Meditation is to mental training and focus, as going to the gym is to physical training.
Socials killed our attention span. Agents are literally making us context switch even more.
Putting aside the whole "I am at piece and one with the world" part of meditation, it is extremely hard.
I'm also no expert. When I'm waiting for something to finish (agent, compilation, etc), I've found that staring at a wall ends up in a net positive in productivity rather than replying to a message, going on X, or kicking off another agent.
Staring at a wall, or relaxing, is not meditation or a cure for losing focus.
Losing focus could be e.g., (1) lacking the attention span (ability, fatigue, disinterest), (2) lacking the working memory to hold the problem; (3) distraction (by more important or interesting things); (4) focusing too hard on the wrong things (and getting no where); etc.
Solutions differ, but like talk therapy, most any approach will have some positive effect just via escape from oblivious continuance or self-defeating (mental) behaviors, if not development of insight (i.e., self-observation).
To me the key is that thoughts are motivated (interesting) and amplified (concerning or exciting); the key is to recognize that you are the source of that energy, and learn to notice and decide whether this energy is helpful in the situation. Usually that means letting it go, but sometimes you need to raise it (e.g., to address an instance of ongoing injustice). Then focus is a function of having the energy needed for a given situation - no more or less.
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.
As someone who's maintained a meditation practice since 2013, this is definitely meditation.
And by "maintain a practice", I mean it's more like something I return to with frequency and less a daily compulsion.
Focusing on the breathe or ambient sounds is "easy", and is precisely the reason meditation is seemingly difficult. The mind craves more than simplicity; for some this occurs after a few seconds, for others after a few minutes...it all depends on the day. Learning to observe when the mind wanders is one part of the practice. Labelling the quality of thought that caused the wandering (planning, worrying, visualizing, replaying, etc)and returning to the simpler act of focus on breathe or sounds is another part of the practice.
This article is very much the author discovering some variation of meditation; if they feel the need to "invent" something and share it in a blog post...then here's hoping it promotes more people to give it a shot and maybe it'll lead to at least one person developing a new practice for themselves.
I was taught basic breathing meditation from a Vietnamese nun; but I'm not an expert. There are so many variations that I don't understand. I don't know much about Zen or it's take on meditation or mindfulness. On meditation, I know when I do it right, but have trouble helping people learn. I have trouble when I most need it (highly stressed), as I have the most trouble taking the time to relax without feeling too guilty.
As far as "inventing". I know what you (@reg_dunlop) mean but I don't see too much real harm. My father was into a book that talked about "not thinking". It was just a re-framing of part of mindfulness. If it helps... I'm not going to fuss about it.
As far as eyes. I was taught to not close my eyes completely but most of the way. I saw a documentary that explored Tibetan monks and their meditation. From what I recall, one of the monks said to use the eyelids as adjustable window blinds(or a valve... I'm paraphrasing to my understanding of what he was saying) so that if they got a bit sleepy they would open them more.
Personally, I'm a big believer in mindfulness but I do have some questions on some finer points. I might even aspire to teach it, but need further help myself first. Let me know of any resources that helped you (anyone)
A meditation practice(in the Soto Zen tradition) over the course of five years changed my life. Daily 40m of sitting facing a wall watching the breath and returning the mind to the present moment when it strays. No judgement. Just returning the mind to the present, again, and again, and again.... The BS starts to drop away. No enlightenment moments. But later, away from the practice you have more patience, more acceptance, more little moments of joy, less fear.
I've been doing it on and off for years. Trouble is my "career" is dead. I think I'm technically "middle" aged, but really over "middle" of life. It's harder to relax the mind and body right now. When I do it "right", I feel more relaxed on both fronts. My body doesn't sit for hours or anything but 15-30 is my norm when it works. It's hard for me to continue, if I hadn't relaxed by say 5 min. I think mine is basically the same except I try and return to paying attention to my breathing when my mind wonders. I know my breathing is in the "present"; so this might just be a semantic difference. *I don't like the word "concentration" because, I think, it throws people off (so that's why I didn't use it)
i get the scare quote usage. but still feel like it’s a good time to point out.
there’s no right zazen. there’s no wrong zazen. there’s just zazen. sitting down and taking what comes. that’s all we’re doing. sitting down and getting quieter.
emphasis on the -er in quieter.
30 minutes of “crap” zazen is probably the most rewarding zazen. i just don’t appreciate it at the time.
something that helped me recently is just giving myself a day off. it’s okay. i’ll come back to it. as someone said to me recently — the worst way of maintaining a practice is to force it / control it.
The meditation I practice is based on non-duality techniques. Mind needs a problem to solve so ask the question "Where am I ?". Anything that you can see both physically and mentally is not you. You are not the table, the chair, your hands, your legs, your face, your sensations, your feeling, your thoughts, your emotions. Neti-Neti (not this, not this).
You are something beyond all this. Try find it.
By going through the mind goes in a trance unable to think any thoughts. I find it better approach compared to try to disciplining the mind.
Yeah, I think the actual "invention" I originally attributed to the author of the blog post should be attributed to the YouTuber. But if this version of meditation is helpful for the YouTuber and/or the blogger, then fantastic. That's 2 people who are benefiting from it.
I'm reluctant to say more about my own mindfulness practice; I feel the finer points about how or when to meditate are open to interpretation. Anyone can be as superficial or dogmatic as they'd like when it comes to choosing a practice, and how they adhere to it.
The point, for me, isn't strict adherence; It's both simpler and more interesting to let go of the preconceived notions of attempting to achieve something.
One thing I will say: If I believe I can't meditate for 5 minutes, I meditate for 15. This makes me more open and receptive in life when I find myself saying "....I should meditate".
staring at a wall is basically the zen practice of shikantaza [1], except you’re not staring, it’s more of an eyes half closed yet alert gaze. you don’t do anything, not even counting the breath. you just sit, that’s the entire practice. in my experience, the more you intellectualize it, the more difficult it becomes!
I've never liked the way meditation makes me feel, but I really like doing "guided relaxation". To an extent that I think they have to be different somehow, even though a lot of people would probably say they're the same thing.
It could be, but it depends on what you're cultivating. If you're spaced out, day dreaming, then you're practicing distraction. Meditation is practicing the opposite of distraction, to become aware of the mind's true state.
I don’t practice meditation so I couldn’t tell you. I do find that when I do it, there are two regimes.
In the first regime the time goes somewhat quickly and it isn’t as difficult. I call this the zoning out regime. There usually hits a sudden point where zoning out is no longer quite as easy. This is probably the meditative regime where I have to be more mindful about keeping my mind blank.
I set a timer just to train my will, but I don’t prioritize spending a ton of time in that second regime. Just anecdotally, once I’m past the zoning out regime my focus is usually back.
I'd consider them to be pretty dramatically different; meditation can be associated with deliberate focus and a kind of religious devotion, while just staring at a wall can be the absence of focusing or any kind of defined practice
After reading your comment, I was reminded of my first and last visit to a zen meditation center where we had to meditate by staring at a wall sitting on some sort special cushion designed for this sort of meditation.
it almost is but meditation, is done with more intent.
