S1: One of the most surprising things I've ever learned is
S1: that novelty and attention extend your lifespan, or more precisely,
S1: attention to novelty, slow time. And the opposite is true
S1: as well. Pattern and distraction accelerate it. This model explains
S1: why time moves so slowly when we were children, and
S1: why it streaks by in large gulps as we get older.
S1: When we're young, everything is new, and when things are new,
S1: we can't help but pay attention to them. We're fascinated
S1: by them and time freezes. As we get older, we
S1: switch to autopilot. We stop paying attention. We wake up,
S1: eat the same breakfast, go to the same job. We
S1: rut into a pattern. We don't notice things we don't appreciate,
S1: things we don't delight in them the way we used
S1: to because very few things are new anymore. In fact,
S1: we barely notice anything at all. Hard to say exactly,
S1: but I think this accelerates time by like two, five,
S1: or maybe even ten X seasons become years and years
S1: become decades. You think you just took out the garbage
S1: and watched a show on Netflix? But when you look
S1: at the calendar, it's like 11 years later. One way
S1: to frame this is the way we already have, which
S1: is based around the amount of novelty that you have
S1: in your life. As in, how new are the activities
S1: that you were doing day to day? But perhaps a
S1: better way to think about this is less about the activity,
S1: and more about how much you're paying attention to life
S1: in general. They tend to go together. The supernatural power
S1: I learned from Sam Harris through his meditation course waking up,
S1: is that we can actually slow time ourselves by learning
S1: to control our attention. After learning meditation from Sam a
S1: number of years ago, I now have a dead simple
S1: way of describing meditation itself, which is kind of hard
S1: to describe. There are basically only two states of living.
S1: There is aware and there is hijacked and aware is
S1: when your attention is alive and observant, which makes the
S1: subject of your focus kind of everyday extraordinary. From breathing
S1: to an ankle itch, whatever you're focusing on, being hijacked
S1: is the natural state for all of us, even Sam
S1: or the Dalai Lama or whoever. In this state, you're not.
S1: At it. In this state, you're at it. In this state,
S1: you're not aware of what you're thinking or feeling. Instead
S1: of observing life. Life is happening to you. You become
S1: your feelings. You become your thoughts. The separation between yourself
S1: and your inputs dissolves completely. A good example would be
S1: imagining a work conversation where some guy named Chris said
S1: something dismissive about one of your projects in your mind,
S1: Everyone in the meeting now thinks less of you and
S1: your work at the company. So you basically think about
S1: this constantly for like the next day, perhaps multiple days.
S1: Maybe it's been a couple of weeks now. You've just
S1: been thinking about it over and over. Can't believe he
S1: said that. Why would he say that? I can't believe
S1: you know Julie believed him or whatever. Whether you're driving
S1: to do an errand or eating a sandwich or sitting
S1: on the couch, your brain goes through the scenario thousands
S1: of times in different iterations. You imagine different ways you
S1: should have reacted what you can possibly do to fix it,
S1: whether or not you should look for another job and
S1: you hope that Chris gets fired, you just keep thinking
S1: about different ways he could be fired or whatever. You
S1: are not yourself. While this is happening, there is no you.
S1: While this is happening, you've become a cockroach in a
S1: garbage can on a freight train heading towards a distant,
S1: silly place. That does not matter how many minutes or
S1: hours or days have you spent thinking about this one
S1: particular thing? The real problem is not even that. One
S1: particular thing with Chris that you're thinking about. The problem
S1: is that our lives are full of situations just like these,
S1: over and over, annoyances and ruminations about them. If you
S1: were to check in on your mind at any particular moment,
S1: of any particular day, of any particular year in your life,
S1: and you were to see a text transcript of what
S1: you were thinking, it would be the ramblings of rumination
S1: for the hijacked. When we feel emotions, we become those emotions.
S1: When we have negative thoughts, we become those negative thoughts.
S1: This is a state of being distracted. The lack of attention. Unfortunately,
S1: it's the vast majority of people, the vast majority of
S1: the time, including me. So where does this leave us? Well,
S1: there are ways to break free from this. We can
S1: learn to meditate even a little bit. Give yourself the
S1: ability to get to the aware state, even if it's
S1: just for a brief moments during the day. Number two,
S1: we can build more novelty into our lives new books,
S1: new foods, new people, new art. And third, we can
S1: bias towards creation versus consumption. Creation takes focus, which is
S1: a type of attention and often requires novelty as you
S1: learn and master a craft as well. If we quiet
S1: our minds and pay close attention to great food, great friends,
S1: great books, and great walks with our loved ones, if
S1: we honor the present moment and the feeling of her
S1: hand in yours, if we create instead of consume, if
S1: we build instead of bicker, we magnify the quality and
S1: duration of the time we have in this life. We
S1: can turn seconds into lifetimes. Doing this well means ten
S1: years can become 50, and doing this wrong means we
S1: could die at 90, never having lived.