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The Current
Nov. 24th, 2020 09:30 am
R. is reading Robin Hobb's The Assassin Trilogy to me while I'm cooking, and it's been a great set of books so far. The main character, a royal bastard named Fitz, has inherited different magical powers from each of his parents. From his mother, he receives what's colloquially known as "The Wit," a sense that allows him to plug in to the life-force of everyone around him and limited psychic communication with animals. Folks with the Wit frequently end up bonding with a specific animal, and over time both animal and human take on each other's thinking and demeanor. The Wit is frowned upon in the setting as evil witch-magic, essentially; if you're discovered to have it, you're hung, quartered, and burned.
However, from his noble father he received a different magic known as "The Skill," which is unique to the current line of monarchs ruling the Kingdom of the Six Duchies. With it, you can enter, read, and manipulate the minds of other people -- think psionicists in D&D but without the telekinesis. Fitz has unreliable usage of the Skill, but when he can access it he sees it as a river, the pooled consciousness of all humanity, their thoughts and memories and behaviors. One of the problems with using the Skill is that it's so enrapturing to plunge into this river you run the real risk of losing yourself to it.
I obviously don't have the Skill, but I sympathize with the concept of being seduced by this river of thought. It happens frequently in meditation and often without my conscious decision. I understand it's an expression of my ADHD and generally weak executive function, and I'm trying to be patient with myself as I learn how to focus through it. The trouble is self-regulation; for me, there's virtually no difference between dipping a hand into the river and being submerged in it.
One of the things meditation does for us is allowing us to recognize the spaces between stimuli. So with practice, I could learn to notice the space where my brain goes from counting the breath to thinking a thought, and from linking that thought to another thought...which puts me in the river to be dragged away by the current. But that space has been curiously difficult to recognize. I'll be counting the breath, and a minute later I realize that I've been carried away by the current somehow.
I think the best thing to do when it happens is label the distraction -- thinking, feeling, whatever -- and return to the breath. And for the most part, that's what I do. But I've begun noticing the chatter *around* this process the more I do it. I'm not sure if I'll ever be capable of actually focusing on my breath for a significant amount of time, but the practice of trying it will undoubtedly make me more capable. In some ways I'm putting trust in the process; either it will happen or it won't. But my thoughts about constantly being swept away feels like a productive line of inquiry.
The emotions that come up when I'm having a particularly difficult day with focus tie in a lot to my self-talk in general. I get frustrated that I can't seem to do the very thing that seems to come easily to others, or sad that my brain is "broken" to the point that I can't seem to slow down enough to focus on one thing at a time. What's most strange is that I feel like my acceptance of the process is disconnected from my inability to accept my inherent trouble with following the process. There's a space there.
I feel the same kind of frustration with my writing. I understand and accept writing is not easy, and that it takes time and practice to feel comfortable with it. At the same time, I get angry with myself for not writing fast enough, or good enough, or...at all. And at the heart of that emotion is the thought that there's something fundamentally wrong with *me* -- either I lack the discipline to succeed with the process, or there's some basic lack within me that makes it impossible.
But is that really true? I honestly don't know. I know that ADHD makes me more susceptible to certain kinds of problems and it might be difficult to account for that -- especially with the environment we build for ourselves if left to our own devices. But maybe that could be handled with more mindful attention to my environment, and helping myself out by only including the things that are worthy of focus. If my inability to focus is because of a personal lack, then meditation can help give me the tools to make up for it. If it's from habit and environment, meditation can give me the perspective to do something about it.
The same holds for writing. The best way to get better with it, regardless of the reason why I have so much trouble with it, is practice and learning how to change or adapt to the roadblocks. That, too, is a process. If I can put my trust in one process, I can put my trust in another.
However, from his noble father he received a different magic known as "The Skill," which is unique to the current line of monarchs ruling the Kingdom of the Six Duchies. With it, you can enter, read, and manipulate the minds of other people -- think psionicists in D&D but without the telekinesis. Fitz has unreliable usage of the Skill, but when he can access it he sees it as a river, the pooled consciousness of all humanity, their thoughts and memories and behaviors. One of the problems with using the Skill is that it's so enrapturing to plunge into this river you run the real risk of losing yourself to it.
I obviously don't have the Skill, but I sympathize with the concept of being seduced by this river of thought. It happens frequently in meditation and often without my conscious decision. I understand it's an expression of my ADHD and generally weak executive function, and I'm trying to be patient with myself as I learn how to focus through it. The trouble is self-regulation; for me, there's virtually no difference between dipping a hand into the river and being submerged in it.
One of the things meditation does for us is allowing us to recognize the spaces between stimuli. So with practice, I could learn to notice the space where my brain goes from counting the breath to thinking a thought, and from linking that thought to another thought...which puts me in the river to be dragged away by the current. But that space has been curiously difficult to recognize. I'll be counting the breath, and a minute later I realize that I've been carried away by the current somehow.
I think the best thing to do when it happens is label the distraction -- thinking, feeling, whatever -- and return to the breath. And for the most part, that's what I do. But I've begun noticing the chatter *around* this process the more I do it. I'm not sure if I'll ever be capable of actually focusing on my breath for a significant amount of time, but the practice of trying it will undoubtedly make me more capable. In some ways I'm putting trust in the process; either it will happen or it won't. But my thoughts about constantly being swept away feels like a productive line of inquiry.
The emotions that come up when I'm having a particularly difficult day with focus tie in a lot to my self-talk in general. I get frustrated that I can't seem to do the very thing that seems to come easily to others, or sad that my brain is "broken" to the point that I can't seem to slow down enough to focus on one thing at a time. What's most strange is that I feel like my acceptance of the process is disconnected from my inability to accept my inherent trouble with following the process. There's a space there.
I feel the same kind of frustration with my writing. I understand and accept writing is not easy, and that it takes time and practice to feel comfortable with it. At the same time, I get angry with myself for not writing fast enough, or good enough, or...at all. And at the heart of that emotion is the thought that there's something fundamentally wrong with *me* -- either I lack the discipline to succeed with the process, or there's some basic lack within me that makes it impossible.
But is that really true? I honestly don't know. I know that ADHD makes me more susceptible to certain kinds of problems and it might be difficult to account for that -- especially with the environment we build for ourselves if left to our own devices. But maybe that could be handled with more mindful attention to my environment, and helping myself out by only including the things that are worthy of focus. If my inability to focus is because of a personal lack, then meditation can help give me the tools to make up for it. If it's from habit and environment, meditation can give me the perspective to do something about it.
The same holds for writing. The best way to get better with it, regardless of the reason why I have so much trouble with it, is practice and learning how to change or adapt to the roadblocks. That, too, is a process. If I can put my trust in one process, I can put my trust in another.