In Zen Buddhism for example you are always striving to increase awareness, by constantly monitoring your internal monologue, pulling yourself back from day dreaming, expanding from focus on the breath to all near by sensation and phenomena.
True meditation, in the zen sense, is an order of magnitude more difficult to do consistently, and takes intense willpower.
> it almost is but meditation, is done with more intent.
> True meditation, in the zen sense, is an order of magnitude more difficult to do consistently, and takes intense willpower.
There are different forms of meditation and the one with the most evidence is also the easiest to do, mindfulness [1].
Very little intent is needed to get the majority of the benefits from meditation. I don't know that zen meditation offers more benefits, perhaps it does. But I do know that the "fake" forms of meditation are still beneficial.
I am a practicing Zen Buddhist and I wouldn’t agree with this description, at least not in my experience and the community that I’ve participated in.
Specifically I would say the concepts of “striving” and “intent” aren’t ones I would use.
What it actually is takes a little more to pin down (famously) but I would consider the concept of surrender to be more applicable. In fact I would say the absence of striving would be a good sign you’re on the right track.
I would consider staring at a wall without intent to be completely compatible with Zen practice.
i’m not sure but they may be speaking about rinzai zen. watched a few bits and bobs about rinzai and some of the practices are kinda of that “willpower” ilk. dunno, never practiced it, not my vibe.
they definitely were not describing soto-zen tho, that’s for sure.
edit — i find it almost koan-esque that there’s two schools referred to as “zen”, both of which generally dislike the label “zen”, both of which have very different practices and methods.
This! The famous Zen Koan of the Master, the Professor, and the overfilled tea cup illustrates this beautifully...
I'd highly recommend checking it out! (Overall, the Blue Cliff record is a treasure trove of Koans, for anyone keen on the theme comes highly recommended)
The Zen approach, more than any other, seems to precisely emphasize the purity of 'sit down and shut up'. Shikantaza - literally means 'simply sitting'. It fundamentally involves no staring at walls, no koan to grasp and struggle over, even following your breath is not really a part of it... It really, really is 'just' sitting, in every systemic sense. A practice which has no clear goal or intent, instead focused on removing anything that could act as such, act as any tether over awareness. Awareness untethered, unbounded, past distinction.
Lao Tzu comes to mind... he said it much more succinctly: Wei - Wu Wei (do - not doing). The action of effortlessly being adrift with the flow, the action of surrender of your 'self' and the infinite schemes/designs/narratives that it builds (as someone in the discussion above here aptly suggested).
Another quote comes to mind from elsewhere:
'Let go your earthly tether, enter the void, empty and become wind.'
This seems counterintuitive. Maybe I'm doing it wrong but in my newbie practice it seems to be like resistance or cardiovascular training where there is effort in the moment and a sense of one's limits and a sense of unfolding and gains toward more depth and weight and duration. Like the gym it can be disappointing to lose ground after a break but there is also the contentment of regaining strength similar to rereading a familiar book and seeing it in new light.
There have been times that required more purposeful scheduling and preparation that is my default mode and times when whatever was in my head made me just actively hate sitting there and fail to realize that sensation as an ephemeral state. I accepted the door was closed that day and came back the next to pick up at the stopping point.
is meditation just not a form of staring at a wall? i've never been able to keep a staring at a wall habit, but my understanding that staring at a wall often features opening your eyes and focusing on breathing, body parts or some other irrelevant thing, it sounds like meditation would serve the same purpose.
Yep. You don’t have to have to have your eyes closed to meditate. You can keep them open to focus on the flame of a candle or something else… in this case, a wall!
> ... but my understanding is that meditation techniques often feature closing your eyes and focusing on breathing, body parts or some other irrelevant thing
It's more like the opposite. If you think about your breathing, you'll be "controlling" it (which funnily enough is not the case when you don't think about it). Meditation is the opposite: you have to be in a state where you can think about your breathing and yet you're not controlling it.
I can tell that, from doing it since a long time and from talking to people about it, even many people who practice meditation cannot reach that state (thinking about breathing without controlling it).
And you also really don't focus on body parts: you "disconnect" them all until you don't even feel them anymore.
And you also shouldn't focus on irrelevant things: you have to focus on absolutely nothing.
There are many different techniques to "pass on through to the other side": some visualize thoughts ("words" or the "internal monologue") as if it was a sea. The more thoughts, the more hectic the sea (and you want it all calm: no words, no internal monologue). Some imagine a lotus flower opening and when the last leaf opens, you can be in. Some imagine diving.
I meditate on and off since a long time. There are benefits, for example I definitely can lower the intensity of headaches (or at least how I perceive the pain). What I tell my friends is that Buddhist monks are actually on serious trips beating any psychedelic drug that does exist.
this is known as trataka meditation in the yogic tradition. trataka falls under the umbrella of kriya (purification) techniques which is why it helps with focus and intention
When I was a kid, I would often sit on my bed and stare at the wall. My Dad would walk by my room and ask if everything was ok. I would always say "yeah", since I was literally just thinking.
It's a great feeling to just stare at a wall and think.
My first thought is usually, "If I could think about anything right now, what would it be?" And this frees my mind up to think about what I want to think about.
> When I was a kid, I would often sit on my bed and stare at the wall. My Dad would walk by my room and ask if everything was ok. I would always say "yeah", since I was literally just thinking.
Huh, I just realized I’ve been doing a version of this for the last decade or so.
When I’m tired or distracted at work, I do a “magic eye” with my keyboard: I bow my head down close to the keys, then focus my eyes to infinity, and gradually bring my focus closer to “snap” to different focus depths.
When I worked in an office, my coworkers found this disconcerting. Really helps me reset though!
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
> Additionally, during attention demanding tasks, sufficient deactivation of the default mode network at the time of memory encoding has been shown to result in more successful long-term memory consolidation.[33]
> Studies have shown that when people watch a movie,[34] listen to a story,[35][36] or read a story,[37] their DMNs are highly correlated with each other. DMNs are not correlated if the stories are scrambled or are in a language the person does not understand, suggesting that the network is highly involved in the comprehension and the subsequent memory formation of that story.[36] The DMN is shown to even be correlated if the same story is presented to different people in different languages,[38] further suggesting the DMN is truly involved in the comprehension aspect of the story and not the auditory or language aspect.
> The default mode network is deactivated during some external goal-oriented tasks such as visual attention or cognitive working memory tasks.[7] However, with internal goal-oriented tasks, such as social working memory or autobiographical tasks, the DMN is positively activated with the task and correlates with other networks such as the network involved in executive function.[8] Regions of the DMN are also activated during cognitively demanding tasks that require higher-order conceptual representations.[10] The DMN shows higher activation when behavioral responses are stable, and this activation is independent of self-reported mind wandering.[39] Meditation, which involves focusing the mind on breathing and relaxation, is associated with reduced activity of the DMN.[40]
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
Shamatha/Zhine practitioner here. The wall staring practice described is not too unlike these. The main difference being that while practicing Zhine, I'm counting breathes.
I really want to point out that the purpose is not to concentrate so hard that focus remains. It's simply to be aware of attention drifting, and gently bring it back. Repeatedly, over time, this becomes easier and easier.
There is a sense of unwrinkling the mind that I achieve after a session. The inner voice drawing me toward the anxieties of life becomes quieter and quieter. The ability to choose to disregard thoughts and move on becomes stronger and stronger.
If you're the type of person who can fall asleep quickly, wouldn't a nap be better? I go out to my car and take a 10-15 minute nap when I'm struggling with something at work. I wake up with a clearer head and sometimes a solution to whatever the problem was.
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 that show students who have a break between two classes before better in both classes (it's called interference).
Anyways it felt weird to me that our work never accommodated this, I think peak performance requires tuning the environment to the human biology, not management optics.
I think this is actually valid, if you think about it. Some days I go by with constantly thinking be it about work, in messages, or simply on social media. Taking the time to stare at walls actually provides ability to step back, calm down, and actually random thoughts will start appearing out of which some can be insightful.
In a lot of these there could logically be someone sitting across from them making them laugh, but the woman with the cherry tomato in her fingers is just smiling for the love of the salad.
If you get in the habit of doing this when thinking, it can bomb interviews with interviewers who don't know that's something that some people do.
In-person interview: the majority of people want you to be making frequent eye contact, and are less comfortable when you aren't. Some people also hear folk myths that looking a certain direction is a tell for deception or fabrication. ("Up and to the left means lying; up and to the right means hungry.")
On videoconf interview: if you look away when thinking, people might think you're looking at (or listening to) AI output or a human collaborator, to cheat.
(OTOH, you might be better off finding thoughtful colleagues already familiar with introvert and neurodiverse thinkers, who are aware that many great engineers are also nerds, and who include that within "culture fit".)
I would also push back on the idea that this sort of behavior could be unique to "introvert and neurodiverse thinkers". Must there not be social and/or "neurotypical" people with idiosyncrasies?
> Extrapolating that trend, we would be at about 87 GB worth of data today.
Throw in YouTube Shorts / TikTok etc and it makes me wonder if that estimate is drastically too low. We went from the information age, to the brainrot overload age, to let's both have brainrot and let computers think for us.
If that trend really wants to measure the quality of video etc. as well, it would definitely be way more. But that assumption seems very flawed to me, e.g. watching a full 4K movie would amount to way more data than scrolling through memes, even though the latter is way more of an attention-stealing activity.
I've always done this. As I got older I found out that I have really bad astigmatism. It takes a lot of work to keep my eyes in focus. It feels great to just zone out and "stare" at nothing, it's like a bunch of tiny muscles in my skull get to relax.
I could never do this. I would forget that I am staring at a wall within 30 seconds.
The suggestion of going for a walk at least means when you get absorbed by something in your mind, you are still out on a walk, You can't just turn around and start working on some new idea if you are out on a path somewhere.
Totally agree with the absorption thing. I've always found myself at a great calm, ever since I was a kid, from sitting en transit and looking out the window. A train ride is great for this reason. I think about things. I actively think about things. These things are often not daydreams, hard problems, rumination. I know what those feel like, and they are definitely different from depressive rumination or furiously working through tasks.
Again, I want to emphasize, that in none of these are you explicitly practicing the act of leashing in your mind.
All in all, I think the popular conception of meditation, Youtube-ized since the 2010s, has more nuance. Maybe people see this distinction and think it's obvious. To me, as someone who unironically feel like I'm net negative from self-help content than net-positive, this matters to me, personally.
If you want to get mystical, there are plenty of stories of deep Eastern masters practicing their craft every day. They certainly are thinking about their act - they are not trying their best to "get rid of all their thoughts". These are different activities, each with their own merits, both much different states than the common state of the modern man today.
That being said, meditation and the surrounding ideas have helped me overall, if not just because the specific influencers that I do hold as valuable had a good attitude when approaching it. But nowadays I'd imagine it's been silently incorporated into the very underlying forces they were trying to avoid (I have to meditate because it makes me a more improved human being compared to my peers!)
> You can't just turn around and start working on some new idea if you are out on a path somewhere.
Eh? I'm retired now so I don't need to work but when I did I often went for a walk when a problem seemed insoluble. After a while I might feel that I have the solution to that and I'd start working on another problem as I continued my walk. You don't need to be in front of a screen with your fingers on a keyboard to do some work.
it could probably work as well to close your eyes instead of staring at a wall.
i've always found meditation types revolving around focusing on one thing (candle, wall etc), or nothing (empty mind) to be really hard. my mind just wanders and i end up super anxious, frustrated, and exhausted - resulting in me giving up pretty quickly
What I've found is that focusing on "everything" - ie sitting still and trying to observe your surroundings, your body, all sounds simultaneously seems to work much better. It's easier to get to a calm state this way.
Also, doing this while walking can also work - but perhaps easier to accidentally start thinking about something else
The idea as far as I understand it is that it’s the point exactly to sit with and process whatever comes up in your mind when you don’t distract yourself. The more often you do it, the more present you become, and the more ability you develop to discriminate between what really is there and what is your imagination/unprocessed memories of the past. The object you focus on merely serves as a still reference point from which you look at what else is showing up (feelings, thoughts, memories).
There will always be anxiety, otherwise you would have processed it already and not hurried away into other activities. It sure feels life-threatening, but as long as you don’t give in to the illusion and remind yourself that it is not, there is no rational reason to jump away. Breathing is a typical way to remind yourself that you are safe in the present environment. And the gift you receive is more and more clarity and a relaxed base state from which to face what’s next.
A lot of people are referencing meditation. Ultimately that's not a terribly well-defined word. It may match some broad ones, but there's a lot of narrow ones that it wouldn't.
If staring at a wall helps then don't let me stop you but I've sometimes done something very similar by just sitting in a chair without any cell phone, book, electronic item, etc. until I'm very bored. Not like "gritting my teeth, come on we can do another 15 minutes let's goooooo" like an exercise push, but definitely waiting past the first couple of twitches of boredom until it's a constant. It's kind of an interesting way to start a vacation, really helps disconnect from work very quickly. It can be some hours, though.
I do find that this only happens for me if I'm "doing nothing". I see others suggesting exercise, or something else, and those are absolutely good in their own way. But they are not the same thing as just doing nothing. It's still trying to do something and "use the time productively".
The downside is that the family just sees a guy sitting there "doing nothing" and can find a dozen reasons to interrupt... it's hard to do this when there are any other people around, and while I'm not an absolutist about a plan that can be summed up as "sit until you can't" without much loss, the interruptions do very quickly diminish the utility. There's a huge difference between sitting uninterrupted for an hour, and sitting for 15 minutes, putting away the dishes, sitting for 15 minutes, getting up to help reach something, sitting for 15 minutes, explaining that yes you really are sitting there just doing nothing would you please just let me do that, and sitting for 15 minutes.
This particular thing doesn't match "meditation" to me, because I'm not even doing the minimal thing meditation involves; I'm not concentrating on breathing, not trying to "not think", not trying to do anything. If the mind races, let it race until it is done racing[1]. In this point in particular this certainly doesn't match a lot of specific meditation traditions. If the thought of doing something occurs to you, that meditation technique of letting it pass through you until it disappears can be useful.
If meditation is a deliberate attempt to slow down, or a deliberate attempt to concentrate on some particular thing, or a deliberate attempt to empty one's mind, it still has a deliberative goal. If you're willing to broaden the term to encompass not even having that much of a plan, then I have no objection. But this feels to me too low level to even justify the term meditation as most people use it. If you're "trying" to do anything at all, then this isn't really what I'm talking about here. I'm not saying this is "better" than meditation, I'm more saying I'm not sure this even rises to that level, as low as some of them may be. It's really just "rest", a concept our century and culture has largely lost track of.
(Of course the obvious semantic argument about "well are you trying to not try, hmmmmmm?" is there and you are free to debate that in your own head, because like I said, I'm not trying to be absolutist about this. This isn't a program I'm proposing so much as an experience report. You do whatever and call it whatever and argue about definitions as much as you like.)
[1]: If your mind literally never stops this may not work for you... that said, in the 21st century, are you sure your mind never stops racing if you just let it run itself to exhaustion? Have you ever tried? It could be some hours, plural. Again, I fully acknowledge that some people reading this can say "yes". I acknowledge the existence of great neurodiversity. But if you've never tried just letting it run itself to exhaustion you may be surprised what happens if you can find the time to let it.
Seems like it would be better and easier to just take a walk instead. Whenever you feel information overload, it's time for a break: step outside, get some fresh air, stretch your legs, etc. Not a panacea, obviously, just common sense. Staring at a wall while forcing your mind to "think of nothing"... maybe try it once and see how it goes.
> Seems like it would be better and easier to just take a walk instead.
Unfortunately for many, and few managers will admit it even though it's true - there is a performative aspect to physical presence at work. Being away from your desk, idle on slack, etc to go take that walk is a problem in many work environments.
Probably one reason why SWEs are disproportionately interested in FIRE.
> Probably one reason why SWEs are disproportionately interested in FIRE.
SWEs are disproportionately interested in FIRE because it is (or was) an easy way to get a high paying job without an extended education period like becoming a doctor or lawyer. You could go straight into a six figure job after 4 years of college and even wear shorts to work, while your med school and lawyer friends were just getting started and had years of grunt work ahead of them and debt to pay off. SWEs are also disproportionately represented on online spaces like Reddit and forums where FIRE was popularized.
SWE jobs have been the most flexible I’ve had and seen across my career. I also had a manager who would police time spent in seats, but at every other job going for a walk was not an issue.
Contrast that with many of my friends in other careers who, still to this day, have stories about their managers imposing dress codes or forbidding headphones in the office. The average SWE is spoiled in workplace flexibility, even if there are exceptions.
Going for a run helped formulate so many of my best ideas and solved so many tricky problems I was facing. It was always one of three places: on a run, in the shower, or right before falling asleep.
Getting outside/walking can be good but there's still a lot of activity hitting your senses. People, cars, animals, sounds, or all of the above. If you can find a quiet park bench to sit and sort of defocus it might work. But more than just taking a break, when you "stare at a wall" you are engaging in deliberate sensory deprivation, which might be a better reset for your analytical mind. All that said, if taking a walk works for you, great!
> What I didn’t expect was how difficult it would be. Sitting for 5-10 minutes staring at a wall without thinking of anything is hard! I relate it somewhat to the feeling I have with working out.
So why not combine working out directly instead of staring at a wall? Ride a stationary bike at low zone 2/lower in my experience allow for uninterrupted focus during that time at work. While on bike, the mind shuns distraction and focus on "what's next" in the workstream (distraction includes HN, evidently I haven't gotten on the bike yet).
My homeopathic theory is that I have a total mental energy that is the sum of focused energy and a distracting energy. This distracting energy can be temporarily used at task at hand but it results in mental exhaustion, or left alone it leads to distraction seeking behavior. While on the bike, distracting energy is fully consumed by riding, allowing for focused energy stay focused. If I go above low zone 2, it starts eating into focused energy and I lose efficiency.
Zen meditation for an hour staring at a wall is a marathon that at the end results in a semi-psychedelic state for me.
Exercising and sitting b meditating are two related but seriously different things. Which is why there are many other types of meditation to practice (walking, working, silent, etc) but zen mostly considers sitting and looking at a wall the OG
We all know about "paying attention". Pay attention in class. Pay attention to the movie you're watching. Pay attention to where you're walking. Etc. It's important and we do it all the time.
Take that to the next level. Pay attention to a thing for a while. AKA Concentration. That's important too. Deep thinking, careful doing, science, engineering, art. It's necessary for all that.
And then there's meditation. It's more stuff to do with your attention.
Samatha (AKA concentration meditation) is concentration taken to the next level. All that deeper thinking etc that you got from concentration, this takes it further. Possibly much further. There are weird depths. And also, you become very familiar with the ways of attention. How it moves and how it affects the rest of your world and what you can do with it.
And then there is Shikantaza (AKA formless meditation, meditation without a seed...). it's a hard left turn. Serious sci-fi. I'll leave it at that.
Just go for a walk in nature or outside for 10min or so, get a fresh air, walking will activate many positive things, hell, you might actually cross path with someone who might have a better job for you than staring at screens and walls.
It’s amazing how people recommend very quickly: ”Go to walk in a forrest amongst green leaves, talk to the squirrels…” instead of practice you can do anywhere anytime that cost nothing.
Like do you understand that everyone is not rich working home next to a nice park or great forrest? Like many, many, many in this world people have to travel 1,5h to work middle of an urban metropolitan area with almost no trees and definitely no fresh air, and their living conditions are no improvement? But this practice or other types of meditation you can do even during your remote, or even in a solitary confinement? And if you get good at this hou can do small few minute/seconds of meditations or “wall staring” during the day?
I am very privileged and there’s deers walking 5min from where I live, but I don’t have the audacity to think everyone in this world are as lucky.
Whenever people describe the living conditions of your average person all I can think is what a colossal failure our system is, to imprison so many millions in such an utterly shit existence.
Like yes it's cool to have air conditioning and basically any food anywhere at any time, and many have transportation that can take us across the country at a moment's notice. There are marvels now that our ancestors would die of shock trying to comprehend. That said, it seems still that we've made a remarkably awful place for the vast majority of people to live and work in, more the latter than the former, while a handful of people basically live in a never-ending theme park.
Thanks for saying this. I live in a small, bleak, brown town just recovering from winter, and even despite this, getting out into nature and staring at the water flow past in the local river gives so much benefit.
Reading this article is a great reminder that we all need to disconnect and ground ourselves again. My brain (and likely most of ours) just can't handle 100% up-time all day and needs that break.
Tangent - I used to go cycling a lot, and required a lot less wall/river-staring then. Of the people I knew who I cycled with, 95% of us were coping with some kind of mental health issue in some way and had found our fix on the bike. I miss it.
basically reinventing breathing practices and calling it "wall staring" is peak 2026, but honestly - whatever gets you off the doom-scroll and into something resembling rest, go off
The same video showed up on my feed last week. I didn't try wall staring, but I did try a day (last Tuesday) with only a single screen active for the entire work day. I was extremely productive that day... but, and I know this is bad, I don't want set expectations too high. So here I type to you on a screen / device that should be turned off.
> A paper published in 2012 showed that in 2008 the average person was receiving 34 GB of information daily, with a daily information exposure growth rate of about 5.4% per year
The paper linked to justify this just talks about media that people consume which is growing. But that has nothing to do with the point this post is trying to make?
Your eyes "stream 4k video" anytime your eyelids are open regardless if you're watching a movie or looking at a wall? Why would me watching more videos say anything about how much information my brain processes?
I understand your point, but a slightly more positive reading might be that the quantity of information consumed, while perhaps unable to be precisely quantified, can be related to the type of content being perceived.
Staring at wall produces little information in and of itself, perhaps through reflection, but staring at a TV produces a load of information, most of which is useless like names of characters, their favorite dresses, what food is being eaten where, etc. You can learn a lot by just passively observing even "dumb" TV especially if it contains foreign content or skills like cooking or sports. Again, not saying all of it is relevant to your life, but that's a different issue.
I dunno I feel like brains are always going? It's not like if I'm staring at a wall my thoughts slow down vs if I'm watching a movie. If anything I'll be more "focused" on my thoughts so maybe they are more intense than the "shut brain down" effect of mindlessly consuming media? And I gave example of a wall, but what about scrolling tiktoks vs walking in the woods? Am I really processing more information scrolling tiktok than walking in nature? Hard to believe for me!
I don't think "Sitting in an office you sit in every day" or "Sitting in your living room" are the same amount of bandwidth/storage as "Travelling around the moon". I'm sure we have compression algorithms for this stuff and it's somewhat related to novelty.
I'm aware of an association between perception of time to number of photons received in the eyes.
These relate to both how much time the events appear to take subjectively as well as how well remembered they are or how long they feel retrospectively. As in there is an actual physiological explanation for "time flies when you're having fun".
There probably is something to also be said for attention too. Increased awareness and attention will undoubtedly use up more 'bandwidth' or 'storage' too.
Instead of dismissing it, perhaps just give it a try for 15 minutes. Couldn't possibly be worse than watching a mindnumbing 15minute youtube video / tv / reel-type content.
Maybe while riding on a stationary recumbent bike I suppose. I get one life on this earth no one is really going to convince me to spend time staring at walls.
You're suffering some sort of burnout, and you want to try some hack to be _more_ productive? Looking at a wall so I can crank out _more_ work? No, screw that. If I'm ever feeling that way, I'm going to try and work _less_ and take _more_ breaks.
They’re not describing any kind of burnout; just fatigue from working or being overstimulated. Taking a break a the exact remedy for this condition, but many people take breaks in a way that’s not actually restorative (phone scrolling, etc.)
Sure, but he is advocating for a break so that he can work more and "waste" less time on "unproductive" breaks. He is promoting a productivity-enhancing break.
I feel like there’s a difference maybe between instrumentalism and habit.
What’s kind of weird about the article is how much the desired benefits are disconnected from the act taking place; I don’t choose a walk outside because nature “improves heart health” but I do think being outside is good and makes me feel good; I do it in service of a purpose, and I don’t think it’s implicitly wrong to make your life mostly habitual. Prayer at night, art for an hour every morning. Even 30 minutes before bed to talk to your partner.
I think a lot of people have this romantic notion that doing things you like shouldn’t be done intentionally. But if you have young kids even sometimes sex has to actually be planned, and it doesn’t have to remove the intimacy of it.
So I think I disagree with your idea that “doing relaxation” has to be stressful. Especially if you implicitly have bad habits forced around it like doom scrolling. I think forcing yourself to take a 20 minute walk outside every day has the benefits of being outside and walking. Even if it’s “doing relaxation”. And I may disagree with you entirely, that the best relaxation is an intentional process. Be it a walk, a bike ride, a video game, or yoga. I think the problem isn’t so much that intentional relaxation is bad, but more that it sounds bad.
Maybe the paradox here is that what works is what works. If you’re relaxation program, unintentional as it is is working for you. Great! It’s not my job to tell you that you’re wrong to feel relaxed after X, but I do think for those who don’t seem to share that experience it’s useful to here opinions like those of OP.
I get the impression you commented without prior awareness of "McMindfulness" as a concept, but you spotted it and articulated a central critique of it.
Meditation is to mental training and focus, as going to the gym is to physical training.
Socials killed our attention span. Agents are literally making us context switch even more.
Putting aside the whole "I am at piece and one with the world" part of meditation, it is extremely hard.
I'm also no expert. When I'm waiting for something to finish (agent, compilation, etc), I've found that staring at a wall ends up in a net positive in productivity rather than replying to a message, going on X, or kicking off another agent.
Losing focus could be e.g., (1) lacking the attention span (ability, fatigue, disinterest), (2) lacking the working memory to hold the problem; (3) distraction (by more important or interesting things); (4) focusing too hard on the wrong things (and getting no where); etc.
Solutions differ, but like talk therapy, most any approach will have some positive effect just via escape from oblivious continuance or self-defeating (mental) behaviors, if not development of insight (i.e., self-observation).
To me the key is that thoughts are motivated (interesting) and amplified (concerning or exciting); the key is to recognize that you are the source of that energy, and learn to notice and decide whether this energy is helpful in the situation. Usually that means letting it go, but sometimes you need to raise it (e.g., to address an instance of ongoing injustice). Then focus is a function of having the energy needed for a given situation - no more or less.
And by "maintain a practice", I mean it's more like something I return to with frequency and less a daily compulsion.
Focusing on the breathe or ambient sounds is "easy", and is precisely the reason meditation is seemingly difficult. The mind craves more than simplicity; for some this occurs after a few seconds, for others after a few minutes...it all depends on the day. Learning to observe when the mind wanders is one part of the practice. Labelling the quality of thought that caused the wandering (planning, worrying, visualizing, replaying, etc)and returning to the simpler act of focus on breathe or sounds is another part of the practice.
This article is very much the author discovering some variation of meditation; if they feel the need to "invent" something and share it in a blog post...then here's hoping it promotes more people to give it a shot and maybe it'll lead to at least one person developing a new practice for themselves.
As far as "inventing". I know what you (@reg_dunlop) mean but I don't see too much real harm. My father was into a book that talked about "not thinking". It was just a re-framing of part of mindfulness. If it helps... I'm not going to fuss about it.
As far as eyes. I was taught to not close my eyes completely but most of the way. I saw a documentary that explored Tibetan monks and their meditation. From what I recall, one of the monks said to use the eyelids as adjustable window blinds(or a valve... I'm paraphrasing to my understanding of what he was saying) so that if they got a bit sleepy they would open them more.
Personally, I'm a big believer in mindfulness but I do have some questions on some finer points. I might even aspire to teach it, but need further help myself first. Let me know of any resources that helped you (anyone)
i get the scare quote usage. but still feel like it’s a good time to point out.
there’s no right zazen. there’s no wrong zazen. there’s just zazen. sitting down and taking what comes. that’s all we’re doing. sitting down and getting quieter.
emphasis on the -er in quieter.
