from hitting them and getting in an accident. You slam on the breaks and your horn simultaneously, but the other car drives off, seemingly oblivious to what they just put you through. How long do you hold on to that anger?
Is 5 minutes appropriate?
What about for the rest of your commute?
What about until everyone at work has heard your story?
How about until you’ve told your spouse when you got home.
How about the following week?
How about you recall the incident every time you pass that spot on the road on the way to work?
How long is it acceptable to hold on to that anger, to build up that moment in your mind? How long do you let that that angry moment in the past control your emotions in the present?
We have many memories that belong in the shadows of our mind, rather than in full colour and right in front of us.
If we can learn to not let the anger of a jerk that cut us off minutes, hours, days, or weeks ago control our present state or well being, couldn’t we do the same for something years in the past.
Maybe we can let time heal our wounds .
It may take practice, but if we’ve already changed the memory into a movie, seeing it from a perspective that we didn’t experience, then haven’t we already made changes that have removed us from the original experience? And if our minds can do that on their own, maybe we can choose to ‘see’ those memories in more distant and less angry ways. Maybe we can alter our past so that it interferes less with our present.
This is part 2 of my thoughts on Free Will and Consciousness. Part 1 assumed free will and looked at The Bell Curve of Free Will.
Part 3 will look at why I believe we have free will, but to get there I need to look first at consciousness.
Background
I’ve been reading, watching, and listening to ideas about what consciousness is. At the heart of this is the question, the Hard Problem of Consciousness.
We don’t know what creates consciousness, but we know that we integrate information from the physical world and that we are conscious of that world. We also know that the information we integrate from the physical world isn’t perfect.
I’ve said before that, “What we do know is that our perception of the world is based on models of the world and not actually the world itself. We have very faulty user interfaces, insufficient sensors, that warp our perception of reality…
Our user interface with the world is not accurate, we know this, but we also know that the world isn’t just an illusion. We know the sun emits light and heat, we can see the light on surfaces in our field of vision, and we can feel the heat on our faces. But I can’t know that my experience of the colour blue is exactly like yours, or that my comfort with the heat of the sun is similar to yours either. But I wonder how much our upbringing, and the culture we live in influence how we interpret the world around us?”
So we don’t see/hear/feel reality as it is. We have a faulty interface with reality. That relates to our senses, but what if our inner understanding of consciousness is even more faulty than our outer senses are, as they relate to our perception of our reality. What if we can’t grasp what our unconscious mind does because there is a faulty interface with our conscious mind. I think this is why it is so hard to understand free will, because we don’t understand how consciousness works and there is a black box of understanding that separates our conscious and unconscious minds. But I’ll delve into free will another time, for now, I want to look at what consciousness is?
Before I dig into this a little deeper, I’m going to take a stance that relates to the “Integrated information theory” of consciousness… the idea that consciousness comes along with integrated information. This Nova video, ‘Can we Measure Consciousness?‘ is the clearest look at this idea that I could find.
Here are my thoughts:
Increased consciousness beyond survival is not fundamental it is incidental. It’s an accident that is born out of intelligence having idle processing time, (in a way, think of this as smart systems being bored).
To begin with I will assume that every living thing has consciousness. The moment life enters into the equation, then the first ‘desire’ is reproduction. Procreation is hard-wired into living. From one-cell organisms to plants to mammals, the moment there is an opportunity to reproduce, then there is simple consciousness that drives a species to continue life, to avoid harm, and to continue the species. This is the simplest form of consciousness. I used the word ‘desire’ to suggest a form of choosing, or of wanting, that is fundamentally different than non-living things. This is my twist on panpsychism,
With more evolved brains, that have a greater amount of neurons firing, consciousness is greater than in un-evolved brains or entities. I think of this kind of like Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.
Consciousness can be found within the smallest of organisms. Consciousness increases through evolution, when species develop and move up Maslow’s hierarchy because they have additional time to ‘think’ beyond basic primitive and primary/primal needs. Organisms only consciously worry about physiological and safety needs until their predecessors brains have enough neurons and/or time to ‘think’ beyond survival and reproduction. If a species has the capacity and time to think beyond basic survival then they can think of things like community. Communities in turn create efficiencies that create more time to think beyond survival, which then permits a higher level of consciousness. Look at how far humanity has advanced in the past few hundred years, only after farming and urban living have produced significantly more time for us to be idle, to be creative, and to think about thinking. Our consciousness now allows (most of) us to spend time higher up on Maslow’s Hierarchy.
Put another way, life requires consciousness, and it starts with the desire to reproduce. From there, consciousness coincidentally builds with an organism’s complexity and boredom, or idle processing time, when brains do not have to worry about basic survival. Our consciousness is created by the number of connections in our brains, and the amount of freedom we have to think beyond our basic survival.
But we are not the only conscious animals. To me, an animal or a tree showing some compassion to another species suggests consciousness beyond what is normally attributed to other living things. Whether it is a bear saving a crow,
there appears to be a level of consciousness, thinking, understanding, or intelligence that all living things have. Why else would a bear, a cat, or a tree have compassion for another species if they were not conscious?
I started by saying, “Increased consciousness beyond survival is not fundamental it is incidental. It’s an accident that is born out of intelligence having idle processing time.” I don’t really have an argument to suggest that consciousness is incidental or accidental. Maybe I should state, “Higher consciousness is fundamental, it is a by-product of processing ability and excess time to process.” This would give life itself more reason to exist, but my hunch is that intelligence was not intentional, it is a by-product of abilities exceeding needs. However if I changed my mind, I wouldn’t have an argument for consciousness being fundamental any more than it being incidental and accidental.
Final thoughts:
What prevents us from getting to full actualization of self? The story about the tree above might be a hint. It would seem that trees are interconnected by a symbiotic relationship with microbial fungus to create a greater consciousness of the entire forest. Maybe the challenge we have is that of letting go of the self and connecting our consciousness to other humans or other species in a profound way? What is the next level of consciousness that we can achieve? Maybe I’m wrong and consciousness is truly fundamental. Maybe it is the reason for life, and we are on a journey to understand how all consciousness is connected.
My second bullet below is intentionally (un)bolded to suggest both of these ideas… either way the concepts each fit with my other conclusions.
Conclusions:
Every living thing has consciousness.
Higher consciousness is not fundamental, it is incidental or accidental, (a by-product of processing ability and boredom).
Consciousness increases in relation to two things:
More neurons or more processing ability.
More idle time.
When basic physiological and safety needs are met by an organism they develop higher order consciousness if they have the processing ability and the time to use their consciousness.Â
