This is a newsletter about thinking better, so Iād be remiss if I didnāt start with what I believe to be the single most important foundational skill to acquire if one wants to think better: learning to cultivate mindfulness ā an open state of awareness regarding the contents of consciousness.
Why? In short, any endeavor to think better has two parts:
Observe the pathways and inclinations of our brain and, then, ā¦
Optimize against those pathways.
Mindfulness is the lens through which we can reliably accomplish the former. Contrary to what most self-help / productivity books will claim, I believe that the starting point to improving your mind should not be the construction of arbitrary habits or layering on new, higher-fidelity sources of information, but first understanding what your brain tends to do by default so its strengths can be augmented and its weaknesses explicitly circumvented.
But mindfulness, to be honest, is far more than that. To avoid detracting from the benefits, Iām going to dive right in and state my case.
The benefits of mindfulness
Iāve been practicing mindfulness for a few years now, and over that time, Iāve collected what I perceive the principal effects of mindfulness have been on my own reality. If you already believe me, you can feel free to skip this entire section, as itās a lot ā but if you donāt, I hope this gives you a more compelling, holistic picture of what mindfulness is. In order of decreasing importance:
I feel like I can exert more free will.1
Mindfulness has helped me become more aware of the subtle pathways driving me to take any action, so that if itās not aligned with what I want to do, I can attempt to avoid it. This starts with the obvious, like binging Netflix or junk food, to the subtle, like recognizing that Iām still reading a book only because I want to add it to my Goodreads count (and thatās obviously not why I actually want to read). Moreover, the most surprising thing about this is that youāll discover that these internal stimuli will tend to dictate nearly every action in your day, down to even the most benign things: I eat because Iām hungry, I scratch because Iām itchy.
Divorcing impulse from action gives you space to exercise your will, especially when you know the default sequence will lead to something you know youād rather not do.
Often I still fail at combatting my biology, of course, but itās much much easier when you can see the marionette strings.I feel I can effectively do anything by simply being mindful of the things blocking me from being able to do said thing. (I.e. I feel smarter.)
Iāve never had much trouble learning things, but this has historically made it extremely difficult to navigate situations where I couldnāt understand something through brute force. Mindfulness has helped me finally topple that barrier, and ā perhaps this sounds trivial to many of you ā isolate what I didnāt understand (and thus be able to even ask questions about it).
I have a deeper understanding of my consciousness.
Your mind can act as a laboratory over which you can test hypotheses about your consciousness. Weāre so used to statistical endeavors in modern science that you donāt even realize that you can understand a lot about your own consciousness by just observing it yourself. It may not be useful in generating publishable work regarding consciousness, but it is certainly useful in better understanding your own experience of it, which is what is generally most valuable to you, anyway. Where do your thoughts come from? (Nowhere) What are you, even? (Nothing but your conscious experience, really)
Iām less prone to having arguments where my emotions are driving. (Heightened self-awareness, greater equanimity)
Mindfulness in heated situations does two things. First, it creates distance between you and your emotions, allowing you to observe it as a phenomenon that is happening to you, but is not coincident with you. Second, Iāve noticed observing emotions tends to make them lessen in severity. So you gain both a mirror and an analgesic.
I can punctuate my day with moments of heightened awareness.
In general, I think attention is your scarcest resource, not time, and mindfulness gives you greater attention. Consequently, this lets you churn what feels like greater meaning out of important life moments. It doesnāt quite stick, as mindfulness hasnāt helped my memory, but I can at least tell that Iām more deeply present in critical moments.
Why mindfulness, and not just meditation.
Mindfulness often conflated with its procedural counterpart: meditation. While this isnāt inherently bad, as meditation is a necessary part of mindfulness practice, there are two reasons this is problematic:
This conflation waters down the profound insights available through mindfulness, but not meditation.
Because meditation has greater mass market appeal, the most popular meditation apps donāt teach you mindfulness at all, confining its position to a lesser class of self-help practices, like exercise, walking outside, standing desks, etc.
There are biological benefits to meditation, of course: emotional regulation, stress reduction, improved focus, greater well-being. But these pale in comparison to the benefits of mindfulness, which are existential, not psychosomatic ā you can start to spend more regular moments of your life awake from the perpetual nest of thoughts that inundate your brain ad infinitum, and you can exercise your will more effectively within those moments. Mindfulness is a short circuit pattern against whatever is seeking to shape your attention ā whether external, as in the case of social media or other people, or internal, like thoughts or emotions, often unconsciously conceived.
I started my mindfulness journey by practicing meditation only. I downloaded a whole host of meditation apps ā Headspace, Calm, Balance, to name a few. But even after a long period of dedicated practice, I remained skeptical of the value. You give up time, and you donāt feel any fundamental change with practice ā you eventually come away with this feeling that youāre breathing more deeply with your eyes closed, and learning to let things go, but with no fundamental change to your psyche. And so, after a few attempts at starting and then subsequently stopping meditation, I dismissed meditation and consequently ā mistakenly ā mindfulness, altogether.
But mindfulness is nothing like this. Mindfulness in an arousal from the waking dream youāve been dreaming your whole life. Mindfulness is a precursor to free will, and the point is to learn to summon it even while not meditating.
How to get started
Personally, I started with this particular meditation, after which Sam Harrisās introductory course (Waking Up app and book) brought me from 0 to 1. Beyond that, the 10% happier book by Dan Harris (no relation) was also quite helpful in hearing firsthand specifically what the initial push towards mindfulness feels like for a beginner. Itās often quite difficult to untangle yourself from the mess of emotions you feel while trying to practice, the natural distractedness of your mind, and the commentary you unconsciously layer on, and hearing another person struggle through the same journey can be encouraging in this regard. The 10% happier companion app also has wonderfully accessible meditations for mindfulness by Joseph Goldstein, a prominent teacher of mindfulness meditation.
Iāll end this with a quote from Sam Harris, which motivates why Iām starting this newsletter with such a strong emphasis not on directly thinking better, but on investing low in your skill tree first:
In my view, the realistic goal to be attained through [mindfulness] is not some permanent state of enlightenment that admits of no further efforts but a capacity to be free in this moment, in the midst of whatever is happening. If you can do that, you have already solved most of the problems you will encounter in life.
For those well-versed in mindfulness, Iāll admit this is probably an illusion, but practically speaking, itās extremely useful.