thread clash

[cellio]

When praying (which usually means when at services), I've noticed that there's a background thread that runs in my brain. While the foreground task is reciting the words in the siddur, the background thread is analyzing the words (ok, only some of the words) based on what I've learned so far of grammar. Sometimes I notice something new (oh, that's how that verb is put together!). This is good; direct application aids learning.

But... is there a way to prevent that thread from grabbing focus? Its job, most of the time, is to note things to come back to later, but sometimes it distracts me when I ought not be distracted. Like, say, when I'm leading services. I don't want to surpress it; I just want it to behave.

(Please tell me that other people's brains work this way too? Pretty much any time I'm doing something vaguely "intellectual", there are at least two things going on in my brain, the main activity and the "meta" level that's noticing how I'm processing that main activity.)

Comments

Book rec?

[chaiya.livejournal.com]

You might be interested in reading The Power of Now, which has alternatively been billed to me as a psych book and as a spirituality book. It's some of each, maybe, and possibly other things as well. The author, Eckhart Tolle, talks about the mind in abstract and a person's ability to observe the mind as an independent entity. He argues that the mind is a construct that keeps people from living their lives directly, and that people should seize upon the now because it is the only thing that really exists. There are some weird ideas in the book so far, but I've also gotten some interesting psychological and spiritual realizations out of it. And this post brought it to mind, so I thought I'd share. :)

Re: Book rec?

[cellio]

Thanks for the pointer.