In this extended episode, professional philosopher Dr. Joel Anderson engages in a deep and stimulating conversation about Wandering Minds, ADHD, and Beyond with our host Dr. Kourosh Dini.
Discussing philosophical and practical issues around agency, procrastination, and the balance between forcing oneself and creating affording conditions, they explore the concept of ‘agentic play,’ the importance of creating environments that invite rather than coerce, and the role of emotions in the effort to engage with tasks meaningfully.
They question the differences between motivation, effort, and naturally flowing engagement, and consider the implications of removing distractions and setting guiding conditions in a caring manner. The episode ends with reflections on how these philosophical dialogues can shift one’s approach to work and life.
00:00 Introduction to the Conversation
02:33 Joel Anderson’s Background
03:48 Diving into Philosophical Concepts
05:01 Exploring Agency and Play
05:48 Affordances and Environmental Design
10:08 Self-Binding Strategies and Productivity
17:59 Emotional Work and Hard Labor
21:11 Navigating Procrastination and Effort
30:21 Meeting Tension with Care
30:43 Hierarchical Set of Binds
32:50 Facing the Fog of Tasks
35:40 Building Trust and Self-Efficacy
43:49 Effortless Engagement and Motivation
52:52 Listening to Yourself
55:09 Concluding Thoughts and Reflections
Links
Transcript
Introduction to the Conversation
I’ve got a treat for you today. Joel Anderson is a good friend of mine. He’s a wonderful guy, brilliant philosopher. He’s a professional academic philosopher, even. He’s got a way of thinking things through in a way I truly admire. Every time we talk, I, I walk away feeling stimulated. I’m ready to write, uh, suddenly I’m seeing something in a new light.
We’ve been having these conversations in one way or another for over a decade now. Uh, and I thought, you know what, what if we just recorded one and shared it on a podcast? I have no idea whether you’ll enjoy it as we do or not, but,
uh, it’s, it’s, it’s cool. We sort of start slow and build up as things go on. Listening to it, I wonder if we’ve developed a sort of shorthand. This sort of thing happens. It’s like any place or person where you’ve been hanging out or with for a while. Uh, things line up, you know, the organization of either physical or thought space just falls into this functional sort of place.
In any case, I thought it would be entertaining and I’d love to hear your feedback about it. If you’re up for it, drop me a line at wander@rhythmsoffocus.com. That’s W-A-N-D-E r@rhythmsoffocus.com.
Joel Anderson’s Background
I have a chair in moral psychology and social philosophy in the Ethics Institute, which is part of the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies in the faculty of the humanities at Utrecht University. So that’s the whole hierarchical layering of that.
That’s the thing. Alright, cool.
Nested communities.
We’ve been chatting since, I was looking, I was trying to find the first email between us, and the earliest I found was 2014, but it looked like it was in the middle of a conversation.
Yeah, it always feels like that with you, that as whenever we pick it up, it feels like we’re just in the middle of a conversation that’s been going on for a while, so I
Totally, yeah. So anyway, thank you for being here. You’re the first guest and, this is cool.
Well, just so everybody knows, I mean, I’m a huge fan, right? So for me, this is, quite an honor. Following all the things that you’ve been doing through the years, both in your therapeutic and psychiatric work. I work on, procrastination, research adjacent work that you’ve been doing, but then also just the tools that you’ve provided for people and advice on how to get the most out of DEVONthink, or especially OmniFocus.
So you’re, you’re a very generative and generous human being, and I very much appreciate that.
You are incredibly kind. Thank you.
Diving into Philosophical Concepts
One of the things that I really enjoy in our conversations is how stimulated I feel and that I feel like we really get into stuff . So, for, um, at the risk of, of going all inside baseball, you know, during this, this talk here, I, I’m totally fine with it. Um, because we might just jump in and dive in and talk about concepts and like, do we, how do we define it? How do we present it to the audience that Yeah. You know?
Right.
Know, and really I think, um, what are the times when we feel most alive? I mean, you put it in terms of play, right? I mean, for me, I’d, I think it’s a big part of what drew me into philosophy. I. Exploring the possibilities of various words and concepts and ideas is, you know, just like what you’re doing if you’re noodling on the piano or trying to solve some or other people are trying to solve some problem or a creative endeavor, you’ve got this canvas and you’re trying to figure out how can I represent something with the paint I’ve got. It’s, um, it’s this, it’s this exhilaration that comes from seeing opportunities and being able to just give yourself over to that creative elaboration of what’s going on there.
And I think conversation is, is, is, is a great context in which that happens.
Totally, totally. That discovery, I like that phrase, “give yourself over.” Yeah. You know, that, that, that, that, um, um.
Exploring Agency and Play
One of the concepts that , we talk about is agency is one of the main, main things I get into and defining it as, um, uh, uh, being able to decide non reactively, um, or decide and engage non-reactively.
But in that idea of play and discovery and creativity and all that, that “give yourself over,” it’s like, do you suspend that? Do you like, do you, like, do you let that go? That part of you that has to like, that has to, uh, pause to decide Or then there was this other phrase that you, you’d said, I think the last time we spoke, which was age, “agentic play.”
I’m like, oh, wow, that isn’t that nice blend of, of ideas. And uh, but that just idea of like creating the space, right? So we’re, we’re trying to invite the muse, give ourself over, like be able to, to invite that, that that flow and um. And, and the job of the practice, the job of the work, the thing we do is, is we create the conditions for it and then, and then we become it.
Yeah.
Affordances and Environmental Design
I mean, there’s this wonderful word that I love using for capturing some of this: “affordances,” right? So affordances for thoughtful and intentional play, uh, or affordances for, for insight. I mean, it’s got this notion of, um, an invitation. So it’s, it’s a bit of an odd use of the word affordance, but it was developed by very, uh, thoughtful, it’s known as an ecological psychologist named Gibson. And, uh, this notion of an affordance is like a chair. You know, there are chairs that afford sitting, they just like invite you to sit in them. Yeah. Or you have a, a well designed. One of my favorite examples is, you know, you have, you have doors where you want to know, should I push or should I pull?
And a well-designed door is flat, has a flat panel on the side that you should push and has a handle on the side that you should pull . It in certain sense, it, it creates a, a almost a, it prepares you for an experience of flow. It signals to you what’s to be done and, and invites you to engage in a certain way.
And I think, that contrast, we’re all too familiar with, that contrast between a, uh, a, a situation, a, a work setting in which there’s various tasks you need to complete that is aversive. And it’s like everything feels like a barrier. There’s, or there’s things that they’re pulling you in all kinds of directions.
And then there’s those context in which. You, you kind of this alignment, uh, of what you need to do and what you want to do is kind of ready to hand there. It’s just inviting you to take those next steps and, you know, and that’s, that’s what you’re doing in all these different, uh, in all the work you do with like, whether it’s, you know, setting up a to-do list in such a way that when you get to the to-do list, you’re not suddenly confronted with raw panic of where do I even start?
Mm. But that it’s a manageable kind of welcoming space in which to exercise your, uh, your agentic freedom. You’re, uh, uh, your, yeah, your agency.
I love that phrase, affordance. You’d, um. I remember we played around with those ideas like that, and I think you’d even had at one point, I don’t remember this, but you’d,
I think it was a paper you’d written or something
where you had like seven Yeah, it was my, my inaugural, yeah, my inaugural address.
What we make a, we can make a link, make a link available to that. I mean, I don’t know if people wanna see some pomp and circumstance, uh, of a, of a Dutch , formal lecture. So I have this, I mean, I, ’cause I just love playing with these different images. I heard you actually using Trellis. We had a long discussion of the use of scaffolding trellis.
Um, and uh, and I think of kind of affordances as another species of that, of that genus, right? Mm-hmm. So these are ways in which our environment is structured so as to be supportive of our agency.
Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, when we look at, for example, you know. The to-do list you bring up, you know, like there’s, it, it’s so easy to be repulsed by it.
It’s so easy to look at it because it’s been written by someone else. It’s been written by past self, it’s been written by, right. Who was that jerk? Right, exactly. And, uh, and, and then, you know, that easily touches off the part of us that’s like, I haven’t been able to follow through on the things I’ve asked myself to do.
You know? Yeah. And, and, and, and past self may have, you know, punted to, to our current self, uh, because for whatever reason they didn’t feel like it, or they, or they made the, a very clear decision at that time. This is the thing and everything else has to wait. Whatever it is. But then that’s where I think it’s, it’s, um, it started to transform for me.
So I, I, I think you’re right that I, I started very much with the trellis. I still have that, that or, and the affordances. And how do we, I. You know, make it so that we can not have to think. So that to, in terms of getting into the flow to, to smooth that process, but then realizing that, uh, we do have to think in terms of, um, uh, we are, we are a unique person right now.
Whoever we were 10 minutes ago, 10 years ago Yeah. Is, is a different person. And, and we can set ourselves up relatively well. Um, and, and we can even stumble into like an inspiring amount of friction based on what they’ve, they’ve presented. But things change. Everything changes. And that’s just, you know, that’s, isn’t that the ever.
The ever thing that things change,
but Yeah. But, but,
Self-Binding Strategies and Productivity
and it, but it comes, it, it comes back to your contrast with, um, more force based approaches, uh, as well. I mean, one thing that, one strategy that we can use when we’re subject to temptations having trouble focused, getting pulled in all sorts of directions, is, um, uh, we can bind ourselves to the mast, right?
This is the, this is the story from the mythology of Odysseus who is gonna be passing. He needed to guide his ship past the sirens of Kalis and, and, uh, Cheribdus and, and, um. And he knew that if he, uh, he wanted to hear the song, but if he knew, if he were, if he were, were listening, he would order his, uh, his crew to head towards the cliffs and, and like many ships before him would’ve been, would’ve been destroyed.
So you have these, these, these efforts at self binding where you have a commitment mechanism, you lock yourself in. He had his crew tie him up so that he could listen to the song, but wouldn’t be, wouldn’t be tempted. And then, you know, once you’re past the period of temptation, you let go. Um, so there are all these, there are all these kinds of kinds of mechanisms.
One of my favorite ones is people who have shopping addictions. Um, I mean, it used to be the case that if you didn’t have the actual physical credit card, you couldn’t go shopping. And so if you froze a credit card in a block of ice, I. Would, it would take like an hour or two to let it melt again. To be able to use it without, without having to, uh, you know, without risking damaging it.
Or there are people who will take the router of their internet, uh, their wifi at home and they’ll mail it to themselves. So they have to wait for the delivery of that to come back. So there are all these ways that are, that are, there are forced strategies, right. They’re, they’re, you’re being coercive toward yourself.
Yeah.
And I, I mean, I think one of the things that really resonates with a lot of what you say is we should be really careful about reaching too quickly for those kinds of strategies. ’cause they’re, you’re really doing, you’re, you’re relating to yourself in a mode of, of coercion force.
Hmm.
You’re kind of doing, you know, you’re.
You’re not respectful of your own need for freedom and choice and autonomy. And sometimes frankly, we, you know, we’re in a really bad way and we need that, you know? Mm-hmm. Maybe if that’s gonna be the thing that, that, that, that, that turns things around for you, then that’s a, that’s a strategy. But I think it’s, um, it’s a strategy.
We should be, we should be keen to avoid if we relying on, if we can, right? If, ’cause we, we rely on that too quickly, then we get into these relations of, you know, as you, as you, you’ve talked about in a number of these podcast episodes already, we’re then trapped in that mode of using force to get things done instead of creating these affordances, these spaces, these invitations to the exercise of agency.
All right. . Now here’s my, here, let me, let me throw out a, uh, devil’s advocate type of thing. I don’t know. Good. The, the, the. So I, I’m trying to think through the idea of force, right? So that we have, you know, uh, you know, I have to start, um, yeah. Or, um, uh, waiting for a deadline or shaming ourselves.
I often , put it in the context of emotion, like the sort of negative emotion, right? All right. So freezing the credit card. What a neat idea. I never thought of that. So you, or, or the mailing, the router. So either one of those, is that binding to the mast I, I, I, I, I hear what you’re saying, but could that be, how is that different than, let’s say, turning off notifications to focus?
Right. Um, I want to, I wanna read a book. I wanna read a physical book. The internet is right there. So I’m gonna take that router and mail it to myself and that’ll force me to, or at least it won’t force me to read the book, but it’ll, it’ll remove an option deliberately. Um, and I’ll be more inclined to read the book.
I might, I might also be more inclined to do many other things too, but, but yeah. Uh, it’ll, it’ll be one of the guides that’ll start. So I guess the question I’m asking is, that’s great. What’s, what’s distinguishing that as a force or as a, uh, as, as creating an affordance of sorts, a limitation that would help me engage in something I’m intending to do?
No, that’s really, that’s really good Kourosh. ’cause I think, I mean, you’re right that from one perspective, you could look at all of these things as just a matter of reducing the number of temptations we’re exposed to, right? So why isn’t that just, you know, all of a piece with kind of setting up your environment?
And so I think at some level you’re right, but my, my sense is that we do want to draw a distinction between those ways in which we are as it were indirectly steering ourselves, those ways of doing that, that are kind of coercive and manipulative. Yeah. And those, those ways of doing that, that are just, you know, it’s kind of like the care of the future self and, you know, uh, curating an environment that’s supportive of yourself.
Right. And so it’s like, when is, when is something, when is something a helpful kick in the kick in the rump mm-hmm. Um, to nudge you along? And when is it abusive? When is something like a, a kind of patronizing form of paternalistic intervention? And when is it just giving good advice? So I think this is, you know, I’m, I’m not, I’m not trying to just split hairs here, but I think this is, in one way, this is describing the challenge of finding the appropriate ways of, of dealing with our, our shortcomings, our tension, our our, our temp, our giving into temptation, uh, and so on.
And I don’t think, I don’t think there’s like, I don’t think like if you’re using the computer somehow it’s in a different category. ’cause all of these tools can be used in more manipulative or more supportive ways. But I just, I just wanna underscore this idea, which I think aligns with what you’re saying about the contrast between, um, play and visit on the one hand and like force and shame on on the other, on the other side.
It, it aligns with that to say there are ways of relating to ourselves that might increase our productivity. But at the cost of treating ourselves, manipulatively and with and without self-respect.
Um, okay. A couple of thoughts. First, splitting hairs is fun, so let’s go ahead. I hope the listeners, I hope the listeners can, uh, can split along with us.
Yeah. Uh, uh, second note to your point of, um, I, there there is very much that thread I think that has been out there, that’s been, that has been subtly called and sometimes quite overtly called about like a meaningless productivity, you know, a productivity that’s, you know, just, um, kind of empty. Kind of empty, yeah.
Yeah. Um, or, or the productivity for productivity’s sake. Um, where, where, or, or, I think the, the best way I I’d heard it was when, um, someone I’d, I’d been talking to described it as, I’m, I’m, I get nauseous when I hear. X or y person, you know, like that, that, that their way of approaching it and there’s something revolting, there’s something that happens that, um, that I think it touches on that, that feeling of you just need to force yourself more, uh, you need to work harder, you need to it.
And these words are not well defined in themselves. So, alright. I’m not sure where I’m going with this. So, um, apropos to the wandering mind, uh, uh, let me to wander for a moment.
Conversations, conversations are affordances for wandering minds.
Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Emotional Work and Hard Labor
Uh, so hard work, for example, what is hard work?
And people will have this picture of like, sweating and, and, and this, this, um, angry face and whatever. And, um, and, and. I, I make the case that hard work is emotional work. It it that there’s an emotion involved. It could be complexity, which is not emotion. Overwhelmed might be ’cause of complexity. It could also be fun and a, an engaging puzzle.
But when you are overwhelmed, when you are bored, when you’re confused, when you’re angry, when you’re irritated, any of those negative emotions that might be emanating from the work in some way because of how it resonates with whatever’s meaningful to you, um, and whatever life you’ve had and, and the relationship you’ve had with work and authority and whatever, um, that’s where it becomes hard.
That’s where that, that’s what I would define as hard. But, you know, to engage that. Um, we’re often in this, uh, stuck in this mode of either I have to shove myself through and, and consequently exhaust myself and then crash on the couch when I can’t. Function, which is why I try to bring up this visit approach, which is about honoring agency out through like, where am I now?
How can I, can I reflect on my myself now and, and can I be there with the work in person to make my decision about what challenge I can take on right in this moment? So if it’s hard, it’s not about shoving, it’s about you show up and maybe there’s a slight nudge here or a slight nudge there, maybe this, or maybe something comes to you or maybe you, it’s just so intolerable you, you close it right up and, and step away.
But, but, um, ah, here we go. Care. You have to care for yourself in the process, which I think is what’s often missed. In, in these, these approaches, you can, you can be caring to yourself in such a way that it’s not about running from the thing or being, avoiding the thing entirely, and it’s also not about shoving yourself into it so that that importance of how do you, um, pay respect to yourself where you are in a way that, that you are still there to the degree that makes sense, you can close it up and come back later having exposed yourself to the emotions, to the degree that you find to be caringly tolerable.
Does that make sense? Good. Good.
Yeah, so I think what, what I find is particularly important in what you’re saying is that the work is emotional work. Right. So there’s like, look, we don’t wanna, we don’t wanna forget the fact that sometimes people have to do like hard labor and there are difficulty, you know, there are people, you know, fighting, fighting fires in the forest and it’s dangerous, difficult work, whatever, whatever the example is.
But there’s also a form of, of intense difficulty that’s, I think, particularly difficult for those with wandering minds where the, the real effort is, is in the engagement with the emotions and the aversion and so on.
