When people talk about the value of paying attention and slowing down, they often make it sound prudish and monk-like. But we shouldn’t forget how interesting and overpoweringly pleasurable sustained attention can be.
Too many novel stimuli make it near impossible to remain attentive to a single purpose. The incessant context switching prevents attention from ever breaking below the surface. I have to remind myself of this when I catch myself doom scrolling. It feels ok in the moment, but once I break out I'm left with a static buzzing through my head.
Wonderful piece Henrik. An extension thought: the type of attention matters and changes how information is processed, like attentive consumption vs creation.
Having played piano for many years, I realised that when I listen to a new piece, my mind compresses the music to understand it. The notes and rhythm blend together because there’s not enough mental bandwidth to process everything.
But by learning to play the piece, your mind gets better at comprehending it. It's like the music flows through your brain in a laminar, rather than turbulent, flow. Each note becomes crisper, each harmony more intertwined.
Every time you engage with a form (art, architecture, music, sports, your lover's face), your capacity to experience it increases as the information is more fluent in your head. A chef can break down 'yummy' into the swirl of different spices, an engineer can appreciate the marvel of how a tower stands.
Isn't it wonderful that engaging with the universe leads to a more beautiful life?
Great essay. The bit about cortisol was particularly enlightening.
Thinking about this kind of attention makes me think immediately of Thoreau's Walden. He spends pages and pages describing the details of things like mud thawing, or bubbles forming in layers under ice on a pond. It feels like a meditation just to read it.
Verne is similar, like with his lists of species of fish in Twenty Thousand Leagues. Not quite as meditative though.
Deeply insightful about the underutilized enchantment of normal, ordinary occurrences being anything but normal and ordinary once we stop and immerse ourselves in paying attention to complexity. I can’t wait to read more!
Thanks for linking to the Nintil jhanas article. It reinforced a suspicion I've long had, that I am a difficult candidate for successful jhana access because (unlike Jose Luis) I am quite neurotic and very bad at self-acceptance. I'm curious whether others with similar challenges have found their way to jhana experiences anyway, and if so, what worked for them.
Curious about the dyadic case: is co-attention necessary—and to what effect? When two people sustain attention on each other for 20–30 minutes, do you see co-regulation (breath, pulse, gaze) and a blooming closeness at arm’s length?
Love this piece! Of course there is the content and the information. But also appreciate the artful writing that makes this piece feel like guided meditation.
I dont know if this principle apply to a person doing startup
Like, in a startup, you gotta execute very effectively and efficiently, and that requires a mindset of cutting of unnecessary things or hyper focus, not much about slow down and trying to focus or meditate on the problems or people at hand
I just wonder where should we have this kind of spirit and when to proactively aware and practice it, and where it would not valuable to do so
I worked at different startups for more than 6 years, and I think if you've already figured out what to do, then you should just go ahead and do it. That's the smart thing. I don't think there is much value in rumination in that situation. But if you're grappling with a complex problem, and you don't know what to do, there isn't much choice besides acting to generate information and giving sustained attention to the problem plus newly generated information to see if anything unfolds.
Many things in a startup, especially in its early days before achieving PMF, fall into the latter category. Once you have PMF, then many things start to fall into the former.
Much appreciate this thought -provoking work. This essay focuses more on examples of consumptive attention, but may also be extended well to other forms of attention also yielding interesting results.
Henrik, my favorite mornings are those that begin with reading your essays. Perhaps I should make this a ritual!
Thank you! 🙌🏽
lovely article!
small typo here: "On the other hand, there is also *be* an upper limit"
thanks!
Too many novel stimuli make it near impossible to remain attentive to a single purpose. The incessant context switching prevents attention from ever breaking below the surface. I have to remind myself of this when I catch myself doom scrolling. It feels ok in the moment, but once I break out I'm left with a static buzzing through my head.
What happens when you put sustained attention to attention?
/Brain explodes/
This winderful essay?
That's called meditation
Wonderful piece Henrik. An extension thought: the type of attention matters and changes how information is processed, like attentive consumption vs creation.
Having played piano for many years, I realised that when I listen to a new piece, my mind compresses the music to understand it. The notes and rhythm blend together because there’s not enough mental bandwidth to process everything.
But by learning to play the piece, your mind gets better at comprehending it. It's like the music flows through your brain in a laminar, rather than turbulent, flow. Each note becomes crisper, each harmony more intertwined.
Every time you engage with a form (art, architecture, music, sports, your lover's face), your capacity to experience it increases as the information is more fluent in your head. A chef can break down 'yummy' into the swirl of different spices, an engineer can appreciate the marvel of how a tower stands.
Isn't it wonderful that engaging with the universe leads to a more beautiful life?
Great essay. The bit about cortisol was particularly enlightening.
Thinking about this kind of attention makes me think immediately of Thoreau's Walden. He spends pages and pages describing the details of things like mud thawing, or bubbles forming in layers under ice on a pond. It feels like a meditation just to read it.
Verne is similar, like with his lists of species of fish in Twenty Thousand Leagues. Not quite as meditative though.
Deeply insightful about the underutilized enchantment of normal, ordinary occurrences being anything but normal and ordinary once we stop and immerse ourselves in paying attention to complexity. I can’t wait to read more!
Thanks for linking to the Nintil jhanas article. It reinforced a suspicion I've long had, that I am a difficult candidate for successful jhana access because (unlike Jose Luis) I am quite neurotic and very bad at self-acceptance. I'm curious whether others with similar challenges have found their way to jhana experiences anyway, and if so, what worked for them.
Reminds me of sentiments expressed in a more scientific manner in the book Sync by Strogatz. Beautiful book.
Also think good writing (like this) is also quite meditative. Loved the piece!
Gorgeous and thought provoking...
Loved this article, but just a question: so how do you give sustained attention to something? How do we learn this?
Curious about the dyadic case: is co-attention necessary—and to what effect? When two people sustain attention on each other for 20–30 minutes, do you see co-regulation (breath, pulse, gaze) and a blooming closeness at arm’s length?
So many nuggets to chew on in here. This article will stay with me all weekend. Thank you for sharing.
Love this piece! Of course there is the content and the information. But also appreciate the artful writing that makes this piece feel like guided meditation.
I dont know if this principle apply to a person doing startup
Like, in a startup, you gotta execute very effectively and efficiently, and that requires a mindset of cutting of unnecessary things or hyper focus, not much about slow down and trying to focus or meditate on the problems or people at hand
I just wonder where should we have this kind of spirit and when to proactively aware and practice it, and where it would not valuable to do so
I worked at different startups for more than 6 years, and I think if you've already figured out what to do, then you should just go ahead and do it. That's the smart thing. I don't think there is much value in rumination in that situation. But if you're grappling with a complex problem, and you don't know what to do, there isn't much choice besides acting to generate information and giving sustained attention to the problem plus newly generated information to see if anything unfolds.
Many things in a startup, especially in its early days before achieving PMF, fall into the latter category. Once you have PMF, then many things start to fall into the former.
Much appreciate this thought -provoking work. This essay focuses more on examples of consumptive attention, but may also be extended well to other forms of attention also yielding interesting results.