Huh! That’s very interesting. Has your mind always been like that? As I’ll discuss further in the next post, there are meditation techniques which are intended to get people closer to that level of introspective awareness, but I don’t know whether anyone has reached the kind of a level that you’re describing through practice.
I’m curious—to what extent do you experience things like putting off things which you feel you should do now, or doing things which you know that you’ll regret later (like staying up too late)? (My prediction would be that you basically don’t.)
No, it developed over the years. Honestly it just feels normal for me. I like being in control of my mind, so everything I do is somehow related to that. What I described in the previous comment is a somewhat idealized description. When I was younger, I used to experience consciousness as a stream-of-thought. I had much less control. Here are a few examples:
• I used to be annoyed at myself for forgetting important thoughts, so I got into the habit of writing them down (which now I no longer need all that much).
• At age 11, I began developing stories in my mind every evening until sleep. This eventually developed into the habit of introspective thinking every evening before sleep, where I would go through the day and sort everything out, make plans, etc.
• When I discovered ‘important’ new thoughts, through reading or introspection, I would focus on these and make them the object of my attention; but this happened frequently (every few days), so of course I jumped quite a bit from topic to topic. This annoyed me, so I started writing down goals; but it took me years to learn how to mentally prioritize thoughts, so that I’m now able to recognize when I can investigate a new topic or when it is prudent to finish the project I’m working on.
• I had several competing behaviors, some that I wanted to get rid of, only I didn’t know how: on the one hand, I could start a project and work on it steadily until I finished; on the other hand, I would endlessly put off starting work. Finding strategies to control my behavior took several years of trial-and-error. I’ve only recently started to become good at it. Now I can (mostly) control my activity throughout the day.
Putting things off: Used to be a problem, hasn’t been for some time. I’m still learning better scheduling though, and getting used to working effectively.
Doing things I know I will regret later: This is basically just reading for too long, which was a coping mechanism for many years. I recently installed an app used for children on my tablet, so now I have a bed-time. This is very effective!
Huh! That’s very interesting. Has your mind always been like that? As I’ll discuss further in the next post, there are meditation techniques which are intended to get people closer to that level of introspective awareness, but I don’t know whether anyone has reached the kind of a level that you’re describing through practice.
I’m curious—to what extent do you experience things like putting off things which you feel you should do now, or doing things which you know that you’ll regret later (like staying up too late)? (My prediction would be that you basically don’t.)
No, it developed over the years. Honestly it just feels normal for me. I like being in control of my mind, so everything I do is somehow related to that. What I described in the previous comment is a somewhat idealized description. When I was younger, I used to experience consciousness as a stream-of-thought. I had much less control. Here are a few examples:
• I used to be annoyed at myself for forgetting important thoughts, so I got into the habit of writing them down (which now I no longer need all that much).
• At age 11, I began developing stories in my mind every evening until sleep. This eventually developed into the habit of introspective thinking every evening before sleep, where I would go through the day and sort everything out, make plans, etc.
• When I discovered ‘important’ new thoughts, through reading or introspection, I would focus on these and make them the object of my attention; but this happened frequently (every few days), so of course I jumped quite a bit from topic to topic. This annoyed me, so I started writing down goals; but it took me years to learn how to mentally prioritize thoughts, so that I’m now able to recognize when I can investigate a new topic or when it is prudent to finish the project I’m working on.
• I had several competing behaviors, some that I wanted to get rid of, only I didn’t know how: on the one hand, I could start a project and work on it steadily until I finished; on the other hand, I would endlessly put off starting work. Finding strategies to control my behavior took several years of trial-and-error. I’ve only recently started to become good at it. Now I can (mostly) control my activity throughout the day.
Putting things off: Used to be a problem, hasn’t been for some time. I’m still learning better scheduling though, and getting used to working effectively.
Doing things I know I will regret later: This is basically just reading for too long, which was a coping mechanism for many years. I recently installed an app used for children on my tablet, so now I have a bed-time. This is very effective!
I’m looking forward to you new post!