November 5, 2020 • 39 mins
I'm excited to have Dr. Mark Kissler back on the show to talk about the idea of attention. This is something that has been on his mind for quite some time now, and in light of all that is going on to grab our attention, I think it is an excellent time to chat about it!
Things talked about in the episode:
- Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
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Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Matt Boettger (00:00):
What is your attention on right this very
second.
Is it my voice, this podcast,maybe a conflict there's
unresolved work issues, drama,family, your career choices.
The fact that you maybe are notwhere you want to be right now
in life.
Attention is the number onecommodity that everybody's
fighting for right now.
And it's so easy to getdistracted and to attend to
(00:21):
those things that really aren'treal in our life.
This is why I'm having thisepisode.
I bring on dr.
Mark Kissler, a good friend ofmine.
He's a doctor at university ofColorado, which has been a big
focus of his study and readinglately on how he can attend
better to his patients, whichclearly pours over to
everything.
We're not siloed individuals.
What we do at our work impactsour home life.
(00:43):
And so I hope you enjoy thisepisode about attention and how
we can cultivate it.
What is it and why it's just sodang difficult to attend.
So the most important things arelife.
All right.
So let's get to it.
Are you living the most reallife possible?
I ask myself this question allthe time.
(01:05):
Most of the time, the answer is.
I just don't know, but sometimesthe answer is definitely not.
This is why I have this podcast.
I'm Matt Bacher and welcome tothe show.
Two small things.
If you get a chance, pleaseleave a review like on Apple
podcasts and also check out mywebsite, live in the real.com
where I offer lots of resourcesin how to live the most real
(01:27):
life possible.
Now on with the show.
Okay, Mark.
Welcome to the show again.
It's good to have you back,buddy.
How you doing?
Mark Kissler (01:36):
Thanks.
Yeah, it's great to be back.
I'm good.
I'm good.
It's great to see you.
Matt Boettger (01:39):
Yeah, it's great to you too.
I'd say we, you know, we're ondifferent podcasts.
I'm having to come on here.
We're trying to figure out,gosh, it's, it's fun to rift
together.
And so like, Can we come on acouple more times a month on
living in the Rio chat and yourschedule is a little wonky dude.
So it's not like you, you don'thave a regular,
Mark Kissler (01:56):
I'm not very consistent, but
Matt Boettger (01:58):
no, no, not at all.
So it's, I mean, it fits ourprevious podcast.
Your life is complicated.
So it's, just trying to getahold of you during those times.
You're a busy guy,
Mark Kissler (02:08):
but it's what this is nice.
I think this gives us a chanceto go a little deeper about.
Some of the things that we touchon, you know, we try and keep
the other one really sciencefocused as much as possible.
and this is fun to talk a littlebit about the processes.
I think behind, you know, the,the ideal case, you know, the
things we're, we're shootingfor, you know, in terms of how
we think about complex problemsand things like that.
Matt Boettger (02:29):
And that's, I think how it all, how it all
began, where we I've.
Living the real was.
So they had been doing for a fewyears and it kind of started to
come to the surface.
And then when you and I, andSteven kind of came together
with, with the other podcast, itwas kind of this blend of gosh,
man.
We definitely want to providescience and insight.
And we also want.
To create a context to deal withthis in a human way.
(02:52):
But I think we've realized thatlike there's so much coming at
us a lot of times, we're, we'realways stuck in the science
realm for about 95%.
And every once in a while we getthese awesome value bombs.
They're just dropped you.
Typically, you do that at themiddle of nowhere and, and
they're pretty awesome.
And then we go though deeper,but it's not the normal rhythm
of our, of our other ones.
So I'm glad to have you on.
Mark Kissler (03:11):
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's been an interesting, Imean, I think this, we talk
about it almost ad nauseum, butat this year has really put a
point on how, how it's notenough just to eat, how we have
to have really robust ways aboutthinking about things and put
almost as, you know, as muchattention in how we know as what
we know.
and so it's been interesting toriff with you and Steven and
(03:32):
kind of, you know, talk aboutour different worlds and, eh,
you know, and even as connectedas we are, with zoom and
podcasts and whatever, it'sfunny how at the same time,
everybody feels a little bitlike their own in their own.
Little world these days.
I feel that really strongly.
So it's great to, it's great tojust kind of connect about all
that stuff.
Matt Boettger (03:52):
Let's start with this.
So what's going on in your life?
Were you talking a little bitbefore we, we prepped for like
10 minutes before we did this,that was the maximum prep.
And I want to know what's goingon.
What's something that's beensurfacing in your life.
You mentioned something you'vewatched recently.
That sounds good.
That I haven't
Mark Kissler (04:06):
watched yet.
Yeah, we were just talkingabout, the, hidden life by it's
a film, that Terrence Malickjust put out a couple of months
ago.
I'm a big fan of TerrenceMalick.
So I like his kind of a quasislow, it's, it's like right at
the interface between, you know,real art film and kind of more
popular film.
and so I find it like it'saccessible, but it's slow and
(04:27):
it's, and it's really kind of isreflective and, and ruminative.
