Learning to Slow Down TheRedPill

Introduction

People today are presented with unlimited distractions.

There is an urgency that develops where you feel drawn towards the distraction and away from other things that might involve reality.

By slowing yourself down mentally you can "wake up" from your urgency.

 

Body

One of my favorite "tricks" to play with young people is to dare them to stare at a clock with a second hand (non-digital) and see how long they can go before freaking out. These days the attention span is about ten seconds.

How did this happen?

Our media has shortened the time that images are placed on the screen to typically under 10 seconds per scene. Actually I was watching and focusing on this recently and on one show the scene was switching at a rate of closer to one or two seconds.

Video games often can increase the rate to such a degree that you are essentially in a constant destabilizing situation as you feel like you are "moving" inside the game.

All these things create the sense that "real life" is something you want to escape from and towards these distractions where you gain a feeling of liberation and constant movement.

Real life creates anxiety.

So to remedy this you must Slow Down.

Here is what you do...

Let's say you are making something for lunch.

First you open the refrigerator and rapidly scan for something to eat. You then rip that out of the refrigerator and quickly do whatever you need to prepare it. Meanwhile you rapidly grab this or that and get yourself ready to serve it.

Once the food is there you wolf it down like it wasn't even there and then race back to your video game or tv show before you "miss anything".

If your Smartphone is nearby you likely checked a couple of texts along the way.

During that whole sequence your mind never stopped chasing something... you are in a state of constantly excessive speed.

The cure for this is to actively think:

 

"I am slowing down... each action is beautiful... let me observe everything and be less concerned with chasing after the distractions."

 

Conclusion

I could have used fancy terms like "Mindfulness" and been a pompous ass about being part of some great and respected religious tradition where I'm clearly "virtue signalling" as better. And while most would be turned off by that others would adopt the pompous mindset and start behaving the same way and quote fancy terms.

Don't get pompous about this.

Just start to peak out the side of your mind and as you race through your life of perpetual distraction grab that hint of beauty and slow down into it.

 

"Stop and smell the roses."

 

Lifting is very helpful in this quest to slow down.

One must focus their mental energy on the present to achieve the lift.

You will find that all forms of physical exercise bring you out of this distraction urgency bubble and back down into natural reality.

 

Submitted October 08, 2016 at 07:57PM by NeoreactionSafe http://ift.tt/2dMYgcq TheRedPill