Navigating Procrastination and Effort
And one of the things that, that I would, I’d like to ask you is to what extent you think there is a role for, for effort and exertion in that, in that moment of overcoming resistance?
Uh, right. So, so very often the way, you know, you present, uh, to us, uh, your adoring listeners these situations is if you just can approach it in the right way, it becomes playful and effortless. Right? But I don’t know, I don’t think I’m the only one who says, and this is probably true for you too, it doesn’t always feel like that.
Right? Sometimes as you’re saying, there’s a lot of work that needs to be done in handling the emotions that you have a, uh, that, that are at least just around the bend or that you may be seized up by. Right? Alright. And the tricky thing, the tricky thing I think in, in, in, in really trying to understand the, the approach you’re outlining is that, that, that interweaving of, look, it doesn’t happen.
You need to practice.
It’s effortful. But then the, the, the sense of which, if you’re taken to the threshold of action, if you are just at that edge, then it’s mostly about being open to the invitation, right? So this, it’s that, it’s that combination of, of effortless, uh, effortlessness, uh, and effort that I think is, is so difficult to really articulate, uh, in a way that makes it f you know, feel, feel, feel plausible there a, those struggles.
A whole, there’s a whole lot you said there. Alright, go back for a moment. You, you, I, I liked how you qualified people fight fires, right? Yeah. Um, I would put that even in the context of emotional, the reason why is that you are standing with the threat of your life. Sure.
Oh yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. So it, it’s still, yes, there’s still physical and so I’m defining emotion as that which crests into consciousness, which is, is a different, I.
Definition than most, I think might use. Yeah. Um, it is, and it could also crash into consciousness. It’s just that which brushes in, comes to us. Um, so, uh, in that way, logic itself is also an emotion that we’re thinking something through. We’re engaged, we’re discovering we’re, we’re, we’re. Right. So a lot of times these are posed against each other.
I’m saying No, no. That’s just one facet. That’s another, another aspect of it. So that said, um, the, uh, I, okay. Your point of effort, I would shift it so to the, um, willingness to take risk and let me see how I can make that work. Hmm. What we are confident in, confident is a trust in our own skill and in some particular skill, some particular ability.
Trust, is , a developing belief that something will continue to behave as it has been such that it may be relied on. We got a thing that’s kind of doing its thing. We look at it and say, yep, I think it’s gonna keep doing that thing. I can trust that. And then confidence is, is that trust in our, in our own skill or ability Now, that piece of whatever we trust in ourselves, that skill or maybe that piece of knowledge, you know, that’s like, I believe this knowledge to be true, this knowledge to be because it keeps being reliable, um, to grow requires risk, right?
There’s somewhere that we have to say, Hmm, I’m not sure if this is true or not. I’m not sure if I can do that or not. I’m not sure if I do this is, am I gonna do a terrible job and my boss is gonna hate me and everybody’s gonna discover that I’m a, I’m a fraud and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. That those things might resonate.
Even in, even in small actions sometimes, especially in small actions. Yeah. So in that sense, that’s how I, that’s, that’s what I’m referring to as risk that we are, that we are acknowledging that part of us that feels, even if we can consciously look at it and say, oh, of course the chances of that bad thing happening are not very big, but it doesn’t matter.
It’s, it’s, um, the fact that it’s 0.1% in our mind can still make it grow to the 99%. And, and besides I would rather appeal to strength rather than, than the weakness aspect of it and say, if that happens, or I will do this, even if that happens, and I’ll discover who I am in the process. I, anyway.
That’s so, all right. It’s like leaning, it’s leaning into mastery means also leaning into the challenge, accepting the risk that’s involved and so on. Yeah.
Much more easily said than done. Of course. But it’s, it’s that, but that’s where that lean into Exactly. Lean into mastery, lean into challenge. It’s what can I break down, slow down, simplify such that this is what I can wear it with, where I am respectful of myself, this is what I can nudge forward.
I can, I can, I can take this project and dust and brush the dust off. I can write my name in the corner. I can do, oh, maybe that one little sentence. That’s about all I can, and, and you know what? Nobody’s gonna see that sentence. Okay, but now this one, and then, oh, this is actually not bad. Maybe I can put that in the email.
Or, and it, and it, and that’s where that people often discover that, oh, I’m in it now. You know? And it comes from, I think that tiny place.
Yeah. No, and, and the metaphor of, you know, waves of focus, right? Yes. I’m still, I’m, I’m, I’m, I’m still, uh, uh, committed to getting you on a boat at some point to, to give you more experience with these, um, nautical metaphors.
But what happens when you’re on a boat and there’s a wave coming, is you go up the wave and there’s this moment where you’re sort of at the crest of the wave. Yes. Where you don’t, I mean, you could get, you could actually get thrown back, right. The wave is powerful enough. You don’t make it over. But there’s that sort of moments in which you’re on the border between being thrown off guard, uh, or just plunging into your next engagement with the task that is, that that moment of uncertainty of risk.
Mm-hmm. But also, if you can. If you can stay with it. Yeah. Then it opens up the possibility of, you know, following the wave over to the other side and, uh, and getting real, some real momentum going.
That’s the ideal visiting point of the visit. It’s that edge of action where you can, it’s just as easily step forward as, as you can step back.
It’s that if you can make it to the stuff, but it’s more than just the stuff. It’s, as you point out that, that that edge, like, oh, I’m here. I’m, this is where I decide, this is where I, I could move forward or back. And that’s where that heightened agency is. It’s, it’s because you can pause in that moment and acknowledge the options you have before you.
That’s where you say, oh, good,
but now let’s come back, let’s come back to the hard, the hard emotional work. Right. Okay. Yeah. For, for many people and for probably all of us some of the time. Yeah. Getting to that point. Is actually hard. I mean, there’s a sort of infinite regress here of I need to get over a threshold to approach the next threshold, to approach the next threshold that’s finally gonna get me Yes.
