Ever since I was a little girl, my dad yelled at me for "zoning out." I used justify my "zoning out" by seeing it as a form of intelligence - I was an analytical person who was always inside my own head. This was just who I was - there was no avoiding it.
My recent problem with my scattered attention is that, I often drift and revert back to old habits that help me cope with this restless energy- aka snacking, going on my phone simultaneously, etc. These are things that end up hurting both by attention span and overall health in the long run.
Plus while being inside you head can make you more analytical, this quality is only valuable if you are also tuned into things happening outside of you.
Yesterday, to fulfill Habit 2: Offline for Online social interaction, I jabbered with Jourdan at the gym, and tried my hardest to let her get some words in.
She told me about some recent article she read about an MIT professor who invented an algorithm that writes news stories.
[Apparently, the Big 10 already uses this to write stories, which newspapers then pick up unbeknownst to readers. There is no byline nor disclaimer that the stories are written by computers. Scary that journalists are already competing with computers for jobs!]
I went looking for the article last night, but could not find it. Only year old articles appeared on my Google search. Obviously, algorithms are not yet omniscient.
I was directed to MIT's free courses online called MIT open courseware. I listened to a lecture on search algorithms, but halfway through, when the teacher started explaining how to create an algorithm to solve a complicated block game in the software Python, I lost interest. I had heard of Python but I didn't know its language. I kept thinking,
"I will learn this one day textbook style, but not now."
I shut my mind off once I struggled to make sense of the material, instead of listening more closely to the professor or rewinding the video. I ignored the best thing about video lectures,which is that you can repeat what the teacher says over and over again until you understand. So why didn't I rewind the video to try and understand? Maybe because usually when I miss what the teacher is saying in the classroom, I put my head down and hope I might understand it at a later date.
So I skipped to a Philosophy of Creativity class on the site - a subject more my forte. A video of a small conference room full of seven or eight students and an intimidatingly intelligent and curt professor appeared. The professor was having the students explain their paper topics on creativity. It was obvious some of the students were more prepared than others and the bull-shiting tactics of those less prepared were all too reminiscent for me.
At Penn State and especially in high school, I could get by, and even get A's, by playing the game of school. For the classes I wasn't interested in or less comfortable with (science classes), I would play school. For those more interesting to me I actually engaged with the material. The problem with learning this game however, is that the post-graduation game is much different.
A rubric laid out neatly in front of you with boxes to check off each expectation is not always provided in life. If you have always been reliant on these to make decisions for things you find uninteresting or difficult, and it is suddenly taken away, you become lost. What is important? What do I do first?
This is where listening and being aware is important. If you are more aware of your surroundings you tend to pick up on the opportunities that will help you achieve your goals. You, like a search algorithm, can see better the multitude of paths you might take from a single node and select the best and clearest route to your goal.
But unlike a computer, your judgement of the best and clearest route is more advanced and takes in more nuances of context. Your creativity will always be greater than the machine because you can reprogram yourself, while a machine needs someone else to do that for them. At least to my knowledge of modern technology. Maybe not for long.
But first you must be aware of different options and seek them out.
That is why today's habit is awareness - slightly ironic considering it is my last lucid day for awhile. Tomorrow, I get my wisdom teeth out and praying there are no complications will be on Vicodin and other painkillers for the next couple days.
That being said, I will be resting much of tomorrow, so I apologize to myself in advance if I miss a blog post.
Tomorrow's habit is relaxing in pain. I have noticed that pain often causes anxiety - it is something we want to escape from but can't. We either try to ignore it or complain about it, but never accept it as it is. Thirst, hunger and pain strongly structure impulsive decisions that, in the end may not be the best ones.