Making time for nothing.

[Kai]

Since this isn't really a rant, and more a statement, I'll leave it here.

People are constantly rushing about. It's from one thing to the next to the next until the end of the day there's nothing left to do except collapse and sleep. I see this often in academia, with fellow students and professors.

People are often surprised when I can remember conversations I've had years ago, or even five minutes ago, whereas I'm surprised when they cannot! True, I have difficulty with proper names, and words often escape me. But when it comes to visual memory, and concepts, I have no trouble. My adviser, on the other hand, is unable to remember a conversation he had with me two days before, a paper he read just last week.

I think I understand the trouble here. He tells me, "I'm burning the candle at too many ends" riding in the car one time after dozing off in front of his laptop, filled with the 16 NSF grant proposals he had to read and comment upon in three days time. Everyone is constantly in mental motion, if not physical motion, absorbing everything, being involved in every possible activity. If there is one spare moment in the day, it must be filled with something! Idle moments are considered unproductive. And yet, their memory suffers. This to me seems very confused.

In addition to eating an optimum diet, sleeping a solid 7 hours every night and daily low impact excessive, the mind does need stimulation. But it also needs quiet time. I don't mean "I'm going to sit down and quietly read these 300 papers in three hours" quiet time. I mean, literally, doing nothing. Simple, quiet yet alert relaxation, not focused on any particular thing, and not in the process of heavy absorption.

Antero Ali (how many times can I reference Angel Tech in one day? Lets find out!) speaks of "absorption, integration and communication". It's not enough to simply absorb all day long. The mind needs space to integrate all this information, space that is not already filled with something else. Idle time. Einstein suggested that every new graduate find a job which doesn't take a lot of thought, and just think for a while.

So, my suggestion. Read a little, write a little, communicate a little, and do nothing (just a little nothing) every day. Sit (not in front of the computer!) or walk without any goal in mind. Let your mind wander, to what happened today already, to imaginative thoughts. This is integration time, space forming time as AA calls it.  I guarantee, this time will increase your ability to remember more than anything else, assuming you live an already intellectually active life.

And if not, why the hell not?

[The Johnny]

Nietzsche's once compared the process of learning of the brain to the stomach's digestion.

And i think it's very accurate.

(Im gonna try to find it, for i think it was at least two full pages of metaphor that were pretty good)

[Captain Utopia]

Actually, this is something which I miss about cigarettes - 5 minute periods of going outside and doing pretty much nothing, about 10 times a day.  Before the kid I'd routinely take longer breaks as you describe, I really miss those too.

What they often gave me was a way to find novel solutions to problems, the sort which I'd rarely consider while "in the thick of it".  Even it if was just lying on the floor looking up at the ceiling.

So I think you're onto something here.

[Verbal Mike]

Definitely onto something. Like it every so often comes to pass, I feel like reading this came just in the right time. I've been feeling that kind of mental overload lately, or rather felt like it's an effort not to give into exam stress and school stress and fall into that kind of overload. A couple of times I've walked a bit and just thought, and it's been worth every "wasted" second. Even then it's a bit of an effort to remember I don't have to structure my use of that time, I don't have to identify topics to think about. I'm so used to thinking I have to smartly manage my time and use every second wisely that figuring out what it is I am doing has become the default, the behavior that I have to expend effort to shut off and avoid.

Maybe with some practice, that can become easier.

[The Johnny]

I cant find the big quote, fuckit.

But yes Kai, we are bombarded by things that require mental concentration all the time, and in quantities that are impossible to deal with. The problem is that the notion of "taking a break" or "resting" (without counting sleep of course) implies "entertainment". Watching TV, playing video games, reading an "easy" novel, navigating the internets: that is not resting.

Let us not confuse "entertainment", and alienation from reality, as "resting".

[Kai]

Yes, and there's something else I've been thinking about.

I've been thinking about the needs of a well rounded person. Doing a little of many different things every single day. On top of sleeping, eating, basic hygiene, and doing the work necessary for biosurvival, a well rounded person's day should include some writing (formal and informal), reading (practical, theoretical, and imaginative), music (both listening and performing/playing/singing), art or craft of some kind (anything from drawing to lampwork to pottery to origami), low impact exercise, and some time doing nothing.

It seems like a lot, but consider all the time we sit in entertainment. Consider all the time /I/ sit in front of the computer, filling time with meaningless activity. Fifteen minutes of each every day. That's all. More if you want and have time.

And this is where I get to structured unstructured scheduling. I want to do these things every day, but during the time I am doing them, I don't want to micromanage it. So I structure the day so there is time for each, but the activities are very unstructured in themselves.

Makes sense? I think I want to do this.

[The Johnny]

One thing i do everyday, is calculating how many hours i have left before i have to go to sleep, right after im back from school and done with the class team meetings.

The problem is getting a good command of yourself, i usually spend too much time on one activity, which chews up the time for a different one.

Also, i think that some activities cannot be split in a good fashion... for example, working out everyday for 30 minutes is not the same as working out one hour every other day... listening to music is easy and compatible with a lot of activities, but creating music id only consider it fruitful in intervals of 2 hours...