To a point of, of, uh, of taking action. And, and so there’s this concept I’ve, that I’ve written about at various places called second order procrastination, which is, you know, various things you could do to address your tendency to procrastinate.
Mm-hmm.
But you procrastinate about doing those.
Yes.
So, you know, there’s the, there’s the same, there’s the same problem here.
Like if, if, if I could just kind of give myself, if I could just get myself to the point, I just force myself to the point where I’m at the edge of action. Yeah. Then I can have this natural flow experience and, and, and then that the hard thing is Okay. Um. Dr. Dini, how do I get there? Right? Yeah. And, and isn’t there, isn’t there effort and um, and kind of yeah.
Uh, hard labor involved in getting yourself to that, to that point. And if that’s the case, then maybe that’s what I’m scared of?
People could say, so. Absolutely. So, okay, a couple of thoughts. One is the, the, the second order procrastination. The thing about the procrastination is that you’re avoiding an experience.
There’s something about this experience is emanating something negative that consciously, unconsciously is “I can’t tolerate this.” So the second order of procrastination, like if you were to do those things, to avoid the procrastination as a mechanical means, you’re not addressing the anxiety, you’re not addressing the tension, the frustration, right?
Right. So, so that’s where the work is. The work is in, what is it about this thing that is terrifying to me? Uh, upsetting, and it may not be clear, it may just be this vague fog, this vague dread. And, and you’re right in that, that’s where the work is then that if you cannot get physically to, let’s say, open the document on the computer to start the report or whatever it is, then it’s, it’s where along the path there maybe physically, if you want to put it that way, but it, it the, even then it’s still metaphorical in some way.
Meeting Tension with Care
It’s where on the path there are you meeting, greeting that tension to the caring degree that works for you. So oftentimes it’s, it winds up being, I’m on the couch. I can’t, I can’t tolerate it at all. And I’m, and I’m making for the case of, can you, so, okay.
Hierarchical Set of Binds
I. I’m working on this, this thing that I’ll eventually turn into, I think a webinar at some point, but it’s like this kind of hierarchical set of binds.
Right? So the binds that likewhatever. Yeah. Yeah. And, and, and the very base, very bottom is, is drift do nothing. And which is very powerful in its own way. It could be very useful. It could be. And it, it’s, it’s a pause. It’s, it’s
right. Yeah. Um, just floating on an inner tube on a warm lake and just being there.
Yeah. The next level up is considering, can you picture this in your mind? So, so here you’re, you’re, can you picture the report?
Can you picture anything about it? Can you picture just what about it can you put in your head? And already that’ll start to emanate some of the emotional work that, that, you know, that that connects to some of it. The next level up would be that lean into challenge. Lean into mastery. That’s where you’re starting to feel that tension and, and then start to think through where can I find ease within this?
Do I shrink it down, slow it down, simplify it among other possibilities to, to find what is it within it that can be touched with ease, because that ease when you, when you find ease, ease refers to or, or, or not refers to, but connects with a sense of mastery and, and a sense of, and consequently play that you can play with that ease.
If, even if you know you have this massive, very difficult, very dense paper to read the research paper or something, and all I can, all I can do with any ease whatsoever is read the first word. Right. Okay. Play with the first word, enjoy the first word. Maybe, maybe at some point you’ll get the second word and see where that is and what that does to you and, and, and, and then it goes on.
There’s other, other layers, but it, it, it is very much that I, I think you used the word infinite regress. There’s, there is that you’re trying to, to place yourself at, the, uh, edge of the chasm, the, the, the pit. Rather than hide from it. You’re, you’re, you’re, you’re starting to, to collapse the anxiety cloud towards this fear that you can now start to mount courage against.
Facing the Fog of Tasks
Yeah, no, and I think, I think the, the emotions of fear, shame, guilt, you know, they’re, they’re very often, uh, prominent in the lives of people with wandering minds, people struggling to. To stay on track with the things they care about. Um, I was, I was struck by, I mean, I’ve, I’ve had a couple of, uh, a couple of opportunities, um, to meet David Allen of Getting Things Done, and people often kind of think he’s gonna be some sort of, you know, very, very, you know, like a real task master.
Hmm. He’s actually a very, you know, relaxed, loose kind of, uh, kind of guy. And when you see the various things he’s done with people, getting them on, getting them back on track, helping, helping them to get back on track. Often it’s just him sitting by their side. Mm-hmm. Right. These are like, you know, very well paid CEOs and so on.
And they’ll pay him thousands of dollars an hour just to kind of sit next to him and pick up a piece of paper on the desk and say like, so what’s going on with this? Where does this fit in? The, what’s striking about that is so much of what seems to be a barrier for people that he’s helping them out with is just, um, being present with the tasks, facing the music.
Facing music sounds, you know, it could be terrifying and, you know, could also be in this mode of force and uh, and coercion and so on. But it’s also just, okay, I’m gonna mindfully acknowledge this is my situation and once I can be with it, then I can start moving towards the edge of action.
Yeah.
But it’s, this fog mean, you described this, this fog, which I think is, is a, is a common experience related to wandering, to wandering minds where, uh, you got this sort of lingering lurking sense.
There’s stuff I should be looking at, things I ought to be devoting my attention to. I kind of know at some level that it’s there.
Mm-hmm.
But I wanna stay, I wanna stay far enough on this side of the fog that I don’t really have to confront it. And often what happens is when you sort of clear the fog, you step into the light of the day, you lay the things out that you need to do.
It’s still a lot of stuff you’ve gotta do, and you’re gonna have to work really hard. But it’s the, the, the, the sort of, the terror management has been taken care of. And you can just shift into the mode of, okay, let’s crank some widgets. Let’s see what, see what I want to do in this visit to the, to the tasks.
Building Trust and Self-Efficacy
One of the things that, uh, I think David Allen did that was so brilliant. Uh, for me was his concept of trusted system, right? Trust that what we were just talking about before is trust, is, you know, trust versus mistrust. That’s like, you know, Eric Erickson, psychoanalyst stage one.
