The Myths That Make Us Shimmer Series Part 6
Jun 25, 2024
Explore Buddhist teachings, meditation, and mindfulness while reflecting on a powerful lecture. Dive into horror in film, analyze the internet's impact on society, and learn about a dream turned best-selling novel. Discover the concept of 'the shimmer' and its effects on mental injury and human consciousness.
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Train Attention Like Learning To Walk
- The Western mind's default attention is fractured and must be trained like learning to walk to achieve effortless sustained focus (samadhi).
- Erick Godsey cites neuroscience and Buddhist teachings: training attention takes years but yields stable focus that enables deeper practices and insight.
Rumination Drives Most Daytime Unhappiness
- Mind wandering makes up roughly 50–80% of waking life and in the West defaults to rumination, which science finds is a direct cause of unhappiness.
- Godsey emphasizes research showing rumination's causal link to distress, framing mind wandering's quality as crucial.
Multitasking Is Performance-Killing Illusion
- Multitasking is a myth: conscious attention has a single focal point, so rapid task switching degrades performance and inflates perceived competence.
- Cited studies show multitaskers perform worse, take longer, and overestimate ability more than non-multitaskers.