Infernal dialogue

I found the following text on one of the Web forums. The author did not identify himself or herself.

One of the better exercises I’ve heard of to increase control over the internal dialogue is based on an interesting theory.

It is that the part of the brain in charge of talking to ourselves is the same part that involves attention. It has finite resources, so if you can fully use them on attention instead of talking, with practice it gives you more and more control over that part of your mind. Sometimes described as like having a “talk to yourself on/off switch”.

By not talking to yourself, you learn how not to talk to yourself.

Thus the exercise is to do several physically undemanding things at the same time, that use a lot of attention.

Ordinary walking uses a great deal of attention, directed to the legs to keep navigating, avoiding obstacles, etc. So it is a great starting point. Added to that, as you walk, holding your hands in some unusual manner, like with two of the fingers crossed. It doesn’t matter what, just as long as your attention is directed to your arms and hands as well as your legs and feet. If you lose attention on your hands, you just change how you are holding them.

The real trick is to unfocus your eyes. And this uses some interesting psychology. Normally, when you look at things, your attention and focus is “point to point”. You look from tiny spot to tiny spot, which uses just minimal attention, seeing most things peripherally. But when you unfocus your eyes, the whole 180 degree tableau in front of you is equal, as far as your attention is concerned.

And this uses a whopping great amount of attention.

Combining all three things: walking, holding your hands funny, and unfocusing your eyes, overwhelms that small part of your brain by taking so much attention, that it just doesn’t have the ability to keep up the internal dialogue.

And you stop talking to yourself, for longer and longer times.

Walking around this way is easy to learn, and with just a mile or two, every day or two, you start to notice increased concentration in about two weeks. And the effects tend to be cumulative, so the more you do it, the better you get.

Imagine being able to sit down and do an entire SAT test without distraction.

I knew one young man who did this exercise, almost because he had to. His internal dialogue was so intense that he continually vacillated back and forth between focused and unfocused. The end result was that he sounded like a California surf bum. He could barely speak a sentence without being distracted. It was both exhaustive and very frustrating for him.

In about a month, I saw him again, and he looked revitalized. He was almost a different person, could speak in whole paragraphs, and loved the ability to actually finish things he had started. I also noted that he was bursting with energy, no longer having to commit so much brain power to internal dialogue and bouncing back and forth.

There are all sorts of ways of accomplishing much the same thing, but he is the reason I remember this exercise so well.

Gretsch G5810

Rock and roll pioneer Bo Diddley, who influenced just about every first and second generation rock and roll musician, has passed away. "Watching Bo Diddley (in 1963) was university for me," said Keith Richards in a recent interview.

Gretsch G5810 is the model of electric guitar designed by Gretsch and Bo Diddley in 1958. It became Bo Diddley's signature instrument.

From a newspaper obituary:

He never lost a feeling of resentment that his signature rhythm couldn't be copyrighted and that record royalties went unpaid. "I am owed, and I never got paid," he told Associated Press in 1999. "A dude with a pencil is worse than a cat with a machine gun."