Ask HN: How much do you contemplate per week?
Feel also free to mention methods, places and what have you.
If you mean work/product/big picture specific... probably a few hours a week.
I'm the exact same way. Podcasts are a godsend. The trick is finding one that's just interesting enough to keep your attention, while simultaneously being just boring enough to fall asleep to. I find that really dry, technical historical lectures work great.
I've though about doing a podcast or something where I just read boring, impenetrable books to help people fall asleep.
When it comes to falling asleep at night, and trying to sleep to a reasonable hour though, I'm SOL. No matter what time I wake up in the morning, that's the time I'm getting out of bed, because the second I'm awake my mind start churning through thoughts and what I could be accomplishing that day. Case in point - I didn't have anything to do before work this morning, so I would have loved to sleep in until ~7:30 to catch up on some sleep from waking up at 6am every day this week. 6:32am, wide awake in bed, no chance of going back to sleep.
I like it in some ways - I know I'm driven and motivated. But man I'd love to be able to turn it off sometimes.
I find it writing it down eliminates that problem significantly. Depending on the thought I follow two different approaches.
1. Write down what comes in mind, each thought a separate point. If it's causal, like A -> B -> C, I will re-arrange my typed up thoughts to match the pattern. So it works like a sorting queue for thoughts.
2. Mindmap. Usually when I am trying to think of all the likely scenarios, which ends up having multiple causal trees, and sometimes thinking about a 3rd dependency will make me think of a similar dependency on a different tree...that's when a lot of the cyclical thinking happens, so writing it down like a mindmap is like a weird breadth first approach.
My day shifts forward by 3 hours per day.
Me: brings out birthday cake, we sing happy birthday to my son
Wife: What are you thinking about?
Me: That doorknobs probably got invented before door handles.
Wife: ...
Then I have to explain that I was thinking about the kitchen door and the dining room, and how we removed it when we first moved in, and how I was holding the cake with both hands and then thought about the door because it would have been annoying to deal with a door knob while holding a cake, that lead me to think how our house uses doorknobs only, and it's part of the problem of opening doors...and yeah.
...as a side note, I was wrong, door handles were invented first. It's because the mechanism is easer and relies on gravity, instead of a mechanism doing it for you.
I was about to comment on this, having grown up in a house with latches that relied upon gravity to do their work. I currently live in a home which has handles on most of the doors, including the exterior doors. It's actually problematic for us because activating the handle also unlocks the deadbolt from the inside. Our dog has figured out how to open the handles, but he can't work a door knob. We rely upon a baby gate to keep him upstairs and away from the exterior door he can operate. He could easily jump the gate if he so desired (he's done it a few times without thinking while chasing one of our cats).
(Particular books/videos? Kit? Or better to sit in on a local class?)
I'm serious. He's not a great painter, his technique is not amazing -- but he shows you exactly what he is doing and talks about it continuously. For a beginner, that's pretty much perfect.
Note that there is nothing special about Bob Ross brand anything; if you've got a local art supply place, you really don't need to buy that brand.
Seneca, Moral Letters to Lucil
Once I get past the "why am I running?" phase and my brain clicks over (usually about the same time my body switches from anaerobic to aerobic energy production), I just disappear into thought and time vanishes...
I'm a very outgoing person, but I also crave alone time. I also require time before bed to let the thoughts in my brain run their course, and it does make it hard to actually fall asleep sometimes. I make sure to take time each day to simply sit and ponder.
I daydream a lot. But I (mostly) don't suffer from those side effects. Instead, a couple of years ago, I got myself trapped in a spiral of recurring daydreams which slowly removed me from active life - to the point where I found myself on the verge of financial ruin (because: lost interest in finding work). I managed to pull out of the spiral with the help of a psychotherapist, but it was a close-run thing. The scary thing was that I didn't notice I was spiralling until one day I found myself in tears because my bank account was empty and I genuinely had no idea about how to fix it. Those daydreams (personal historical what-if scenarios, mostly) were highly addictive!
