Biscuit-addled Mind

Get the kettle on. How do you take yours? Three TV sets and a splash of WhatsApp, please. On second thoughts, I’ll just have black coffee.

“You’ve got such a biscuit-addled Mind” Simon said as I poured a can of Foster’s into his bowl of cheese puffs, then proceeded to down the cheesy-lagery slop in one go.

As you know, I’ve been reflecting a lot recently, especially after my brother died at age 52 on December 8th 2023. I’ve been chipping away at my digital iceberg, and something hit me, how much time I’ve wasted. Getting a momentarily hit of pleasure from silly memes, thinking of something funny to share with friends, and then wasting time discussing it. I’m not against fun, I’m against distractions. It’s the micro distractions that we all have that take us away from better things and keep us numb to reality. These little micro distractions, or micro entertainments, consume our lives, they’re so ubiquitous that they’ve become normal. But as a wise man once said “Normal doesn’t mean Natural”.

It’s a war against attention is what I’m really against. But the war is with yourself.

“If you want to win the war for attention, don’t try to say ‘no’ to the trivial distractions you find on the information smorgasbord; try to say ‘yes’ to the subject that arouses a terrifying longing, and let the terrifying longing crowd out everything else.”

Cal Newport

Well said, Cal!

I caught myself feeling ever so slightly down, in a daze the other day and my fingers typed “Facebook” on my iPhone search automatically. What the actual F!??? Insanity!

Then the day after I was chatting to a colleague and my fingers typed “Facebook” into my Chrome browser. Bravo Zucks, your indoctrination has taken hold! You are the puppet master, sir

I’m sitting on the loo as I write this part, and it reminds me of a running commentary I had with a small WhatsApp group about the noises that came from the cubicle next door. On some level, you may find this funny, but jeez, what a waste of time, at its root it’s me wanting to appear funny to my friends. As I read this sentence back, it’s pretty weird, isn’t it? Well, I bet you do weird things too that you think are normal because it’s in the comfort of your portable magic phone! Let me add that the WhatsApp group wasn’t named “noises that came from the cubicle next door”, that would be next-level weird. The group was a group of mates, and I happened to comment whilst on my loo breaks at work. Still weird.

Distraction mode complete

TV can’t even do its job properly these days as the phone has become the distraction queen. Have you found yourself watching a film whilst on your phone? I have.

On the bus to work this morning, I decided not to flip through my phone and guess what? I felt uncomfortable, I couldn’t just sit there and ‘be’. I even looked at the guy’s phone in the seat in front of me scrolling through YouTube shorts. I was getting really into it “Surely that monster truck won’t crush that Lambo?!”, “Is that two lions fighting?”, “Darn Monzo Advert”, all within 30 seconds. It’s madness.

MADNESS THAT’S BECOME NORMAL, BUT IT’S NOT NATURAL.

Biscuit.

Addled.

Mind.

Ooh, notification! 🔔

“To pay attention, this is our endless and proper work.”

Mary Oliver

I’m trying to keep away from the topic of phones in this post. It’s more about the deep insidious levels of distraction that we have interwoven into our day-to-day lives. So much so, that we don’t notice. It’s hard to keep away from phones as a topic of distraction as they are the biggest distraction of all, but I’ll try my best.

Where was I?

Distractions.

The distractions are melting away, like an ice cube left on a room-temperature countertop. We try not to get distracted, but when we do, there’s an added layer of judgement on top to contend with. “I was doing so well and now I failed” It weighs heavy on top of everything else you have to deal with, then sometimes it’s easier just to ‘cave in’ for an easier life. Our minds enjoy being busy, they love to be occupied, a lot of this is going on without your say so, you want to do better but your mind is a tape recording of previous desires going round and round and round and round and round.

What you resist, persists, as Dr Jung said once.

You can resist these urges all you want, but if it’s stuck in your mind, then sometimes it won’t go away until you do the thing that you are craving (I’m not suggesting doing something silly). Let me tell you that this is ok, don’t force anything. The deeper you is in control of where your attention lies, so put the flashlight of your focus on other things. Lose yourself in what you love doing. When I’m painting or drawing, there is no craving for food, there’s no craving to use my phone, there are no cravings full stop, and there’s no me there at all. I am just not there, with my paints and canvas.

Finding the activity where you forget about time is worth the search. Believe me. Noticing my distractions more and more makes me realise how the quality of life is day and night between distractive activities and let’s call them, peaceful activities (There are other commonly used terms I dislike).

I’m sorting out my Dropbox at the moment, it’s a real reminder of all of the distractions I’ve had over the past 15-20 years of my digital life. Projects I’ve started, photos that have been taken, and shared, things that have been designed and unused and numerous course files, audio programs, unused PDFs. There’s a reminder of a list of old website clients that I’ve long forgotten about in folders, each one had to fight for my attention as I was deeply distracted and anxious at the time. It’s also a reminder of how we hold onto things because we think they may be useful in the future. The digital aspect adds so many unseen layers to this, at least with a physical hoarder, you can see what they have. With a digital hoarder, you could have Gigabytes of Junk unused but it’s still occupying your mind at some level. It’ll be weird when people my age or younger become old, will they leave their Dropboxes to their loved ones left behind?

That said, the projects I work on have led me to where I am now, searching for something to get my teeth into, something purposeful. It turns out that it was the very thing that I did as a child with no agenda, that led me on this path. So there are no regrets:

“You can’t connect the dots looking forward,” Jobs said. “You can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.”

I don’t want to go too much into food as a distraction, but that has been there for me well before smartphones were invented. Distraction. Addiction. Distraction. Addiction.

I typed those two words into GPT and this came up:

“There is a connection between distraction and addiction, especially in the context of technology. The constant availability of digital devices and the internet can contribute to both distraction and addictive behaviours. For instance, the frequent use of social media, online games, or streaming services can lead to a cycle of distraction, where individuals find it challenging to stay focused on important tasks.”

I am addicted to distractions.

That reminded me of what this guy once said about people with social anxiety, it could be seen as “an addiction to avoidance” It really struck me, as you don’t see those types of behaviours as an addiction. But speaking from my own experience, avoiding socialising, you get the same sense of relief you get from any other addiction. You feel good from avoiding stressful social situations (Which for me, was a majority of social situations). The same as when I was on the bus this morning, I wanted to look at my phone as I felt uncomfortable doing nothing. Addiction is a loaded word, associated with drugs and alcohol, so people don’t want to admit they’re addicted to avoiding others or eating too much, do they?

I asked GPT to summarise it in a sentence, it said:

“Distraction diverts focus; addiction involves harmful dependence”.

You could say that I have been harmfully dependent at one time or the other with…

• Eating too much

• Using my phone too much

• Pleasing others too much

• Avoiding social situations too much

All forms of distractions are a way of not feeling something you don’t want to feel.

If you put it like that, it’s pretty logical, isn’t it?

Your mind is keeping you safe.

Do Y so I don’t feel X.

The mind doesn’t realise that Y is bad for you as you feel good temporarily while doing it, and it avoids you feeling X.

Clever mind. Be kind to it, it’s helping you in its own way. Tell it that you’ll be okay without the distraction and it’s time for you to focus, reassure it. Hug your mind.

I notice a post-lunch slump right now. I feel tired and frustrated, so here comes Mindy McMind and says “Hey, go on Facebook, you’ll feel better with a bit of connection!” I say “NO!, I will be fine, I need to learn to just feel how I’m feeling and let it pass”.

So again, I’m noticing the little things I do habitually. I’m finding it hard to put into words, let’s see if I can find a metaphor for this…

Thinking…

It’s a bit like a kid in a sweet shop. Their senses are bombarded with colours, smells, the promise of sweetness, and lots of it. The kid will get excited about all the sweets they can choose from but they’re not nourishing, they’re not doing them any good, they’re distractions. Deep underneath the construct is a fight for the child’s attention, billions of pounds of branding put into ads and colour psychology experts, I heard that you feel familiar with brands in the same way you feel familiar with a person. Crazy isn’t it? We are the child, we have the brand indoctrination plus years of internet indoctrination, TV, DVD and VHS indoctrination if you’re older. I’m not going all David Icke, don’t worry. It’s just a fact of big business that a lot of money is paid for your attention, get your attention back!

So it boils back down to where YOU choose to put your attention, we can blame the distractions, and rightly so, but only we can take responsibility for WHERE we put our attention. This is not easy at first as you feel overwhelmed, loads is going on at once, you’re scrolling, watching TV, you’ve got 5 screaming kids, and the senses are overloaded. But it does get easier.

Get your attention back!

It’s yours.

I want to leave you with this short exchange with :

Me:
Hi Marc, as an artist, I have found it hard to say no to many opportunities that arise but on reflection, I feel like I need more discernment. Especially after having a baby daughter this year, time is really precious. I’m also working full-time at a tech company.

You’ve inspired me to think about what I want and to say no to anything else. I’m a people pleaser so ‘yes’ has been a default setting, to my detriment.

Marc:
Part of the problem if bring a yes sayer is that our lives get so cut up by small things, we don’t even realize what we are missing.

If you haven’t already, I strongly recommend you read Deep Work by Cal Newport.

And pay attention to that daughter. You will never get that time back.

Emphasising these potent words for you:

Being a yes-sayer is the biggest distraction of them all.

Love to you,

SLART