Hello! Here are some things I thought about throughout this week. Each of these could be a separate post, but I wanted to compile them concisely so that I can expand on them later.
The Rotation-Translation Prioritization
I was staring at the moon while taking a walk. As we all have noticed, it appeared like the moon was following me. The scientific reason for this phenomenon is that the moon is very far away, so it is visible everywhere. However, when I turned my eyes slightly in another direction, I couldn't see the moon. This got me thinking.
No matter how much I walked, I couldn't get the moon out of sight. But when I slightly turned my head, I couldn't see it. This got me thinking about rotation and translation and I couldn't help but draw this analogy into our lives. I thought about it in two ways – getting something and letting go of something.
On the getting front, we have goals and we usually take steps to achieve them. To effectively reach a goal, we need to orient/rotate ourselves toward the goal and start working toward it. If we are not oriented correctly, no matter how far we walk, we will never reach our destination. Connecting this to our moon analogy, if the moon is out of sight, we will not know the direction to walk.
On the letting go front, we also have some things we try to let go of, or to grow out of. Things like those are also goals, but they are hard to get past. I have been in situations where I will try to let something go, but it will constantly occupy my mind and I'll never be able to outrun it. The only way that has worked for me is to try to focus on something else, to orient myself toward something else. Coming back to our moon analogy, if the moon is always in sight, we have to keep facing it. We can't let it go. To let some things go, we need to turn our heads away from them as a first step and work on the remaining process.
Both lines of thought led me to thinking if rotation is more important than translation. Rotation is direction, while translation is action. Does this mean that direction is more important than action? Most certainly not. To know if we are moving in the right or wrong direction, we need to move. We need to act. Without action, we cannot get a sense of direction in our lives. So, I think the question of priority between action (translation) and direction (direction) is rendered moot. What made me think about this? What's the point of this line of thought? I don't know. Maybe my mind is still working on it and trying to tell me something.
The Black Screen Status Quo
After a good deal of struggle, I have cultivated the habit of reading. It is one of the most enjoyable things I do these days and I'm super thankful for my past self for taking the effort. I used to read on my iPad before without distractions, but I found it getting harder to focus. So I have switched to physical books over the last year.
Even with physical books, when I was reading, I noticed something odd at my apartment. A few black screens were staring back at me. The moment I lifted my head from the book, I could see a bunch of black screens – a TV, two laptops, my phone, and my iPad. That's five black screens. That's five portals of potential distractions in the coming minutes, eagerly inviting me to turn them on.
Did they ask me to turn them on? Did I get a notification? Absolutely not. This was just my attention-lacking mind looking for distractions. This ties into my focus ad concentration. Even when I'm working on one of those screens, the other four are ready to be put to use. I'm easily distracted. So, to minimize distractions, I am trying to put these black screens away, to train my mind to focus. There was a simple way to achieve this — to leave my devices in a room and go to a different room. I'm going to keep trying this and see if it improves my focus and concentration.
These were things that I was ruminating about in my mind this week. Do what you will with it! See if you can resonate with any of these. Thanks for reading. Cheers!
