Thank you. I thought the reason I 'm not a good listener is because I'm a man, but really it's writer's imagination. That's my story. I'm sticking to it and calling you as an expert witness.
I happen to feel that what you describe is actually the best kind of listening. I call it, "hearing between the lines." You get what was said, sort of, but you get subtext, and body language, tone of voice and sometimes a lot of deeper meaning. Thank you for sharing this. Love, Virg
It’s “interesting” how sometimes I notice the most blatantly obvious thing that has been in plain view. But maybe that’s precisely because I’m so distracted. Not seeing the forest for the trees, etc.
or maybe your attention, (the gating mechanism) operates under hidden order? deciding moment by moment what gets enhanced and what gets suppressed. i think a good question to ask is why now and not before?
I dug this topic some times ago and science backs this up,m most waking life runs on predictive coding. The brain doesn’t see what’s there. it sees what it expects to be there and only updates when the prediction error is large enough to break through. That’s the answer to why now. The signal was always there. The threshold finally moved. For you the question is what triggered the movement? You said you read an article but I think this movement was already happening and the article was just a green light. anyway what gets interesting is that when the threshold is moving it also makes the gate visible. u don’t notice the mechanism until something forces an update and the update itself is what reveals it was there all along. so why now is mechanistic and meta at the same time. One move 2 faces.
to end this, though I already expanded this too much (sorry) there’s a "friendly misconception" about noticing. Most people believe they focus so they see more. actually they don’t. this's the game changer most people miss. you don’t catch more. fewer things slip past. one adds the other subtracts and the brain subtracts.
there’s an interesting book I strongly recommend alongside this topic to cast more light maybe you’ve already read it: "Flow" by psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi where attention stops being a gate you watch and becomes the medium you disappear into. This where your creativity gets enhanced tenfold.
Very interesting! I will check out the book. I’m almost never in a flow state. Only in the middle of the night, like at 3 am, and that’s when I like to write.
As to noticing, I’m aware we all have an information bias, where we favor info that confirms what we already think. That’s not what I was thinking about. My reaction was very, very basic, about the fact that often I don’t take anything about the person in that’s “objective,” e.g. they have brown hair and glasses; instead, I immediately turn them into fiction. Again, it's very basic but hard to explain.
I just looked at this again and Jesus mother of Christ, this needs an edit. All I’m seeing is “read, read, write write, writing writing.” Oh well. 🤷
Thank you. I thought the reason I 'm not a good listener is because I'm a man, but really it's writer's imagination. That's my story. I'm sticking to it and calling you as an expert witness.
an expert witness but an unreliable narrator 😬
hahhaha. Don't tell the judge that.
I happen to feel that what you describe is actually the best kind of listening. I call it, "hearing between the lines." You get what was said, sort of, but you get subtext, and body language, tone of voice and sometimes a lot of deeper meaning. Thank you for sharing this. Love, Virg
Oh, I love that. Hearing between the lines.
it’s noticing the noticing
It’s “interesting” how sometimes I notice the most blatantly obvious thing that has been in plain view. But maybe that’s precisely because I’m so distracted. Not seeing the forest for the trees, etc.
or maybe your attention, (the gating mechanism) operates under hidden order? deciding moment by moment what gets enhanced and what gets suppressed. i think a good question to ask is why now and not before?
I dug this topic some times ago and science backs this up,m most waking life runs on predictive coding. The brain doesn’t see what’s there. it sees what it expects to be there and only updates when the prediction error is large enough to break through. That’s the answer to why now. The signal was always there. The threshold finally moved. For you the question is what triggered the movement? You said you read an article but I think this movement was already happening and the article was just a green light. anyway what gets interesting is that when the threshold is moving it also makes the gate visible. u don’t notice the mechanism until something forces an update and the update itself is what reveals it was there all along. so why now is mechanistic and meta at the same time. One move 2 faces.
to end this, though I already expanded this too much (sorry) there’s a "friendly misconception" about noticing. Most people believe they focus so they see more. actually they don’t. this's the game changer most people miss. you don’t catch more. fewer things slip past. one adds the other subtracts and the brain subtracts.
there’s an interesting book I strongly recommend alongside this topic to cast more light maybe you’ve already read it: "Flow" by psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi where attention stops being a gate you watch and becomes the medium you disappear into. This where your creativity gets enhanced tenfold.
Yes
Very interesting! I will check out the book. I’m almost never in a flow state. Only in the middle of the night, like at 3 am, and that’s when I like to write.
As to noticing, I’m aware we all have an information bias, where we favor info that confirms what we already think. That’s not what I was thinking about. My reaction was very, very basic, about the fact that often I don’t take anything about the person in that’s “objective,” e.g. they have brown hair and glasses; instead, I immediately turn them into fiction. Again, it's very basic but hard to explain.
I don’t see any repetition here but a little something-something between 20th & Ray (continuously).
👀
Resonates !! I’m very much the same!
I love that. A lot of us writers probably are that way, but some of us can focus better than others. 🩵😬🩵