EFTA00661977.pdf

From: To: Subject: Fallows interview of Stone in Atlantic Monthly Date: Sat, 25 May 2013 17:10:17 +0000 Jim Fallows interviewed me for a recent piece on the "Future of Attention." Would be interested to hear your thoughts, related stories. I really am finding much of the conversation on distraction tedious and unhelpful.... Of course, grateful for tweets! Here's a link to the interview from his blog: Here's a link to the excerpt that went into the magazine: Quick excerpt from the blog post: JF: So people may yet find ways to "disconnect"? There is an increasingly heated conversation around "disconnecting." I'm not sure this is a helpful conversation . When we discuss disconnecting, it puts the machines at the center of everything. What if, instead, we put humans at the center of the conversation, and talk about with what or whom we want to connect? Talking about what we want to connect with gives us a direction and something positive to do. Talking about disconnecting leaves us feeling shamed and stressed. Instead of going toward something, the language is all about going away from something that we feel we don't adequately control. It's like a dieter constantly saying to him or herself, "I can't eat the cookie. I can't eat the cookie," instead of saying, "That apple looks delicious." JF: You say that people can create a sense of relaxed presence for themselves. How? -When we learn how to play a sport or an instrument; how to dance or sing; or even how to fly a plane, we learn how to breathe and how to sit or stand in a way that supports a state of relaxed presence. My hunch is that when you're flying, you're aware of everything around you, and yet you're also relaxed. When you're water-skiing, you're paying attention, and if you're too tense, you'll fall. All of these activities help us cultivate our capacity for relaxed presence. Mind and body in the same place at the same time. EFTA00661977 People have become increasingly drawn to meditation and yoga as a way to cultivate relaxed presence. Any of these activities, from self-directed play to sports and performing arts, to meditation and yoga, can contribute cultivating relaxed presence. In this state of relaxed presence, our minds and bodies are in the same place at the same time and we have a more open relationship with the world around us. Another bonus comes with this state of relaxed presence. It's where we rendezvous with luck. A U.K. psychologist ran experiments in which he divided self-described lucky and unlucky people into different groups and had each group execute the same task. In one experiment, subjects were told to go to a café, order coffee, return and report on their experience. The self-described lucky person found money on the ground on the way into the café, had a pleasant conversation with the person they sat next to at the counter, and left with a connection and potential business deal. The self-described unlucky person missed the money - it was left in the same place for all experimental subjects to find, ordered coffee, didn't speak to a soul, and left the café. One of these subjects was focused in a more stressed way on the task at hand. The other was in a state of relaxed presence, executing the assignment. We all have a capacity for relaxed presence, empathy, and luck. We stress about being distracted, needing to focus, and needing to disconnect. What if, instead, we cultivated our capacity for relaxed presence and actually, really connected, to each moment and to each other? EFTA00661978