The Hard Problem of Mindlessness
Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity. - Simone Weil
I woke up listening to a podcast between Rich Roll and Harvard’s Mother of Mindfulness—Dr. Ellen Langer where she talks about the Mind Body Connection. This sent me down a rabbit hole listening to the podcast, reading her blogs and articles, and other interviews.
Here's the dots I've collected and connected so far -
You know nothing.
I think that everything that you’re doing because of the future is based on a mistaken notion about predictability. Prediction is an illusion - Dr. Ellen Lange
For nearly four decades, Langer’s research on mindfulness has influenced thinking across a range of fields, from behavioral economics to positive psychology. It demonstrates that by paying attention to what’s going on around us, instead of operating on autopilot, we can reduce stress, unlock creativity, and boost performance.
“Mindfulness is the essence of engagement,” Langer says. “And it’s energy-begetting, not energy-consuming.” It enables people to recognize and take advantage of opportunities when they arise and to avert risk. Furthermore, Langer says, “You like people better, and people like you better, because you’re less evaluative. You’re more charismatic.”
According to Dr. Langer, many of us fail to fully enjoy our lives because we often operate in a state of mindlessness rather than mindfulness. Our minds frequently wander in inattention, overlooking the richness of our surroundings. Here are some of the things she said that stood out for me -
What if I told you virtually all the world’s ills boil down to mindlessness?.
Every limit you place on yourself is a result of your mindlessness.
Everything we are told is at best a probability - including a medical diagnosis.
All we know is that we don't know.
If you make the rest of your body healthy you have a chance of beating whatever you have.
Advocating for a shift in perspective, Dr. Langer emphasizes that we are not bound by past experiences or conventional wisdom. Disabusing ourselves of preconceived assumptions about limits and possibilities opens the door to exponentially expanding our perceived ceiling. As she proposes, this transformative mindset has the capacity to enhance agency and empowerment, shaping the trajectory of our lives
Attention symptom variability.
Attention to variability in our wants, needs, talents, and skills can result in the greater well-being we seek. Holding things still because we think we know leads us figuratively and literally to be blind to what needs improvement. A small growth, a change in breathing, a change in the color of our urine—these things too often go unnoticed unless the change is blatant. When we do notice the change, sometimes we don’t want to confront it because we feel helpless. But these are signs that something needs attention. And these signs—the first change—appear much sooner than is now recognized. This blindness is not restricted to those of us who are not medical doctors. Physicians too miss minor deviations that could be meaningful.
Our thoughts and perspectives have the potential to profoundly shape our well-being. Whether it is hotel chambermaids who lost weight when they simply came to see that their work constituted exercise, or patients whose wounds healed faster in rooms with accelerated clocks, she shows how influential our thoughts are to the state of our bodies.
Meditation is a practice; mindfulness is the result of that practice.
The mindfulness that we study is immediate. It’s simply noticing new things. And in the process of noticing new things, that puts you in the moment. You have all these people who say “be in the present,” and that’s great, but it’s an empty suggestion. And even simpler than this, if one deeply appreciates uncertainty—recognizing everything is always changing, everything looks different from different perspectives, so you can’t know. And when you recognize that you can’t know or you don’t know, you tune in. When you think you do know, you don’t pay any attention.
You know, you are miserable, and somebody says, “Hi, how are you?” And you say, “Fine, thank you.” And you’re not aware of it, and you’re not trying to hide it. Most of what we do is done on, as it’s called, automatic pilot, but the mindlessness goes far beyond that.
Events are neither good nor bad.
It is our thoughts that make them so. Mindful learning takes place with an awareness of context and of the ever-changing nature of information. Learning without this awareness, a has severely limited uses and often sets on up for failure.
Predict today and lose tomorrow.
Remind yourself of the illusion of predictability and how our predictions lead to expectations that give us tunnel vision and may prevent noticing the unpredicted.
Ask yourself, is it a tragedy or an inconvenience?
Too often we respond to things. You know, if the class didn’t go well, Oh my God, my life’s going to be—no, of course not. Let’s say you and I are going out and we have a bad conversation and it’s Oh my God, that’s going to destroy the relationship! No. No relationship is going to be made or fall apart based on one situation. No life is going to depend on failing one test or giving one bad class.
Embrace the unpredictable.
We need to recognize and accept that uncertainty is the rule in life, not the exception. When we're given information about our health we may have a tendency to accept it and think we can predict if and how our health will progress as a result. No medical fact, however, is necessarily true for all of us or any one of us in particular. If one medicine, for example, works for most people, it does not mean it will work for me. If we recognize and accept the inherent unpredictability in any situation, we can put ourselves in a better position to find ways to effect the outcome.
Mindfulness and Quantum Entanglement
Dots I'm connecting -
Interconnectedness: Quantum entanglement suggests that two particles can become entangled in such a way that the state of one (no matter the distance) instantly correlates with the state of the other. This principle of non-locality in physics mirrors the interconnectedness of all things that mindfulness espouses. In the field of systems thinking this is known as our effect on the social fields we inhibit and impact.
The Observer Effect: In quantum mechanics, the observer effect refers to the changes that the act of observation will make on a phenomenon being observed. This parallels Langer's emphasis on mindfulness as an active engagement with the world, where our perceptions and attentiveness can fundamentally alter our experience and reality. Mindfulness, like the act of observation in quantum theory, shapes our reality by determining what we notice and how we engage with our environment. The ladder of inference is as wonderful systems tool that enables us to reflect on how our perceptions shape our notions of reality and set things in motion based on those assumptions.
Uncertainty and Possibilities: Quantum entanglement and the broader implications of quantum mechanics introduce a fundamental uncertainty to the nature of reality, suggesting that multiple possibilities exist simultaneously until an observation collapses them into a single state. This uncertainty mirrors Langer's assertion that embracing unpredictability and recognizing the limitations of our knowledge can open us up to new possibilities and ways of thinking. Mindfulness, in this context, encourages an openness to the multitude of potential realities and the ability to live comfortably with ambiguity and change.
Quote
We have to try to cure our faults by attention and not by will. - Simone Weil
Poem
My dear - in the midst of hate, I found there was, within me, an invincible love. In the midst of tears, I found there was, within me, an invincible smile. In the midst of chaos, I found there was, within me, an invincible calm.
I realized, through it all, that…
In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer.
And that makes me happy. For it says that no matter how hard the world pushes against me, within me, there’s something stronger – something better, pushing right back.
Truly yours – Albert Camus, The Stranger