30 minutes of “crap” zazen is probably the most rewarding zazen. i just don’t appreciate it at the time.
something that helped me recently is just giving myself a day off. it’s okay. i’ll come back to it. as someone said to me recently — the worst way of maintaining a practice is to force it / control it.
You are something beyond all this. Try find it.
By going through the mind goes in a trance unable to think any thoughts. I find it better approach compared to try to disciplining the mind.
I'm reluctant to say more about my own mindfulness practice; I feel the finer points about how or when to meditate are open to interpretation. Anyone can be as superficial or dogmatic as they'd like when it comes to choosing a practice, and how they adhere to it.
The point, for me, isn't strict adherence; It's both simpler and more interesting to let go of the preconceived notions of attempting to achieve something.
One thing I will say: If I believe I can't meditate for 5 minutes, I meditate for 15. This makes me more open and receptive in life when I find myself saying "....I should meditate".
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shikantaza
I feel like staring at walls is similar.
It could be, but it depends on what you're cultivating. If you're spaced out, day dreaming, then you're practicing distraction. Meditation is practicing the opposite of distraction, to become aware of the mind's true state.
In the first regime the time goes somewhat quickly and it isn’t as difficult. I call this the zoning out regime. There usually hits a sudden point where zoning out is no longer quite as easy. This is probably the meditative regime where I have to be more mindful about keeping my mind blank.
I set a timer just to train my will, but I don’t prioritize spending a ton of time in that second regime. Just anecdotally, once I’m past the zoning out regime my focus is usually back.
I think your parallel is spot on!
In Zen Buddhism for example you are always striving to increase awareness, by constantly monitoring your internal monologue, pulling yourself back from day dreaming, expanding from focus on the breath to all near by sensation and phenomena.
True meditation, in the zen sense, is an order of magnitude more difficult to do consistently, and takes intense willpower.
> True meditation, in the zen sense, is an order of magnitude more difficult to do consistently, and takes intense willpower.
There are different forms of meditation and the one with the most evidence is also the easiest to do, mindfulness [1].
Very little intent is needed to get the majority of the benefits from meditation. I don't know that zen meditation offers more benefits, perhaps it does. But I do know that the "fake" forms of meditation are still beneficial.
[1] https://www.apa.org/topics/mindfulness/meditation
Specifically I would say the concepts of “striving” and “intent” aren’t ones I would use.
What it actually is takes a little more to pin down (famously) but I would consider the concept of surrender to be more applicable. In fact I would say the absence of striving would be a good sign you’re on the right track.
I would consider staring at a wall without intent to be completely compatible with Zen practice.
they definitely were not describing soto-zen tho, that’s for sure.
edit — i find it almost koan-esque that there’s two schools referred to as “zen”, both of which generally dislike the label “zen”, both of which have very different practices and methods.
I have heard of zen described as 'just sit down and shut up' and stare at a wall. With no goal, no purpose.
The Zen approach, more than any other, seems to precisely emphasize the purity of 'sit down and shut up'. Shikantaza - literally means 'simply sitting'. It fundamentally involves no staring at walls, no koan to grasp and struggle over, even following your breath is not really a part of it... It really, really is 'just' sitting, in every systemic sense. A practice which has no clear goal or intent, instead focused on removing anything that could act as such, act as any tether over awareness. Awareness untethered, unbounded, past distinction.
Lao Tzu comes to mind... he said it much more succinctly: Wei - Wu Wei (do - not doing). The action of effortlessly being adrift with the flow, the action of surrender of your 'self' and the infinite schemes/designs/narratives that it builds (as someone in the discussion above here aptly suggested). Another quote comes to mind from elsewhere: 'Let go your earthly tether, enter the void, empty and become wind.'
This seems counterintuitive. Maybe I'm doing it wrong but in my newbie practice it seems to be like resistance or cardiovascular training where there is effort in the moment and a sense of one's limits and a sense of unfolding and gains toward more depth and weight and duration. Like the gym it can be disappointing to lose ground after a break but there is also the contentment of regaining strength similar to rereading a familiar book and seeing it in new light.
There have been times that required more purposeful scheduling and preparation that is my default mode and times when whatever was in my head made me just actively hate sitting there and fail to realize that sensation as an ephemeral state. I accepted the door was closed that day and came back the next to pick up at the stopping point.
Interesting twist- notice dark shapes in your color spectrum for a while, then switch to light. Trippy.
There's one where you are at rest and slowly shift the focus of your gaze from near to middle distance to far away, and back.
It's supposed to be a grounding exercise to bring your mind back to a state of rest and just observing.
This is almost exactly like Transcendental Meditation, even down the to the length of time of ~20 minutes.
It's more like the opposite. If you think about your breathing, you'll be "controlling" it (which funnily enough is not the case when you don't think about it). Meditation is the opposite: you have to be in a state where you can think about your breathing and yet you're not controlling it.
I can tell that, from doing it since a long time and from talking to people about it, even many people who practice meditation cannot reach that state (thinking about breathing without controlling it).
And you also really don't focus on body parts: you "disconnect" them all until you don't even feel them anymore.
And you also shouldn't focus on irrelevant things: you have to focus on absolutely nothing.
There are many different techniques to "pass on through to the other side": some visualize thoughts ("words" or the "internal monologue") as if it was a sea. The more thoughts, the more hectic the sea (and you want it all calm: no words, no internal monologue). Some imagine a lotus flower opening and when the last leaf opens, you can be in. Some imagine diving.
I meditate on and off since a long time. There are benefits, for example I definitely can lower the intensity of headaches (or at least how I perceive the pain). What I tell my friends is that Buddhist monks are actually on serious trips beating any psychedelic drug that does exist.
It's a great feeling to just stare at a wall and think.
My first thought is usually, "If I could think about anything right now, what would it be?" And this frees my mind up to think about what I want to think about.
Me too. And all I wanted was a Pepsi.
When I’m tired or distracted at work, I do a “magic eye” with my keyboard: I bow my head down close to the keys, then focus my eyes to infinity, and gradually bring my focus closer to “snap” to different focus depths.
When I worked in an office, my coworkers found this disconcerting. Really helps me reset though!
https://unsplash.com/photos/red-bricks-wall-XEsx2NVpqWY
But maybe that's exactly the lesson.
> Additionally, during attention demanding tasks, sufficient deactivation of the default mode network at the time of memory encoding has been shown to result in more successful long-term memory consolidation.[33]
> Studies have shown that when people watch a movie,[34] listen to a story,[35][36] or read a story,[37] their DMNs are highly correlated with each other. DMNs are not correlated if the stories are scrambled or are in a language the person does not understand, suggesting that the network is highly involved in the comprehension and the subsequent memory formation of that story.[36] The DMN is shown to even be correlated if the same story is presented to different people in different languages,[38] further suggesting the DMN is truly involved in the comprehension aspect of the story and not the auditory or language aspect.