Approach to filmmaking, which Ilove.
And it's just so beautiful andspare.
so anyway, this movie is, isabout, a man who was a
conscientious, objector.
He was a farmer in Austria and aconscientious objector of sorts,
during world war two.
(04:47):
And I say of sorts because itwasn't as if he was, it was very
much not like, you know, I.
Like he was going through thelegal processes of being a
conscientious objector oranything like that.
It was just that he was kind ofpushed to a certain point and
there was a certain point towhich he wouldn't cross that
line.
Like he wouldn't make an oath ofallegiance to Hitler and then
everything that happened as aresult of that single refusal,
(05:11):
and the way that he had tosustain that, that it wasn't one
big moment of like, no, but itwas really just this grueling
months long.
Consistent kind of commitment tothat.
you know, to that in movingstance, it was really
remarkable.
Beautiful.
And it, it, brought out sort ofthe, the life of his family and
(05:32):
particularly his wife, I thoughtwas just heroic in this movie.
and it's based on a true story,really, really well done, and
very, very heavy, very kind ofemotionally impacting.
but I've been thinking about ita lot since I watched it.
It was great.
Matt Boettger (05:46):
Well, it was winter.
You just mentioned this, aconscientious objector and how
it's not, my mind is kind ofblipping out.
I have not watched this, so thisis something totally new.
Now there's other films by him.
Right.
I don't even know.
I don't think I've watchedanything.
Mark Kissler (05:59):
Yeah, he's done a lot of great stuff.
So, he did then red line, daysof heaven.
He did tree of life was kind ofthe big, recent one that, you
know, he's done a few sincethen, but that was kind of the
biggest theatrical release thathe has done in recent memory.
Okay.
Matt Boettger (06:12):
well, I couldn't help, but to think when you said
that about this, how it wasn'tjust like one event by which it
was as culminating event whereshe had to make a decision,
which I feel like, Oh man, Ifeel like.
There's a lot of films that arekind of followed that format of
everything builds this onemoment at which you make a
decision.
And like, man, have we beengroomed to carve and create life
that moves this direction sothat when it doesn't, it just
(06:35):
does violence to our soul.
And so what am I thinking aboutthinking about the pandemic?
I think when you were sayinglike, this is what it's been
like, it's like this longgrueling now, you know, kind of
getting into the topic thatwe're talking about.
Attention, exhausting attention.
To this pandemic of COVID whenyou just want to escape.
And the really, the only way youcan escape is a state home and
(06:56):
have no contact with the outsideworld.
Otherwise, if you have anycontact, it's just constant
attention, attention, intention,I'm exhausted.
And why there's so many peoplesaying, forget this, like I'm
just moving to a differentreality.
I am just changing my behavior.
I'm going back to normal.
I don't care about whatever'sgoing on and to seeing that, and
that's like on a micro level tohere.
(07:17):
What this, in this particularcontext, the hidden life of, of
the consequence of, of stayingstrong is way more dramatic and
acute in the pandemic.
Mark Kissler (07:27):
And not necessarily glamorous, there's
this, I think there's this waythat we kind of valorize like
the, you know, the single kindof glorious martyrdom of, you
know, somebody who, who has, whomakes this big stand and, you
know, and influences all thesepeople as a result.
And one of the things that Iloved about this film, you know,
of course the story has grownand influenced people, but at
(07:50):
the time, you know, he, he hadno way of knowing.
That it would, and he was toldagain and again, like, nobody's
going to hear about this.
Like this is utterly few tile.
and yet it kind of the fortitudeto just like to stay and to do,
you know, it's, it's very big.
It's, it's one of those thingsthat there's so many angles of
(08:11):
approach in, to this story.
And there's so many likedifferent things about the film
itself that are worth.
Sort of a slow reading of, and,and, but that's one of the
things that's sticking with meat least today as I think back
on it.
So
Matt Boettger (08:25):
yeah, more things that kind of surface in my, in
my mind, you were talking aboutthat, about how this.
He was able to keep hisattention on something that is
mundane.
There is unknown uncertainty yetat the same time, he was able to
remain steadfast in this kind ofbanal, like reality and not
knowing the specific outcome.
And I guess, I guess I wouldpropose like what makes.
(08:48):
The subject of hand, we want totalk about just the nature of
attention, because we feel like,gosh, it's like, I know in my
own life, I suffer with a lackof attention, or what I'm
attending to and how muchattention to it.
it feels like this is a reallyimportant topic to just chat
about, but when it comes tothose, like maybe like hallmark
figures who have this sense ofattention and steadfastness, and
(09:09):
being able to stick withsomething that they believe in,
right.
Even though you don't know theoutside, what's.
What is the difference?
Like what's, what's, what's thedefining characteristic of
someone like this person who hasthe capacity to attend, right.
To something that with no oneknown where many of us, like, I
can't stick with something for10 minutes, right before I'm
(09:31):
either being, being influencedto let it go get rid of it, move
to something else.
