Some time ago I found that I could explain many common behaviours by matching them with attention styles. I would like to tell you about it in this post. You can read a short summary about the objective and the immersed attention styles at the end of this post.
.Question 1
How do you know that a fictional book or a film is good and worth recommending?
Answer
Because you are well immersed when you read or watch them.
Explanation
When you read a good book or watch a good movie you connect with the main character and for a time of watching or reading you live his/her life. In other words you loose yourself and you immerse in the book or film. Immersing distorts your sense of time and it is effortless. You can easily watch a three hour film and feel as if it was only five minutes long. To be precise this style of attending is called narrow/immersing because you are focused on a screen or lines of words.
.
Question 2
Why do you like a tune more when you listen to it for the second, third, fourth… time?
Answer
Because your attention style shifts from objective to immerse.
Explanation
When you listen to a tune for the first time you do not know what is going to happen. You stay slightly alert detecting what is happening in the tune and feeling if you like it or not. When you listen to it again you know what to expect and you know which note will be next so you can relax, let go and sing the tune while listening to it. You become more immersed in it. This is the reason why most songs have a repeating set of notes called refrain or chorus.
We also consider Jazz as music for more ‘intelligent’ people and Pop as music for the more average listener. The reason is that in Jazz you can never be sure what is going to happen and you have to combine immersing with slight objectivity. Therefore Jazz requires a more advanced (balanced) listener. In pop the main thing is a regular rhythm which makes all tunes very predictable and it is easy to immerse very quickly.
.
Question 3
Why when walking along the same path (say, through the park) for the second time it seems a lot faster?
Answer
Because you attention style shifts from objective to immerse.
Explanation
Similarly to the example with music, when you walk the path for the second time you know what is going to happen next and you can daydream while walking. Daydreaming is an immersing in the inner head world. You lose yourself in your daydreams thinking about what happened to you or what is going to happen. The sense of time becomes distorted which is typical for the immersed attention style.
.
Question 4
How do you recognise a good friend?
Answer
Because you feel immersed with him/her.
Explanation
We say, ‘a friend in need is a friend indeed’. When we are in need we feel lost and ‘the whole World is against us’. It means that we feel separated (objectified) from the world. This separation brings suffering and fear. We need someones help, we need someone who can ‘give us a hand’. What we really need is to bo immersed with the World again to feel connected with life. When someone devotes their time, effort, to connect with us we consider it as a great help and this person as a friend. But what he/she really does is help us to shift our attention from extremely objective to more immersed.
x
The main differences between objective and immersed attention styles are
1. relationship between the person who attends and the reality
2. sense of time
3. effort required to sustain
The objective attention style
we feel separated from the rest of reality
(you feel distant from the screen you are looking at now)
The immersed attention style
we feel connected to something or someone and we lose the sense of separation
(a group of supporters chanting together in a football stadium)
The objective attention style
when we feel objective to something or someone we are aware of passing time staying watchful or on our guard. The time goes slowly.
(sitting in at a boring meeting).
The immersed attention style
when we are immersed our sense of time is distorted
(we are not sure how much time passed after chatting to a good friend or playing a favourite game)
The objective attention style
this style is effortfull, we feel tired after being objective for some time and we need to rest
(we need a coffee brake during a meeting)
The immersed attention style
this style is effortless; we can be in this style for hours without feeling tired
(performing a favorite activity)
… there is a lot in what you say Tomasz so I thought that I’d try it out. But instead of calling an old friend or taking a walk in the park I asked the question ‘Imagine if this is the first time I’ve been in this (my) office’
Bang, my perspective suddenly changed. I was more in the room and it set of a whole range of moods that I have not experienced in this space before, like curiosity, wonder etc.
This is good stuff … thank you for the ‘heads-up’
This is a great idea.
I will try it myself.
Thank you,
PS
Did it make you more immersed or more objective?
What do you think?
Initially it was a mood of immersion because I could place my awareness in any point of space within the room.Taking that position I had a choice of watching myself sitting there which may be interpreted as subjective. Or I had a choice of just sensing being in the space and asking a question like ‘what sensations am I open to now’ which may be seen as objective.
I’m open to other interpretations of subjective and objective in this context.
I love your articles on the subject. OF is groundbreaking ‘stuff’ and it’s so simple whilst explaining so many things in the area of consciousness. Consciousness is the new frontier for living successfully in the modern world.