In other words, its not that easy to switch gears from some type of activities to another type. (which i guess would be different for each person).

[Verbal Mike]

Kai, I'd keep in mind that in humans' evolutionarily stable state it was very unusual to do anything on a daily basis except for the biosurvival basics. It makes sense for other things that you need/want to do regularly to be on a more sporadic basis. Like how Nassim Taleb does his sports - once every couple of days, intensively and at length. We're not adapted to performing many small tasks of various complexity, relaxed or not, in rapid succession. We're well-adapted to concentrating on something for a few hours, until we're done, before moving on to something else, with many breaks in between.

As much as I wish I would write regularly, I've had to concede these past few months that there are too many things I want to be able to do all of the time and that perhaps writing isn't something I can feasibly devote time to regularly at this point. I still write a little now and then but I don't feel guilty for not writing all of the time, because I'm busy with other stuff...

[Kai]

Kai, I'd keep in mind that in humans' evolutionarily stable state it was very unusual to do anything on a daily basis except for the biosurvival basics. It makes sense for other things that you need/want to do regularly to be on a more sporadic basis. Like how Nassim Taleb does his sports - once every couple of days, intensively and at length. We're not adapted to performing many small tasks of various complexity, relaxed or not, in rapid succession. We're well-adapted to concentrating on something for a few hours, until we're done, before moving on to something else, with many breaks in between.

I shy away from making adaptation arguments without any evidence. We have very little idea how the prehistoric human spent their time. Just something to keep in mind. A classic paper by Lewontin and Gould is a good one to read on this subject, The Spandrels of San Marco. http://ethomas.web.wesleyan.edu/wescourses/2004s/ees227/01/spandrels.htm

As much as I wish I would write regularly, I've had to concede these past few months that there are too many things I want to be able to do all of the time and that perhaps writing isn't something I can feasibly devote time to regularly at this point. I still write a little now and then but I don't feel guilty for not writing all of the time, because I'm busy with other stuff...

I'm not talking about guilt here. I'm talking about making time for activities that make for a well rounded person. And maybe the bolded part is a significant issue.

[Triple Zero]

Thanks Kai, I needed this. I will read it again after I spend some time doing nothing. And a glass of cassis lemonade.

Oh, one question, maybe you don't know the answer, but computer programming, for fun/hobby, does that count as writing or arts/crafts? I suppose the latter because it's not really writing except that you happen to type things and words, but it's different.

[Verbal Mike]

Kai: I dunno, I try to kind of intuit these things, perhaps pseudo-scientifically. Clearly I did not mean that our choice of how to spend our time should be based on hard science (although I guess it kinda sounded like that). I rather mean that intuitively, it is implausible that doing activity X on a daily basis is a natural way to do things, except with the biosurvival stuff.

As for the "too much stuff" stuff, indeed it is about making time, but I think it's impractical to make time for so many things if it's on a daily basis. It can only work by setting up a very rigid schedule, which I think we agree is not something a well-rounded person wants to be omnipresent in their life.

TripZip: I'd say programming for fun is equivalent to writing/arts. Why not? The superficial part, putting letters together into meaningful (in programming rather illocutionary, in writing more propositional) strings, is not the point; it's the creative aspect of making something without having a strong and obvious need or purpose to it. And even when there's a purpose, it's possible to approach it as art, though not always easy.

[Triple Zero]

yeah but Kai seemed to make a distinction between arts/crafts and writing, so I wondered which of the two it would fall under.

[Kai]

yeah but Kai seemed to make a distinction between arts/crafts and writing, so I wondered which of the two it would fall under.

I made a distinction because writing largely has to do with communication. It falls under the third part of intelligence. Crafts and other creative endevours are more of an outlet for that tool making nature of ours. One is pleasure and practice of communication in written form, the other is pleasure and practice of "tool making", using our hands. It's a physical creative outlet. Where ever programming falls under that I guess would be up to your personal interpretation.

But yeah, they're all connected in some way. We put things in boxes yet realize the maps are just that, maps. It's like the 8 circuit system; distinctions are made out of usefulness.

[Kai]

Kai: I dunno, I try to kind of intuit these things, perhaps pseudo-scientifically. Clearly I did not mean that our choice of how to spend our time should be based on hard science (although I guess it kinda sounded like that). I rather mean that intuitively, it is implausible that doing activity X on a daily basis is a natural way to do things, except with the biosurvival stuff.

Okay.

As for the "too much stuff" stuff, indeed it is about making time, but I think it's impractical to make time for so many things if it's on a daily basis. It can only work by setting up a very rigid schedule, which I think we agree is not something a well-rounded person wants to be omnipresent in their life.

I think part of it is that people are already doing too much of some times of things and not enough of others. Too much filler entertainment, not enough meaningful activity.

[Verbal Mike]

I dunno, some entertainment is filler, but I feel like time spent on entertainment is often very well-spent - and time spent looking for the series/books/etc that are worthy entertainment is time well-spent by extension. It's a hard line to draw.