Unf*ck your mind

Life is beautiful. Everywhere around you there's beauty - green and luscious plants, birds chirping, live jazz in the park, and cute girls smiling. But I am willing to bet you rarely notice these simple things.

Most everything we notice is screaming for our attention, commanding awareness as if it's peacocking; perfectly dressed to captivate. Was it always this way? History is riddled with fascinating stories that titillate the mind. Just think about how Royalty used to have personal musicians, poets, and jesters to entertain. After all, it's wired into our biology to respond to stimuli.

But with the advent of data science and ever-smarter algorithms, people and companies are able to measure and optimize their impact to captivate. Our attention is sold to the highest bidder. In return our gluttonous appetite for entertainment is satiated. We are dragged along and it's becoming ever more difficult to resist.

There is a story in Zen circles about a man and a horse. The horse is galloping quickly, and it appears that the man on the horse is going somewhere important. Another man, standing alongside the road, shouts, "Where are you going?" and the first man replies, "I don't know! Ask the horse!" This is also our story. We are riding a horse, we don't know where we are going, and we can't stop. The horse is our habit energy pulling us along, and we are powerless. — Thich Nhat Hanh, The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching

Our minds are constantly context-switching, failing to focus on a single topic for a measurable amount of time.

Transition to importance of focus. How to take control of the dopamine horse.
Focus is a new currency
Developing good habits matters most for people in their 20s. Brain is still plastic
Need to actively try to detach from stimulation and focus. Focus is an unnatural commodity.

Active vs Passive Focus

Maybe reframe to just Focus?

Maybe use Daniel Kahneman's System 1 + 2 thinking to explain different types of thinking & focus.

"Your key to successful mental health is complete and utter self-control in terms of your mind, body, and soul." - Sadia Khan

Corporate world requires immediate thought and action, but what's best is to take in information and let it simmer in the unconscious for a while.

Meditation

Meditation is like a mirror/reflection, looking into ourselves
River flowing, grab onto / focus on the rough currents, or the fish jumping out of water. But the idea to let go. Don't get too attached to your thoughts.

An Antidote

Breaking up the day into sections enables us to more easily focus on one goal at a time. The protocol consists of routines:

Morning

Dedicated to personal goals; learning, focus, body building - mind, body, and soul.

No phone in bedroom - the bed is a sacred place to rest and recover; only stimulation is reading
No phone upon waking up
Optimize morning routine: focused reading for 30-60 minutes, meditation for 10 minutes, working out for 60 minutes
Post-workout reward of screen time

Afternoon

Deep, focused work. TODO how to fix post-workout routine?

Evening

The goal is to calm the mind and prepare for bed. Limit screen time/blue light.

Notes

Random thoughts while writing this article:

Contrast - e.g. makeup on women is contrast of facial features; we're obsessed with the vivid
Mind racing
Too much stimulation - overstimulation
"Tik-tok tide pod brain" - Jake Engelen
Focus is lost - mind if constantly context-switching (work example): Analogy to computers