Cognitive Overload

I learned a life changing concept in my design course last week.

The human brain is not very good with working memory.  Or, for whatever reason, it has lost this skill.  So it is important for designs to minimize the cognitive demands on the user. In web design you make problems easier by making the learning environment support the learning of the problem.

In meditation this is what we are doing.  Minimizing the cognitive demands for a certain period, so that insight is more possible.

I tried this in running yesterday, and it was miraculous. Because my mind was only focussed on the task of keeping to the correct technique, my run was easier.   My body immediately solved whatever misalignment, or tension in my body that was sapping my energy.

Something happened over the last year that has  burdened my mind with obsessions and anxieties.  It's been hard to meditate.  But I'm wondering if the challenge of meditation has been that I've never quite understood the need for meditation.  I understand the benefits, but I've never really understood the essential problem it resolves.

But mindfulness is exactly that, creating an efficent uncluttered interface for the working memory to be well supported.

Focus

Hard to stand this morning.  Maybe it's because I'm in the second week of this design course. My vision of my future is all over the place.  Makes rooting difficult.

One minute it's book.  Next minute it's software.   Standing's not even in there.

But maybe this is a natural stage in the process of designing my future. I'm coming up with alternatives, a bunch of prototypes.  I'm comparing them all and in time I'll settle on the one I think is right.

I don't want standing to make me rigid.   I want it to be the source of my vitality.

Above all I don't want it to be a source of shame.

Maybe I'm too attached to one vision of my future. Maybe this is a time to open up my mind to several alternatives 

Maybe I need someone to help me evaluate?

Or maybe I just need to put the timer on and stand and stop being at the mercy of all this confusion.

I'm a programmer.  I don't make my decisions based on my feelings.  I make them based on my needs.

What do I need right now?

Mindful energy, power, diligence.

Back To Standing

I'm back. 

The desire to stand has returned, now that my financial stress is somewhat buffered by the deal with my landlady.  I'm still anxious about my financial future, but I can pay my rent.  Or rather, won't have to pay my rent this summer, and next.

More and more when I hear that nagging question "what do I want more than anything in the world" the answer I am giving is "well-being".  I want wellbeing for myself, for Ben, for my family, and for everyone.   I want to be well and I want to live in a world where people can be well.   I can't force them to be well, but I can help them to be well.   And I can only do that if I am well myself.

Last week I started a course on Human Computer Interaction.  Our first assignment is called needfinding.    It's a wonderful assignment because not only does it direct my attention to other people's needs, I realize that in identifying the needs of others we are often alerting ourselves to our own needs. 

This is what I want to do from now on:

Build software that will prompt me to change my habits to create well being.

Build software that will prompt me to stand.

Increase

Running in the mornings now.  Have I abandonned standing? 

I love running.  I love the feeling of increase, the oxygen in my gut,  the concrete and simple goals, the future vision of myself, stronger, leaner, faster.  I see this as a natural extension of my standing practice.  For years I cultivated discipline, tolerance of pain, perseverance.  And now I have a base for running.

The challenge is to keep pushing myself further.  Get to the 40 minutes I used to aim for with standing.  Then beyond.

Stress

So I've finally resolved the stressful situation with my landlord.  We have another year here and six months rent coming to us.

That is a load of stress off me, but it's only the beginning.

I have a ton of financial stress that needs to be solved before I can concentrate on this practice.

Part of the problem is that I've lost faith in the practice to help me with the financial anxiety.  There's a little voice inside of me that is punishing me for the practice.  "See" it says, all that spiritual focus, that has robbed you of the ambition you need to take care of yourself and your family.

I can't listen to this voice.   Or rather, I can listen to it, but I need to challenge it, gently.

I need both, financial and spiritual health.  

I can't see them as things in opposition if I'm going to grow in a healthy, productive way that is good for both myself and Ben.

Instability

A very, very, very difficult week.  Negotiating with my landlady, or rather paying a lawyer to negotiate.  Not knowing whether I will be living here in a few weeks.

It's hard.  No it feels impossible to get the mind to settle down.

I have to take things three breaths at a time.  And I have to be patient with myself.

So I think I'll just leave this as  a  micro post for now.

Going off track

When I first started this blog, the goal of the experiment was to see if Eckhart Tolle was right.  If simply being would put me closer to a purposeful life than the mere pursuit of success.

I believe it has.  I work with more purpose now than I did back then.  Even if I haven't written or published the book I set out to write, I've still used that experience to help me get a fellowship, and I've learned through it to focus my projects more towards my natural skills and experience.

And now I'm on a new path that feels exciting and purposeful as well.  And maybe the next book will come out of this.

However, the one thing that hasn't happened during this time, that I wanted to happen and that I needed to happen was to improve my financial situation.

Standing was not made me better off financially.

I wouldn't go as far as to say that standing has caused my difficult financial situation.  But it's not enough on its own.

Now that I'm focussed on money, I feel stress.  It's not necessarily a negative stress.  It's a transitional stress, I think, that I need to feel to change my financial situation for the better.

But it's a level of stress that is making it really difficult for me to stand, because it's painful to face this stress every morning.

My practice is at risk because of this.  Every morning I have a different excuse to avoid standing.  I want to check my e-mail, my blog.  I want to run.  I want to think about my plans.

I don't want to give up my practice. I has been my anchor through all of this creative growth.

So I'm thinking about just getting back to baby steps.  Five minutes every morning this week.  Ten minutes next week.  Do what I can to get my practice back.