#88: Recognize your patterns of attention
#88: Recognize your patterns of attention
#DesireSatisfaction #AttentionPatterns #SmallTalkSkills #LoveAndLoss
👋 Welcome to Pursuit, where we explore the art of living well. My name is Amir, and each week, I go over 10 hours of content about personal growth and mental well-being, bringing you four insights and thought-provoking perspectives from leading thinkers. I hope to have a tiny impact on your life and inspire you with the tools to lead a more fulfilling life. Join us on this journey of continuous improvement and discovery.
This week’s discovery:
🪤 Desire, satisfaction, and the existential trap of being busy
👀 Recognize your patterns of attention
💬 Supportive vs. shifting responses in small talk
❤️🔥 Shortest and most unpredictable investment
If you’re interested in listening to this week’s newsletter, you can follow Pursuit’s podcast on Spotify or other popular podcast platforms. Here’s this week’s episode:
🪤 Desire, satisfaction, and the existential trap of being busy
Some of Lawrence Yeo's writings, like "The Riddle of Happiness," are so profound and engaging that I struggle to pick a single paragraph to share. Doing so would do injustice to the core argument. Not everything in this world can be sliced into 30-second snippets for an audience bombarded by short-form content. So I'm asking you to bear with me for this longer version. If you feel intrigued, I encourage you to read the whole original article.
Schopenhauer believed that all of human experience runs along a pendulum that swings from two poles: one of desire, and the other of satisfaction. We strive when we have desire, so the only way to alleviate this is to experience the pleasure that comes with satisfaction. But once you’re satisfied, boredom ensues, and desire inevitably arises yet again. Hence the pendulum. He said that the pace in which the pendulum swings between desire and satisfaction is what matters most. If it swings rapidly between the two, you get happiness. If it swings slowly between them, you get suffering.
I think this does a good job explaining the phenomenon of busyness, and its existential utility for people. Ultimately, being busy is you continually swinging between desire and satisfaction. Anytime you create an item on a To Do list and proceed to check it off, that’s you making one round on this continuum. Multiply this by however many times you do it over the course of a week, and you get the feeling of busyness.
If you’re busy, the bad news is that you may feel overwhelmed. But the good news is that you may be temporarily shielded from an existential crisis. If your mind always has something to check off, then there’s no room to ask yourself if you’re deriving meaning or purpose in what you’re doing. You just move from one cycle of desire / satisfaction to the next, and that in itself is where you dedicate your attention to.
Simply going from one pole to the next in a rapid manner is not happiness. Oftentimes, it’s just distraction. And when the pace of the pendulum slows in a manner where your desire takes a long time to satisfy, then you’ll see through the illusion that your busyness has created. Anytime there’s a lull or silence in your day-to-day life, this void may be filled with the angst that what you’re doing isn’t the answer, and that’s when an existential crisis takes hold.
The only way you’re happy is when the thought of pursuing it ceases. When you’re content with whatever you’re doing, regardless of how it’s going or what the results may be. You are happy when there is no goal to hit because you understand that the pursuit of that goal creates the endpoint of satisfaction, which is never the answer.
👀 Recognize your patterns of attention
True adult thinking is recognizing the patterns in how we create significance from our lived experiences. As Nix puts it beautifully;
The older I get, the more I believe that to think like an adult is to recognize how you construct meaning from your own experiences. To know your patterns of attention, awareness, and direct it well. Perhaps you’ll get a lot of things wrong, but it is precisely the lack of certainty or correctness that enables a great degree of learning. We must let formative moments move us, and move through us with grace.
💬 Supportive vs. shifting responses in small talk
As you probably know by now, mastering the art of conversation is one of my favorite topics to explore. Matt Abrahams, in an episode of Lenny's Podcast titled "How to Speak More Confidently and Persuasively,” lays out several interesting tactics to become a better conversationalist. Here's one about small talk:
Small talk often gets a bad reputation, but it’s where real connections begin. The key is to be interested, not just interesting. Instead of trying to impress, focus on setting the other person up for success by asking thoughtful questions. Conversations thrive when there's a balance of disclosure. If someone shares a personal story, like the loss of a pet, and you only mention your favorite color, the conversation falls flat. Reciprocity in sharing deepens the interaction, but it’s important not to jump too deep too fast.
Another tip is balancing between supporting and shifting responses. Supporting keeps the conversation going by asking follow-up questions, while shifting brings in your own experiences. A good mix of both creates an engaging flow. Think back to your best connections—wasn’t it the gradual, balanced sharing that made them feel genuine? How could you apply this next time you strike up a conversation?
❤️🔥 Shortest and most unpredictable investment
In order to experience love, one needs to relinquish control, which is a core fear we all have. The reason one hesitates to love is that it’s the shortest, most unpredictable investment you will ever make. There is guaranteed loss whether we win or lose at it. It makes love overwhelming; it’s a wave that often crashes into thoughts of grief. Love is a reflection of our fear of losing it.
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🎵 Discovery for your ears
You’ll find mostly Ethnotronica, Organic House, World, Disco, and Organic Electronic here:
🎧 If you appreciate the music I carefully select and haven't followed my Spotify playlists yet, now is the perfect time to hit that follow button and join me on this musical journey! 🎶
🌒 Pano: Danceable and electronic obscure songs
🌓 Sisy: Ethnotronica and organic house
🌑 Berghain: Dark, minimal techno and tech house
🌕 Heide: Groovy soul and disco house
🌞 Sonntag: Afterhours shit
🌎 World: From Latin jazz to Turkish psych
🌚 Super Slow: For your intimate moments
Previously on Pursuit:
