Cultivating Depth and Stillness in Research
Metadata
Highlights
- Why is this so hard? Because you’re utterly habituated to steady progress—to completing things, to producing, to solving. When progress is subtle or slow, when there’s no clear way to proceed, you flinch away. You redirect your attention to something safer, to something you can do. You jump to implementation prematurely; you feel a compulsion to do more background reading; you obsess over tractable but peripheral details. These are all displacement behaviors, ways of not sitting with the problem. Though each instance seems insignificant, the cumulative effect is that your stare rarely rests on the fog long enough to penetrate it. Weeks pass, with apparent motion, yet you’re just spinning in place. You return to the surface with each glance away. You must learn to remain in the depths.” (View Highlight)
- Another pattern has to do with my stance towards the work. I’m much more likely to flinch away from difficulty when I view my research problem as a task, as something to be accomplished. I’m much less likely to flinch away when I’m feeling intensely curious, when I truly want to understand something, when it’s a landscape to explore rather than a destination to reach. Happily, curiosity can be cultivated. And curiosity is much more likely than task-orientation to lead me to interesting ideas. (View Highlight)
- I make a practice of regularly checking in about whether I have a dutiful stance towards some aspect of my research. Once I notice, I can usually summon curiosity by asking lots of questions, imagining potential implications, and so on. Often I need to improve the framing, to find one which better expresses what I’m deeply excited about. If I can’t find a problem statement which captures my curiosity, it’s best to drop the project for now. (View Highlight)
- This feels wonderful. By 2PM, I’ve done my important work for the day. I know that no more depth-y work is likely, and that I’ll only frustrate myself if I try—so I free myself from that pressure. I take meetings; I exercise; I meditate; I go on long walks. I’ll often do shallower initial reads of papers and books in the afternoon, or handle administrative tasks. Sometimes I’ll do easy programming work. It’s all “bonus time”, nothing obligatory. My life got several hours more slack when I adopted this schedule, and yet my output improved. Wonderful! (View Highlight)
- It goes without saying, but no internet on my phone before I sit down at my desk. I don’t want anyone else’s thoughts in my head before I start thinking my own. (View Highlight)
- When I’m stuck, I’ll often find myself feeling sleepy. I think this is just a consequence of expecting more stimulation than I’m getting. When I notice this, I play energetic music, do a quick exercise, etc. (View Highlight)
title: “Cultivating Depth and Stillness in Research”
author: “Andy Matuschak”
url: ”https://andymatuschak.org/stillness/?curius=526,1184”
date: 2023-12-19
source: reader
tags: media/articles
Cultivating Depth and Stillness in Research
Metadata
Highlights
- Why is this so hard? Because you’re utterly habituated to steady progress—to completing things, to producing, to solving. When progress is subtle or slow, when there’s no clear way to proceed, you flinch away. You redirect your attention to something safer, to something you can do. You jump to implementation prematurely; you feel a compulsion to do more background reading; you obsess over tractable but peripheral details. These are all displacement behaviors, ways of not sitting with the problem. Though each instance seems insignificant, the cumulative effect is that your stare rarely rests on the fog long enough to penetrate it. Weeks pass, with apparent motion, yet you’re just spinning in place. You return to the surface with each glance away. You must learn to remain in the depths.” (View Highlight)
- Another pattern has to do with my stance towards the work. I’m much more likely to flinch away from difficulty when I view my research problem as a task, as something to be accomplished. I’m much less likely to flinch away when I’m feeling intensely curious, when I truly want to understand something, when it’s a landscape to explore rather than a destination to reach. Happily, curiosity can be cultivated. And curiosity is much more likely than task-orientation to lead me to interesting ideas. (View Highlight)
- I make a practice of regularly checking in about whether I have a dutiful stance towards some aspect of my research. Once I notice, I can usually summon curiosity by asking lots of questions, imagining potential implications, and so on. Often I need to improve the framing, to find one which better expresses what I’m deeply excited about. If I can’t find a problem statement which captures my curiosity, it’s best to drop the project for now. (View Highlight)
- This feels wonderful. By 2PM, I’ve done my important work for the day. I know that no more depth-y work is likely, and that I’ll only frustrate myself if I try—so I free myself from that pressure. I take meetings; I exercise; I meditate; I go on long walks. I’ll often do shallower initial reads of papers and books in the afternoon, or handle administrative tasks. Sometimes I’ll do easy programming work. It’s all “bonus time”, nothing obligatory. My life got several hours more slack when I adopted this schedule, and yet my output improved. Wonderful! (View Highlight)
- It goes without saying, but no internet on my phone before I sit down at my desk. I don’t want anyone else’s thoughts in my head before I start thinking my own. (View Highlight)
- When I’m stuck, I’ll often find myself feeling sleepy. I think this is just a consequence of expecting more stimulation than I’m getting. When I notice this, I play energetic music, do a quick exercise, etc. (View Highlight)