Shower thoughts and driving and being unable to sleep at night, like many people, and noticing that my thoughts during those <2 hour periods were 10x as valuable as all the thinking during the rest of the day.
But then, instead of using showering or driving or nighttime to think, I tried staring at the wall with a pen and paper for four hours, and no screens or books, and my thinking was another ~10x as valuable that way.
I was inspired by your post to actually attempt this.
I sat on a chair in an empty office facing a wall with a water bottle, pen and some blank palm cards. I was interrupted when the lights in the office went out automatically one and a half hours in and during the walk downstairs to turn them back on I decided to end the experiment. I openly admit this was a failure of will.
Previously I’ve done Sam Harris style meditation on and off, usually in periods around 10 minutes. The longest I’ve ever meditated for in a single session is 40 minutes.
Overall observations:
I hadn’t decided how much of this was supposed to be “meditation” and how much was supposed to be “thinking about problems without distraction”.
I think I made my setup a bit too spartan. I chose to only give myself the stationary to scribble short notes which limited my ability to flesh out ideas. I also didn’t have a desk.
I will be attempting this again with a larger notepad, water and (maybe) snacks.
I felt the quality of the thoughts was high quality and I was able to solve one low level life problem that has been plaguing my routine for a few weeks.
The desire to quit seemed to peak around the 30 minute mark.
After an hour the desire to stop dissipated and my brain was mostly thinking deeply about problems without distraction.
I’ve now learnt there’s a massive stain on the office carpet right next to the wall I’d never noticed before.
Shower thoughts and driving and being unable to sleep at night, like many people, and noticing that my thoughts during those <2 hour periods were 10x as valuable as all the thinking during the rest of the day.
But then, instead of using showering or driving or nighttime to think, I tried staring at the wall with a pen and paper for four hours, and no screens or books, and my thinking was another ~10x as valuable that way.
I was inspired by your post to actually attempt this.
I sat on a chair in an empty office facing a wall with a water bottle, pen and some blank palm cards. I was interrupted when the lights in the office went out automatically one and a half hours in and during the walk downstairs to turn them back on I decided to end the experiment. I openly admit this was a failure of will.
Previously I’ve done Sam Harris style meditation on and off, usually in periods around 10 minutes. The longest I’ve ever meditated for in a single session is 40 minutes.
Overall observations:
I hadn’t decided how much of this was supposed to be “meditation” and how much was supposed to be “thinking about problems without distraction”.
I think I made my setup a bit too spartan. I chose to only give myself the stationary to scribble short notes which limited my ability to flesh out ideas. I also didn’t have a desk.
I will be attempting this again with a larger notepad, water and (maybe) snacks.
I felt the quality of the thoughts was high quality and I was able to solve one low level life problem that has been plaguing my routine for a few weeks.
The desire to quit seemed to peak around the 30 minute mark.
After an hour the desire to stop dissipated and my brain was mostly thinking deeply about problems without distraction.
I’ve now learnt there’s a massive stain on the office carpet right next to the wall I’d never noticed before.