So fundamental. So fundamental.
And, and, and I think a lot of people lose sight of the fact that it’s not just the infant that does that, it’s all of us. All throughout our lives, we are always trying to establish what can we trust and not trust. And
you’re a psychoanalyst. Uh, of Kourosh we’re, we’re all, we’re all infants. We never
stop being infants, as am I.
Uh, and the way I heard it as you were describing it, um, you know, with those he’s working with is that he’s, that I wonder about these, these CEOs who are stuck in some decision and he’s able to reconnect them with that feeling of trust within themselves. Yeah. That, oh, you know, I, I can do this. I just, I, I.
Somewhere this decision wasn’t moving forward somewhere. I wasn’t, I wasn’t acknowledging something that I knew or able to know, or that I was afraid of. And so as you, as you say, terror management, fear management, um, there, there is that aspect of it. That’s where that, you know, if you call it, I dunno if there’s a line of, between productivity and, and, and psychological work, it’s, you know, that’s where that edge is where you stand at that edge.
You know, that chasm, that something where you can go, oh, there’s, there’s the fear and, um. Um, what was I talking about? Oh man, I, I was, you, you were, you were talking about something. Lemme
just pick, sorry, lemme, lemme, lemme pick up on one on one thread and then maybe, maybe it’ll connect to what you were Yeah.
What you were talking about. I think it’s so important also to realize that the work is something that’s extended in time. I, it’s if it can often get set up as like, there’s this one moment where I have to do the confrontation and the weekly review, or finally the, the, the reckoning with, um, you know, with, with some task I’ve been putting off that conversation with a family member I’ve been dreading having and so on.
The time it takes is the time of building what Albert Bandura calls self-efficacy, right? Mm. The experience of confidence that comes through having ex having, um, being able to master challenges, uh. That you’re, that you’re faced with. It’s not about, it’s not about just the self-confidence that comes from everybody telling you you’re great.
Hmm. No,
it’s that, it’s that, it’s that experienced sense of, I can do this because I’ve done, I’ve done this before, or I’ve done something that’s almost as hard as what I’m doing now, and I’m now ready for the next, next step. So getting to that point takes time. Yeah. It doesn’t happen all at once. And that’s a thing we’re just like emotionally, I think often not well equipped or it, it’s a, it’s a, it’s a, it’s a, it’s something you need to learn, something you need to practice to get better and better at seeing frustrations, barriers, and so on as, as part of an arc, as part of a, a learning process in which you are making steps going forward.
And I think where people often get stuck. Is they don’t see how this small step is really going to connect with getting myself to a position to do the things that I urgently feel. I already always have. I mean, like, I’m always behind. I always have to already have gotten to this, this point that I’m aiming for.
Um, okay. So absolutely. So the the time aspect, you know, so trust is that developing belief, it requires time.
Exactly, exactly.
That’s the connection. Yeah. Yeah.
And, um, trust doesn’t go from one moment to the next.
Absolutely not. Yeah. So this distinguishes it from that. So. The way I’m defining it as developing belief that something will continue to behave as it has been such that it might be relied on, is different than the movie trope where somebody extends their hand while the train is decoupling and saying, do you trust me?
You know, that’s not trust, that’s that’s a form of faith that’s like, I’m, I’m going to take the risk. You know? That’s, that’s right. Yeah. Those are leaps that you take. Yeah, the leaps and, um, which connects with that risk idea that, that, you know, like, okay, maybe I, maybe I, if I do this now, I can trust this person to be able Anyway.
That’s what we do with ourselves as well. So when we’re in that visit approach, when we, or when we show up to a thing and we tell ourselves, you know what? I’ll make my own decision when I’m there and I’ll bring myself there. Right. That’s the bind. The bind is to actually bring yourself to there. Right.
That’s the, that’s the, um. The, the, the, if there is a force, then that is the force. Yeah. That’s the effort. That’s the exertion. That’s the exertion, that’s the, and, but if that’s too much, then the thing is, is what, what on the way there would be the visit, right? Well, where can you make the, anyway, but as you continue to make those, those visits to the, to the extent, to the, to the position that is caring for yourself, that works for yourself and you continue to make decisions for yourself in that time, you start to regain the trust in your capacity to make your decision.
You start healing agency in that sense. Uh, whereas before, I would say it was, it was injured. Now there is one important, if I can split hairs or I dunno if splitting hair, but one, one important side aspect of this, which is that there are situations, conditions that happen. Where, uh, let’s say in, um, you know, obsessive, uh, compulsive sort of situations or some anxiety situations where, um, even if you have done something, you’ve done it 10 times over and it’s been successful, you still don’t believe in yourself.
That can happen too. Yeah. And there’s, there’s a, you know, I’ve been to 20 parties and every time it’s been fine and I’m still terrified of going to the next party, you know, whatever. That’s hard. That’s really hard. Yeah. So in that is not, it’s not a simple situation, but I think it, and it, and there are times, I won’t say every time, but there are times where sitting and talking it through, thinking through what these things represent, what the stories are that have built throughout the life, and sometimes there are no stories.
It just, it just that, that is the feeling and that is what it is. Um, that we come to some understand at some, some. Some acknowledgement of what exists for us. And then that is, that is our point of decision. I don’t know if that makes sense. Um, yeah. No,
no, it is. And I think one of the things you’re, you’re, you’re highly, and it’s important to acknowledge, especially in a, you know, in a a, a discussion of wandering minds.
There are individual differences. Yes. Some people have more trouble building up this, this trust in themselves. Trust, trust that they’re on, they’re on a path. I mean, for everybody. It takes time. There’s this wonderful Dutch expression, trust comes on foot and leaves on horseback. Hmm. Um, where it’s easy to, you know, it’s, it, it’s gone in a flash.
Yeah. But it takes a long time to build. And you can have a traumatic experience where like. Your, your, your, your, your confidence is just galloping away and it’s gonna take you a long time, uh, to get it back. Yeah. So that’s, those are just, you know, I mean, those are, those are traumas. Those are hard experiences people have.