I was stuck on a coding problem for the entire afternoon one day. For whatever reason things weren't clicking and I couldn't solve the problem I had. I went to bed and as I was waking up the next morning, the complete solution came to me.
I wasn't dreaming, but I was in that hazy half-awake half-asleep mode where I'm not consciously thinking about anything.
I've had this happen a few times before where I go to bed stuck on a problem and miraculously wake up with the solution. It's a very strange (but happy) feeling.
I'll grind leetcode and be stuck on a problem and wake up the next day and be able to do the problem.
I'll study new information and wake up the next day and that information is intuitive.
I'll practice guitar for hours and be unable to consistently play a certain riff then wake up the next day and be able to play it effortlessly.
Strange what sleep does.
Also, just reading the text itself is alien. Because it's colourful and code-looking, but my mind can't quite get the monospacing right. So outside the direct bit of code I'm looking at, the code gets kinda blurry or wobbly.
That's something that can be very useful in problem solving. Helps you finding new ideas. The hard thing is grabbing this idea and waking yourself up when you strike gold.
I'd been at this non-stop for weeks, and had been just working and sleeping, poring over and over the code with no clue. As I remember it, one night I was dreaming that the code was slowly scrolling up a screen in front of me, and one line was colored red. I woke up at that point and knew what the problem was. I think I just got dressed and went directly into work rather than try to go back to sleep.
Since then, I've had fresh insights after sleeping on a problem and coming back in the next day, but I've never had another instance of my brain saying "It's right here, you idiot!" to me in a dream.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_dreams#The_sewing_ma...
Plenty of other great dreams * on that page.
* I know you weren't dreaming exactly, but why let that get in the way? :)
If you're more interested in this phenomenon, I recommend reading "A Mind For Numbers" by Barbara Oakley [1].
She calls it "the diffuse mode" and it's useful for spotting similarities and making connections between different concepts and ideas. This is difficult to do in "the focused mode", when you're analytically working on a problem.
[1] https://www.amazon.com/Mind-Numbers-Science-Flunked-Algebra-...
I used to do this with coffee, but I found the caffeine was actually shifting my energy window forward, even shortening it. Now I'll do calisthenics and spend a few minutes outside, taking deep breaths, if I need to wakeup before I sit down.
The amount of time varies, depending on what's going on in my life. I may spend more time journaling, note taking, reading, or just staring out the window and chewing on the thought. I have sessions that last fifteen minutes and others that last three hours.
When I discovered that wasn't normal for everyone, even people I go to church with, I was pretty surprised.
When I started meditating a few years back, I took to it like a duck in water. I had no problem doing 20-30 minutes right away.
But I don't get the same thing out of it that I do out of prayer. Meditation is like local maintenance - a reboot or a defrag. Prayer is more like a software update, connecting back to the home server for bug fixes and feature upgrades.
It's the feeling of being connected to something greater than yourself that seems to be the key difference.
Thanks for the share. You may want to check out Anthony De Mello if these are things you enjoy, I've been enjoying his meditations very much lately. Found out about him on HackerNews. He does Christian meditations with an Eastern style. But there's very little that is preachy about them.
Yes, if I was going to introduce a non-Christian to prayer, that's pretty much how I'd describe it. There definite similarities, but with clear differences that make it more like a dialogue.
I'll look into Anthony De Mello, thanks for the heads up.
Well said. I find it interesting that I feel the same towards the Universe. Maybe that's why I never felt the need for a deity.
This is a brilliant analogy.
When I drink coffee, I hit peak alertness/performance in 10-15 minutes, but then I'm crashing by early afternoon, sometimes even before that.
So the window in which I'm most alert and highest performing seems to shift when I drink coffee, rather than widen, say, 7:00am-1:00pm with coffee, for a 6 hour windows, compared to 9:00am-6:00pm without it, for a 9 hour window, but it's not open until later in the day.