> The default mode network is deactivated during some external goal-oriented tasks such as visual attention or cognitive working memory tasks.[7] However, with internal goal-oriented tasks, such as social working memory or autobiographical tasks, the DMN is positively activated with the task and correlates with other networks such as the network involved in executive function.[8] Regions of the DMN are also activated during cognitively demanding tasks that require higher-order conceptual representations.[10] The DMN shows higher activation when behavioral responses are stable, and this activation is independent of self-reported mind wandering.[39] Meditation, which involves focusing the mind on breathing and relaxation, is associated with reduced activity of the DMN.[40]
It's kinda like falling asleep, except more coherent.
Yes, that means no phone, no headphones, just you and your brain enjoying a walk. Let your mind wonder and be free.
I really want to point out that the purpose is not to concentrate so hard that focus remains. It's simply to be aware of attention drifting, and gently bring it back. Repeatedly, over time, this becomes easier and easier.
There is a sense of unwrinkling the mind that I achieve after a session. The inner voice drawing me toward the anxieties of life becomes quieter and quieter. The ability to choose to disregard thoughts and move on becomes stronger and stronger.
Psychology research backs this up -- I think there are studies that show students who have a break between two classes before better in both classes (it's called interference).
Anyways it felt weird to me that our work never accommodated this, I think peak performance requires tuning the environment to the human biology, not management optics.
But it never ceases to amaze me the consistency and time spent sitting and smiling and other similar endeavors by Benjamin - https://www.youtube.com/@BenjaminBennetttt/streams
In-person interview: the majority of people want you to be making frequent eye contact, and are less comfortable when you aren't. Some people also hear folk myths that looking a certain direction is a tell for deception or fabrication. ("Up and to the left means lying; up and to the right means hungry.")
On videoconf interview: if you look away when thinking, people might think you're looking at (or listening to) AI output or a human collaborator, to cheat.
(OTOH, you might be better off finding thoughtful colleagues already familiar with introvert and neurodiverse thinkers, who are aware that many great engineers are also nerds, and who include that within "culture fit".)
I would also push back on the idea that this sort of behavior could be unique to "introvert and neurodiverse thinkers". Must there not be social and/or "neurotypical" people with idiosyncrasies?
Throw in YouTube Shorts / TikTok etc and it makes me wonder if that estimate is drastically too low. We went from the information age, to the brainrot overload age, to let's both have brainrot and let computers think for us.
The suggestion of going for a walk at least means when you get absorbed by something in your mind, you are still out on a walk, You can't just turn around and start working on some new idea if you are out on a path somewhere.
Again, I want to emphasize, that in none of these are you explicitly practicing the act of leashing in your mind.
All in all, I think the popular conception of meditation, Youtube-ized since the 2010s, has more nuance. Maybe people see this distinction and think it's obvious. To me, as someone who unironically feel like I'm net negative from self-help content than net-positive, this matters to me, personally.
If you want to get mystical, there are plenty of stories of deep Eastern masters practicing their craft every day. They certainly are thinking about their act - they are not trying their best to "get rid of all their thoughts". These are different activities, each with their own merits, both much different states than the common state of the modern man today.
That being said, meditation and the surrounding ideas have helped me overall, if not just because the specific influencers that I do hold as valuable had a good attitude when approaching it. But nowadays I'd imagine it's been silently incorporated into the very underlying forces they were trying to avoid (I have to meditate because it makes me a more improved human being compared to my peers!)
Eh? I'm retired now so I don't need to work but when I did I often went for a walk when a problem seemed insoluble. After a while I might feel that I have the solution to that and I'd start working on another problem as I continued my walk. You don't need to be in front of a screen with your fingers on a keyboard to do some work.
it could probably work as well to close your eyes instead of staring at a wall.
i've always found meditation types revolving around focusing on one thing (candle, wall etc), or nothing (empty mind) to be really hard. my mind just wanders and i end up super anxious, frustrated, and exhausted - resulting in me giving up pretty quickly
What I've found is that focusing on "everything" - ie sitting still and trying to observe your surroundings, your body, all sounds simultaneously seems to work much better. It's easier to get to a calm state this way.
Also, doing this while walking can also work - but perhaps easier to accidentally start thinking about something else
There will always be anxiety, otherwise you would have processed it already and not hurried away into other activities. It sure feels life-threatening, but as long as you don’t give in to the illusion and remind yourself that it is not, there is no rational reason to jump away. Breathing is a typical way to remind yourself that you are safe in the present environment. And the gift you receive is more and more clarity and a relaxed base state from which to face what’s next.
It's nice because your eyes don't need to be open for it, so they don't get all dried out and itchy.
If staring at a wall helps then don't let me stop you but I've sometimes done something very similar by just sitting in a chair without any cell phone, book, electronic item, etc. until I'm very bored. Not like "gritting my teeth, come on we can do another 15 minutes let's goooooo" like an exercise push, but definitely waiting past the first couple of twitches of boredom until it's a constant. It's kind of an interesting way to start a vacation, really helps disconnect from work very quickly. It can be some hours, though.
I do find that this only happens for me if I'm "doing nothing". I see others suggesting exercise, or something else, and those are absolutely good in their own way. But they are not the same thing as just doing nothing. It's still trying to do something and "use the time productively".
The downside is that the family just sees a guy sitting there "doing nothing" and can find a dozen reasons to interrupt... it's hard to do this when there are any other people around, and while I'm not an absolutist about a plan that can be summed up as "sit until you can't" without much loss, the interruptions do very quickly diminish the utility. There's a huge difference between sitting uninterrupted for an hour, and sitting for 15 minutes, putting away the dishes, sitting for 15 minutes, getting up to help reach something, sitting for 15 minutes, explaining that yes you really are sitting there just doing nothing would you please just let me do that, and sitting for 15 minutes.
This particular thing doesn't match "meditation" to me, because I'm not even doing the minimal thing meditation involves; I'm not concentrating on breathing, not trying to "not think", not trying to do anything. If the mind races, let it race until it is done racing[1]. In this point in particular this certainly doesn't match a lot of specific meditation traditions. If the thought of doing something occurs to you, that meditation technique of letting it pass through you until it disappears can be useful.
If meditation is a deliberate attempt to slow down, or a deliberate attempt to concentrate on some particular thing, or a deliberate attempt to empty one's mind, it still has a deliberative goal. If you're willing to broaden the term to encompass not even having that much of a plan, then I have no objection. But this feels to me too low level to even justify the term meditation as most people use it. If you're "trying" to do anything at all, then this isn't really what I'm talking about here. I'm not saying this is "better" than meditation, I'm more saying I'm not sure this even rises to that level, as low as some of them may be. It's really just "rest", a concept our century and culture has largely lost track of.
(Of course the obvious semantic argument about "well are you trying to not try, hmmmmmm?" is there and you are free to debate that in your own head, because like I said, I'm not trying to be absolutist about this. This isn't a program I'm proposing so much as an experience report. You do whatever and call it whatever and argue about definitions as much as you like.)
[1]: If your mind literally never stops this may not work for you... that said, in the 21st century, are you sure your mind never stops racing if you just let it run itself to exhaustion? Have you ever tried? It could be some hours, plural. Again, I fully acknowledge that some people reading this can say "yes". I acknowledge the existence of great neurodiversity. But if you've never tried just letting it run itself to exhaustion you may be surprised what happens if you can find the time to let it.
Unfortunately for many, and few managers will admit it even though it's true - there is a performative aspect to physical presence at work. Being away from your desk, idle on slack, etc to go take that walk is a problem in many work environments.
Probably one reason why SWEs are disproportionately interested in FIRE.
SWEs are disproportionately interested in FIRE because it is (or was) an easy way to get a high paying job without an extended education period like becoming a doctor or lawyer. You could go straight into a six figure job after 4 years of college and even wear shorts to work, while your med school and lawyer friends were just getting started and had years of grunt work ahead of them and debt to pay off. SWEs are also disproportionately represented on online spaces like Reddit and forums where FIRE was popularized.
SWE jobs have been the most flexible I’ve had and seen across my career. I also had a manager who would police time spent in seats, but at every other job going for a walk was not an issue.
Contrast that with many of my friends in other careers who, still to this day, have stories about their managers imposing dress codes or forbidding headphones in the office. The average SWE is spoiled in workplace flexibility, even if there are exceptions.
This:? Financial Independence and Retire Early (FIRE) ?
I mean. Sure, who wouldn't want Financial Independence. Let me get right on that.
Kind of a stretch from staring at a wall.
So why not combine working out directly instead of staring at a wall? Ride a stationary bike at low zone 2/lower in my experience allow for uninterrupted focus during that time at work. While on bike, the mind shuns distraction and focus on "what's next" in the workstream (distraction includes HN, evidently I haven't gotten on the bike yet).
My homeopathic theory is that I have a total mental energy that is the sum of focused energy and a distracting energy. This distracting energy can be temporarily used at task at hand but it results in mental exhaustion, or left alone it leads to distraction seeking behavior. While on the bike, distracting energy is fully consumed by riding, allowing for focused energy stay focused. If I go above low zone 2, it starts eating into focused energy and I lose efficiency.
Exercising and sitting b meditating are two related but seriously different things. Which is why there are many other types of meditation to practice (walking, working, silent, etc) but zen mostly considers sitting and looking at a wall the OG
Consider:
We all know about "paying attention". Pay attention in class. Pay attention to the movie you're watching. Pay attention to where you're walking. Etc. It's important and we do it all the time.
Take that to the next level. Pay attention to a thing for a while. AKA Concentration. That's important too. Deep thinking, careful doing, science, engineering, art. It's necessary for all that.
And then there's meditation. It's more stuff to do with your attention.
Samatha (AKA concentration meditation) is concentration taken to the next level. All that deeper thinking etc that you got from concentration, this takes it further. Possibly much further. There are weird depths. And also, you become very familiar with the ways of attention. How it moves and how it affects the rest of your world and what you can do with it.
And then there is Shikantaza (AKA formless meditation, meditation without a seed...). it's a hard left turn. Serious sci-fi. I'll leave it at that.
Like do you understand that everyone is not rich working home next to a nice park or great forrest? Like many, many, many in this world people have to travel 1,5h to work middle of an urban metropolitan area with almost no trees and definitely no fresh air, and their living conditions are no improvement? But this practice or other types of meditation you can do even during your remote, or even in a solitary confinement? And if you get good at this hou can do small few minute/seconds of meditations or “wall staring” during the day?
I am very privileged and there’s deers walking 5min from where I live, but I don’t have the audacity to think everyone in this world are as lucky.
Like yes it's cool to have air conditioning and basically any food anywhere at any time, and many have transportation that can take us across the country at a moment's notice. There are marvels now that our ancestors would die of shock trying to comprehend. That said, it seems still that we've made a remarkably awful place for the vast majority of people to live and work in, more the latter than the former, while a handful of people basically live in a never-ending theme park.
I had a same issue and I found it helped to just step away and blank out in nature.
Also try delaying your first coffee to after the first hour of being awake.
Reading this article is a great reminder that we all need to disconnect and ground ourselves again. My brain (and likely most of ours) just can't handle 100% up-time all day and needs that break.
Tangent - I used to go cycling a lot, and required a lot less wall/river-staring then. Of the people I knew who I cycled with, 95% of us were coping with some kind of mental health issue in some way and had found our fix on the bike. I miss it.
It helps me focus to have just one active “feed”. And I put my phone away when I work to eliminate that screen as potential distraction.
Where I still kinda “fail” is during natural downtime. Like if I’m waiting somewhere, e.g the Dr office, I’ll pull out my phone and browse mindlessly.
The paper linked to justify this just talks about media that people consume which is growing. But that has nothing to do with the point this post is trying to make?
Your eyes "stream 4k video" anytime your eyelids are open regardless if you're watching a movie or looking at a wall? Why would me watching more videos say anything about how much information my brain processes?
Staring at wall produces little information in and of itself, perhaps through reflection, but staring at a TV produces a load of information, most of which is useless like names of characters, their favorite dresses, what food is being eaten where, etc. You can learn a lot by just passively observing even "dumb" TV especially if it contains foreign content or skills like cooking or sports. Again, not saying all of it is relevant to your life, but that's a different issue.
I'm aware of an association between perception of time to number of photons received in the eyes.
These relate to both how much time the events appear to take subjectively as well as how well remembered they are or how long they feel retrospectively. As in there is an actual physiological explanation for "time flies when you're having fun".
There probably is something to also be said for attention too. Increased awareness and attention will undoubtedly use up more 'bandwidth' or 'storage' too.
But a wall would probably do just fine as well.
Show HN: Improve cognitive focus in 1 minute (oneminutefocus.com) 741 points by junetic on Feb 7, 2024 | 287 comments https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39288039
https://oneminutefocus.com/
You're suffering some sort of burnout, and you want to try some hack to be _more_ productive? Looking at a wall so I can crank out _more_ work? No, screw that. If I'm ever feeling that way, I'm going to try and work _less_ and take _more_ breaks.
Doing things with an ulterior motive most likely changes the experience of those things.
There's something inherently stressful in "doing relaxation".
What’s kind of weird about the article is how much the desired benefits are disconnected from the act taking place; I don’t choose a walk outside because nature “improves heart health” but I do think being outside is good and makes me feel good; I do it in service of a purpose, and I don’t think it’s implicitly wrong to make your life mostly habitual. Prayer at night, art for an hour every morning. Even 30 minutes before bed to talk to your partner.
I think a lot of people have this romantic notion that doing things you like shouldn’t be done intentionally. But if you have young kids even sometimes sex has to actually be planned, and it doesn’t have to remove the intimacy of it.
So I think I disagree with your idea that “doing relaxation” has to be stressful. Especially if you implicitly have bad habits forced around it like doom scrolling. I think forcing yourself to take a 20 minute walk outside every day has the benefits of being outside and walking. Even if it’s “doing relaxation”. And I may disagree with you entirely, that the best relaxation is an intentional process. Be it a walk, a bike ride, a video game, or yoga. I think the problem isn’t so much that intentional relaxation is bad, but more that it sounds bad.
Maybe the paradox here is that what works is what works. If you’re relaxation program, unintentional as it is is working for you. Great! It’s not my job to tell you that you’re wrong to feel relaxed after X, but I do think for those who don’t seem to share that experience it’s useful to here opinions like those of OP.
Nice catch.