And, and then there’s a lot of work that needs to be done to, to, to build that up again. Uh, but some people I think are also just dispositionally or because of, uh, their circumstances, family, upbringing, any number of things. Yeah. Can they, that they’ve gotta put more effort, uh, and pay more attention to, to the work of building a sense of trust in themselves, uh, and to be able to, to be able to take these, take these steps.
So it’s, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s not easy. And I think that’s. Uh, that, that’s the balance to strike on the one hand of saying, it’s not that you gotta like get out a, you know, a whip to drive yourself into doing these things. It’s not, it’s not hard like that. Yeah. But it doesn’t always just happen automatically.
Effortless Engagement and Motivation
Getting yourself to the, it’s a sort of, it’s something, it’s just, it’s getting to yourself to the point of effortless engagement with a task is hard work.
Yeah. The, I’m coming back to that idea of effortless. I, it’s, it’s that you are engaged, you are in that zone of flow. It’s, it’s that, it’s, it’s it, you can find that place sometimes that, that it’s a very thin rind between overwhelm and, yeah.
And, and boredom. And, um, and, and if you can find that, that’s where that, that, that strip of. I dunno if effortless is, I’ve used that phrase all the time, but just, but as I said it now, but I think it’s where, it’s, where
it’s, where it’s, it’s, it’s kind of where, um, where effortlessness may be just another language to use for talking about motivation, right?
Mm-hmm. So when you’re in a situation in which the juices are flowing mm-hmm. You feel you got the mojo, you are, you are excited and inspired by, by the situation. Mm-hmm. That’s, I think that’s another language in which to describe the point in which you’re kind of primed. You’re primed for action and the action flows, um, uh, flows easily.
And I think to what, what, what, what, what I think it’s useful to think about is tacking between these different formulations, some formulations in terms of the place, the place that opens up the affordances is a place of calm versus the, the, the places that are a, a kind of a, a space of excitement and motivation.
Like both of those could, both of those can work. Mm-hmm. You, you tend to, uh, highlight the, the, the opportunities for, for rethinking the rethinking action, effort and agency in terms of this acting from calm, from a sort of situation of, of being at peace and just taking that breath as you’re contemplating the action.
Mm-hmm.
And, and what’s, what’s important about that? Is it. It, it helps to dispel the assumption. Like I’ll just wait until I feel like doing it. Yeah. Right. Which is like, I’m waiting for the muse. I’m waiting for the juices to get fly. I’m waiting to be like excited and we’re not always excited to do things right.
So there is a way in which I kind of lower, lower energy state can still be one that, that, that leads to action.
Mm-hmm. If
you’re, if at least you can put to the side all the fears and the anxieties and the aversiveness of the situation. But I think sometimes it’s also true that for a lot of people, you know.
They get, they get started just ’cause they’ve got, you know, they’ve got, uh, they got a running start. They’re just, they’re, they’re really excited about, uh, about something. And maybe they didn’t even just, they didn’t even, but anything like, like, screw this. I’m not gonna make a list of five things and, uh, pause thoughtfully about which one of these ones I’m gonna, I’m just plunging right in.
I’m, I’m stoked to, I’m stoked to get into the action. I, so, so I think there are different ways in which people can, can, can get things done and from different pla that are all kind of forms of motivation.
So once again, you say a whole lot and all like, and I’m like, my mind just goes, ah, I have like five things to No, that’s great.
Um, so the way I’m picturing it is like, okay, so there’s this, so first off, totally. So many different ways of getting in. And there are many times that I’m, I wake up and I’m like, I know I gotta do that thing, so let me do that thing. And I go and do the thing. Yeah. Yeah. And I don’t, I don’t sit with the, the list or, or I don’t, don’t even pause.
I just, I’m, I’m, I know where it is and I, and I go, yeah. Um, the idea of motivation is, um, you don’t like that, do you? There’s something about it that bothers you. It does bother me, and I haven’t figured it out. Okay. Good. Good, good, good. There’s, there’s, there’s some aspect of it. I, I, I, I think of it as there’s like, there’s multiple ways, right?
There’s like these sort of like, I might be, I, I would like to do this, but I’d also like to do that, and I’m also tired and I wanna take a leak or whatever. It’s, you’ve got a bunch of things that are going on and, um, you know, sometimes a large idea and, and, and sometimes small. And they’re all in the same place.
And so I think of motivation more as like this single. Maybe a few aspects of that wave of present experience. It’s not all of it, because we might have the motivation to do something but still have also competing motivation to say, I just don’t wanna, which, that, I just don’t wanna, is often an amalgamation of like 10, 20, a hundred other different emotions and things and thoughts and feelings that might relate to the work itself as well as past relationships and who knows what else.
Um, so that’s one thought that that in, in, in being there with it. The hope is that those affordances that we are creating for ourselves and being there or simply being there as its affordance in itself, maybe is, would start to align some of these waves in some particular direction. That, that you start with some, with resting your attention on the object, which might appear to be calm.
Maybe there is a calm aspect to that, but resting your attention on the object you intend would help align. Now, before you get there, though, you also said something about putting aside fears. And I would, I would put it in the line of maybe not putting aside the fears, but acknowledging them, seeing them, recognizing them, seeing all of the feelings as they are, and then resting your mind where you’d like to head, not, not ignoring the other ones they’re, they’re, you know, one of the things, uh, in meditation, you know, we often think of, um, you know, pull our, you know, there’s a distraction, pull my mind back to the object.
And, um, there might be that, there is that, certainly that meditation, but I’ve personally found it much more, much more useful to say, oh, my mind went there. I acknowledge its presence and I would like to pay attention. I would like my mind to be here, or I rest my mind here. Those other things are still furniture in the room.
They might go away on their own, they might not. I’ve, but if I pull my mind back, I am, I am creating more waves that don’t need to be there. I’m, I’m ignoring, I’m suppressing, and and that’s not, I, I’d rather, you know, anyway, the, so anyway, maybe I’m just, so, I think that’s what appears to be 1, 1, 1 more thought.