In general, patience, strategy, and self-motivation have helped me achieve goals I would never have dreamed of 10 years ago.
My day at work is collecting information, and then during walks and dinner, while watching sports, before falling asleep, it's all daydreaming about work.
This may sound like a bummer to some people, but I couldn't really think of a better way to spend my day than by playing a business strategy sim in my head.
I also recognize the advantages of healthful, hygienic habits.
I can think through some smaller issues in my office, leaned back in my chair, feet up on my desk. But it's easy to get sucked back into the screen.
This could just be either because I'm distracted easily and the fast I'm walking the quicker I'm exposed to new stimulation to steal my attention or because when you walk faster you need to pay more attention to your step, not really sure.
I sometimes have brief moments of hyper-awareness as I approach sleep, where sounds are rich and images vividly detailed, but as soon as I attend to the experience it fades, like the wood-elf party in The Hobbit[0]. After reading about how USAF pilots used to be coached in the 1940s to fall asleep quickly (by flexing and relaxing body parts)[sorry, no reference yet], I started trying/not-trying to sneak up on the elves. One way I set the stage is to imagine my consciousness at the edge of the solar system, then galaxy, then universe, and further and further, then holding it there longer and longer. Another way is to look at the colors inside of my eyelids and allow those to be seeds for abstract art and eventually concrete, recognizable images materialize. This took about two years of practice and now I have no anxiety about falling asleep, can do it quickly and without nagging my partner to turn the light off. It is such a delight to finally see and hear the previously-elusive autogenous art. I don’t know how long the experience lasts, and unless I’m interrupted by a loud noise or touch it almost always leads directly to sleep.
Other factors: I’ve been off alcohol for more than a year, and reduced coffee to hot water added to the dregs of my spouse’s French press. I don’t run as much as I used to, and I feel running and lifting more would help me sleep better. Good luck!
[0]: https://archive.org/details/Relax-and-Win_Championship-Perfo...
The spot wasn’t magic. I’m convinced that it was the amount of time I spent walking. It was enough to start loosening my tight mental grip on the problem and let my mind roam. That relaxed mental processing was immeasurably valuable.
In a few weeks, I’m choosing to go back to office. What I’m looking forward to most is reaching that spot on my walk home.
My routine is waking up at 6AM, taking a cold shower, and then sitting down on the tile of the bathroom, freezing cold, and thinking about my next startup. I feel like this is my way of Beating the Averages[3].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calm_(company)
To actually answer the question, probably around 6hrs per week. I work on half wacky theoretical idea projects and half code monkey implementation
Carved out time to "sit and think"? I consider this a suspect method, because undirected thinking on demand is difficult. (It might work for you. It doesn't for me)
Carved out time to contemplate a specific problem? Depends on how many big problems are at the stage where that makes sense. I'd say 1-4h/week.
Making random connections and sort-of daydreaming about them for 5 minutes? All day, every day. It ends up in a commonplace book. I don't currently review the book, the act of taking the note alone is valuable enough. If I notice I keep thinking about something, I transfer it into a doc and grep through that during directed sessions.
I have to be careful that the thinking doesn't turn into unsubstantiated worry and fretting though.
I have to manage my thoughts.
I journal every morning right after I write my to-do for the day, which is pretty much self-reflections.
I also have a weekly review on Sundays where I reflect on my week, what I did well, what kind of sucked etc.
For work, I contemplate first, then write code second. A lot of times I do it while typing my thoughts. An actual example after a failed test
> FAILED: the container doesn't have git so it can't run...so that means git tagging should happen prior to the gradle or docker container...
> I kind of like this because that means it will only have to happen once outside both workflows....which eliminates a bunch of the issues
> I need an init workflow in a way....checkout workflow
> I can't test this, I think test jenkins pushing to prod gitlab is causing issues. Commented it out.
"Pique" is an odd word. "Pique my interest" is a positive thing but "a fit of pique" or just feeling piqued are negative.
not - knot
where - were
...and now peak - pique
At least I don't confuse "you are" vs "your".
