My world on the web
Eighteen months into this pandemic, I’m burned out as a worker, as a parent, and as a functioning member of society. My concentration span is non-existent and my anxiety levels are through the roof.
In the early weeks and months of the pandemic, there was hope that a ‘new normal’ would emerge from this mess that would give workers stronger rights, reset our collective relationship with capitalism, and would help fix the climate emergency. I was optimistic about these back then; now, not so much
Personally, I have been left thinking that it feels something like a plane going through extreme turbulence and the oxygen masks have dropped down. The problem is that there are not enough to go around because some people have grabbed two.
Not sure if that even makes sense, but not much does at the moment.
Your attention is a lot like the beam of that flashlight. You can focus it closely and intensely on something, or you can relax it — allowing it to grow soft and diffuse.
Natural environments are just stimulating enough to gently engage the brain’s attention without unhelpfully concentrating it.
“[W]hat makes an environment restorative is the combination of attracting involuntary attention softly while at the same time limiting the need for directing attention,” wrote the authors of a 2010 study in Perspectives on Psychological Sciences. Nature, they added, seems to hit that sweet spot.
On the other hand, activities that grab and hold our attention too forcefully — books, social interactions, pretty much anything on a screen — entertaining through they may be, are unlikely to recharge our brain’s batteries. “Unlike soft fascination, hard fascination precludes thinking about anything else, thus making it less restorative,” the study authors added.
This reminds me of Michael Easter’s ‘20-5-3’ Rule for engaging with nature.
It also has me thinking about something Jack Antonoff discussed in regards to relaxation and his interest in cooking videos.
The definition of relaxation is to enjoy something that fascinates you but does not inspire you.
I wonder where things like notifications and attention literacy fit within all this too?
Nature has these effects on the mind and body because it stimulates and soothes us in unusual and unique ways. For instance, in nature you are engulfed in fractals, suggested Hopman. Fractals are complex patterns that repeat over and over in different sizes and scales and make up the design of the universe. Think: trees (big branch to smaller branch to smaller branch and so on), river systems (big river to smaller river to stream and so on), mountain ranges, clouds, seashells. “Cities don’t have fractals,” said Hopman. “Imagine a typical building. It’s usually flat, with right angles. It’s painted some dull color.” Fractals are organized chaos, which our brains apparently dig. In fact, scientists at the University of Oregon discovered that Jackson Pollock’s booze-and-jazz-fueled paintings are made up of fractals. This may explain why they speak to humans at such a core level.
Languishing is a sense of stagnation and emptiness. It feels as if you’re muddling through your days, looking at your life through a foggy windshield. And it might be the dominant emotion of 2021.
Referencing gardening, Austin Kleon argues that the issue is not languishing, but rather lying dormant
I disliked the term “languishing” the minute I heard it.
I’m not languishing, I’m dormant.
Like a plant. Or a volcano.
I am waiting to be activated.
…
It seems to me that the reason that so many of us feel like we’re languishing is that we are trying to flourish in terrible conditions.