Yeah. That’s what appears to be calm, but could be excitement. It could be any number of things. It’s, it’s that acknowledgement of the experience and then resting your mind in the direction you’d like to head. Go ahead.
Exactly. Yeah. No, so this has been really useful for me for understanding kind of how to position the approach that you’re advocating, developing, have been practicing, and two contrasting approaches that you mentioned in a couple of ways.
So the one contrasting approach says, you know, the problem is. You’ve got, you’ve got all of these, you’ve got all of these competing impulses, and what you need to do is you need to suppress them.
Mm.
You need to beat them down. You need to put them aside. You know, you need to somehow, this is the, this is the metaphor that Plato uses of the wild horses.
Mm-hmm. Right? So self-control is about like, like getting the reins around these wild horses and, and taming them, right? Mm-hmm. So that’s the, that’s the, the approach that’s about self disciplining, uh, yourself, where people say that’s what’s missing. The alternative co position that you’re also, I think rejecting is you saying like.
Oh, I’m just waiting for the fire. I’m waiting for the juices to start flowing. The inspiration. The muse will show up and, or maybe I need a medication. Maybe I need a coffee. There’s something external that’s missing in in me that needs to be, needs to be brought in before, before I can start going anywhere.
So in the one case, it’s what you’ve got is a problem. In the other case, it’s what you’re lacking is the, is the source of the problem. And what I hear you describing as a third way is an approach that says, look, you’ve, you’ve got what it takes on board. You don’t need something. You’re not, you don’t need to wait for this other thing to arrive, but you also don’t need to somehow.
Tame and, um, and, and put on a leash. Mm-hmm. The, and, and, and, and demonize.
Mm-hmm.
Where you’re at.
Yeah.
You need to be sort of present with what you already have available and take that forward. So I think that that’s helpful for me at least, for thinking of these sort of like these alternatives that you’re trying to, um, uh, find a way past, uh, there’s with your approach.
Um, okay. Another thought, and then we gotta start wrapping up soon here. Um, there’s one thing that I missed, or that was I think still I needed to add to the, to the meditation. I think, first of all, I think you’re right. You got it. I think that, that, those two, and then here’s the third approach. One thing that I think I would add to the third approach is I think it’s been, I.
Listening to Yourself
Really nicely described by, uh, Richard Schwartz, who’s done this, um, uh, therapeutic work called, uh, internal Family Systems. It’s also been called Parts Model, like where you pay attention to different aspects of, of yourself and the emotions that are coming to you. And, um, he kind of personifies different aspects, uh, of something that, and that’s one way of approaching it, but it’s another way of looking at, it’s like these emotions that you’re feeling, whatever’s coming to mind, whether it’s fear or otherwise, it’s considering the message instead of saying that this needs to be ignored and demonized as is One way of putting it that you described, I think it’s, it’s, what does this have to say?
Listening. It’s telling me this. Listening
to yourself. Yeah.
Listening to yourself. It’s telling me that I am, I, I can mess this up badly or whatever. It’s whatever the message is. Or I would rather do the other thing. ’cause this thing is bo uh, boring and boring. You know, boredom itself is a, can be a terrible emotion.
It’s often dismissed as if it’s nothing but it, it could be awful. And, uh, and, and being able to pay attention to that and then, uh, uh, hear it out, but not necessarily be, um, uh, hijacked by it, not be, uh, taken over. Right. You know? And, and that’s, that’s what the agency is, that’s where it’s non-reactive.
That’s where it’s like
good. But the non-reactive, and I think it’s important to highlight the non-reactive is different from the, I have these demons that I need to capture and tie down.
Yes. Right, right. Totally. And once you start to hear them, this is the part that I like that, uh, Schwartz, I think does a nice job of describing.
Once you start hearing the, the, the messages and recognize where that part does not trust you and is trying to, trying to make you do stuff, whatever you want to, however you wanna phrase it, um, it starts to shift and change. It starts to become informant. It starts to become more like, oh, I see what concern you have.
I, oh, okay, that’s the, well, yes, I have that concern too, but let’s, but that’s the risk I need to take. Or I think I’m willing to take that risk, or I’m not, or whatever you decide. But now you start taking, taking, rather than being driven by the emotion, you can make the decision about the risk. Is it, is it too much, too little and what, what in the work works for you?
That’s good. Yeah.
Joel, this has been wonderful. Fantastic. I’ve really enjoyed this as always. Thoroughly enjoyed
it as ever. It’s been great to be here. Really enjoyed this conversation. Thanks so much, Kourosh.
Concluding Thoughts and Reflections
So that was the talk I had with a good friend Joel Anderson on a Friday morning. I hope you found that entertaining. After our talk, I was thinking again about this idea of force and force based work.
Something I often get into and, you know, how can we get to our work and play without forcing ourselves. And Joel threw me this curve ball. You know, could removing things from our environment itself be a form of force? He talked about freezing a credit card in a block of ice, or mailing a router to ourselves.
So I thought, if we turn off our notifications, are we telling ourselves that we don’t trust ourselves? Is that a form of force or could we call it an affordance? And, and using the term that he brought up. I think there is a direct statement, as I do not trust my mind and conditions of distractibility, it would mean that if I don’t turn off notifications, for example, I would have to brace myself in those conditions.
Well, I suppose I could practice bracing myself and get better and better at it, but I’d rather not. The thing is that I’m still not forcing myself to do a thing, even if I remove options . Instead, I’d be relieving myself of needing to brace things. I could still decide to do whatever I want in that visit.
In the end, I’d like to think that we’re guiding our minds to where we feel is most meaningful to us, but in ways that still feel, uh, and are caring.
Thanks for listening, and again, if you’re up for it and wanna let me know how you thought about this episode. Uh, it’s a, you know, bit of a break from the usual structure.
Uh, lemme know at, uh, wander@rhythmsoffocus.com.
Leave a Reply