Now explain plurals to me:
cat - cats
dog - dogs
bird - birds
mouse - mice <--- why?
goose - geese
moose - moose <--- why not meese?
A “German” way to pluralize a noun is to “open up” the vowel, and occasionally add an “uh” at the end, for effect.
Maus -> Mäuse (kind of sounds like mice, listen to Google translate)
For moose, it would be spelt “muse” in German, which would be pluralized “müse”.
But umlaut does not exist in English, we use “oo” for “u”, and the “uh” is silent: so we get “moos” and “moos” :)
Also, apparently moose is an Algonquian loanword! TIL. Perhaps the plural in Algonquian dialects was not distinguishable to English speakers in the 1600s.
where - ware
were - whir
In terms of what you might call "mentally detoxifying contemplation", physical work on my house and yard and whatnot is great. I think the mentally salubrious effects of hard work are the real deal and too much overlooked these days.
I've recently started to re-connect with acquaintances around the globe via virtual coffee meetings (video calls), and with a steaming pot of hot liquid in tow (even decaf does the job, it's more about holding on to something steaming than caffeine for me) this can be quite contemplative. I try to do one such call per week, typically towards the end of the week, and often I manage, occasionally not when work is too crazy.
It's not as good as physical travel to see people, of course, but we all need to make the best of the current situation. (Speaking of travel, train rides and walking are great activities to foster contemplating - see also https://www.amazon.co.uk/Philosophy-Walking-Frederic-Gros/dp... ).
BTW, stay safe, all!
The gambler dies, and his son gets the money. Now his son is a new gambler who lives in a different city. If he plays in other casinos he could win or lose, but in the long run his earned money will be 0 too.
It means that for a gambler to actually win he must win only once, then he must not play ever again, or any other gambler with his money, since entropy is "connected" to that money, because money makes part of the same system.
Overall it has been productive. I've explored countless ideas, learned about new topics, articulated my views, understood concepts and viewpoints I disagree with, changed my mind on some both ways in the process. It has been a little counterproductive. It is easy to get lost in your own head after a while. Overall I wouldn't recommend spending so much time in deep thought, but spending a decent amount at least for some period in your life will really help you discover who you are, who other people are, and things about the world around you that you wouldn't otherwise.
So overall 10-20 hrs a week, with the third outlet consuming the maximum time
But the accidental ones, those are the real deal. As an ever fateful watchmen, just when I stray a little, a wild thought pops in my head which takes my focus for at least half an hour, where my imagination goes wild on the ride.
I would say it happens once or twice per day at least, and I must say that I noticed it became more often after I started listening to audiobooks. I don't know exactly why, but I would assume it stirs the imagination?
for me, contemplation occurs in the echoes of meditation.
Also i like to go on long runs with no headphones. This helps me step back and process whatever is happening and think of new approaches to rough problems when I’m not in the weeds of the problem.
Anything that triggers boredom, IMO, is a healthy tool. Sometimes thats a day off in solitude on a long hike. Other times it’s just a vacation where I don’t bring my laptop.
I used to think about the future and dreams and stuff... nowadays, I don't think I'll ever really find a place I fit. So I live in the mountains, and nature is very good up here.
One thing I've noticed is that thinking is like a habit. It does not matter what topic I think about, I can sit there and be in my thoughts for days and sometimes even weeks.
Or it can be that i need to process something emotionally.
I believe it is healthy to spent time on. It's your therapy some how.
Methods:
* Long conversations with a fellow contemplator * Long replies to certain intriguing ideas on internet forums with fellow contemplators * Also digesting as a subconscious activity all the time
A couple of subs on reddit are my go-to place for these conversations. However, I'd rather have them stay niche (15k-ish subs) than have them blow up and lose their charm.
(An example of an action would be my setting a reminder for me to contemplate further in the future.)
The Internet has rob me of that.