What is what's differencebetween what's the there's.
We have these two types ofpeople that can keep one in one
way or another and another.
Mark Kissler (09:43):
Yeah.
It's I don't know.
I think so attention is such abig topic.
I think that in some ways it's,attention is something that we
can study.
you know, you could just study,you could devote your whole life
to studying the differentmanifestations of attention and
the ways that it relates tohuman excellence to compassion,
to kind of the ways that webecome who we are.
and so there's, there's just somuch there.
(10:05):
I've been thinking a lot aboutit in the context of my medical
work, and what the role ofattention is in, being with.
Patients, and then also withkind of technological competence
and excellence there.
But I think to your question of.
You know, what makes some peopleable to attend?
There is something semi heroicabout it, right.
(10:26):
That we think about.
and I think about it in, youknow, we see it in a lot of
different places.
I think we see it in, you know,in a man like, like that.
We see it in an artist.
I think, a lot of times that,that who's someone who's able to
sustain this vision through allof the rough drafts and the.
You know, the times where itfeels terrible and failed and,
(10:47):
and, and then is able to kind ofsee through that to a finished
product.
And that takes a tremendousamount of attention.
And of course, I think one ofthe biggest places that I see
attention in my daily life isthe type of care that, ordinary
people can extend towards otherpeople.
Like my mother's, caring for mygrandmother was pretty profound
dementia.
and we were just, you know, wejust had a doctor's appointment
all together yesterday.
(11:09):
Then, and just the amount ofit's not necessarily that it's
like a.
you know, it's, it's not likethis, this is it's, it's a type
of attention, actually.
So Simone Bay who's, who is aFrench philosopher writer kind
of mystic.
it said something like, and thisis a quote that Abraham Nussbaum
actually directed me tosomething like attention.
(11:31):
Attention is the purest form ofgenerosity, that there's this
sort of self gift component tothat.
And so I think so.
So the question then is, youknow, what makes some people
able to attend and others not.
And I really do think that,Yeah, it's something that takes
a huge amount of practice, atleast in what I've read and
seemed to see around me is thatit's not something that
(11:53):
necessarily, I think you may beborn with a tendency to value
that.
but it is something thatatrophies, if you don't.
Practice it, and it is somethingI think that if you do
intentionally practice, itpotentially can, your, your
powers to attend can reallyincrease in very meaningful
ways.
it's tricky because ourenvironments are engineered in
such a way to prevent.
(12:14):
Or sustained attention, in a lotof ways,
Matt Boettger (12:18):
which makes sense.
I would say, I mean, if you juston an evolutionary level, I
mean, I think we're justhardwired for self-preservation
and attention is that is, isthe, is the kind of the inverse
it's actually.
not self preservation.
That really is self gift.
It's like letting go of oneself.
And it seems, it seems to screamthe violence against, on the, on
the most, on the most simplestlevel of preservation.
(12:40):
And that's why I want to get toyou like,
Mark Kissler (12:41):
Oh, go ahead.
Which makes sense.
I think, you know, if in, wehave to be careful with like,
you know, pseudo, evolutionary,like we can get into
pseudoscience really fast, butthere is a sense in which like,
that makes sense.
Like I want to be distracted bythe snake coiled at the, you
know, the outside of my cave.
Right.
I want to be able to be pulledout of myself, you know, not
self-absorbed really it's otherabsorbed, you know, whether it's
(13:04):
another person or somethingoutside of myself, Into the here
and now, but the trick is wehave, w we have the situation in
which we often don't have snakescoiled outside of our doors, but
we do have.
Email alerts on our cell phone.
And we do have, you know, newsnews flashes that are urgent,
you know, but it's actually thesame news that it's been for,
(13:25):
you know, year and a half.
And, just like rehashed in adifferent way.
And that by hijacking that kindof limbic, you know, kind of
animal sense of, I need, this isimportant for my survival.
We get all these things that areactually.
Destructive to our flourishing,that command our attention all
the time.
And it's a really perversesituation that we find ourselves
(13:46):
in.
I think, a lot of the time ourenvironments are no longer
really adapted to that type of,that balance between attending
to the here and now andattending to these bigger
things.
Matt Boettger (13:59):
just for the sake of the people listening, I
guess, throw into you.
Why would attention even bevaluable to begin with?
I mean, It's it's it's we cantalk about it.
And it's context of, there arepeople who can attend greatly
and those who don't and just areconstantly from one thing to the
next, and aren't present forvery long with people around
them.
Why does it even matter if.
(14:21):
What's the value of, ofbuilding, a strength of being
able to attend to someone elseor something?
Mark Kissler (14:29):
Yeah.
I mean, I think, maybe there's acase to be made for someone
who's able to do to multitaskand do everything at once.
And there's certain.
You know, roles for that, butthere's an interesting way in
which I think we, and, and so acouple of the authors that I
know that we share, like, CalNewport and, Matthew Crawford,
have talked a little bit aboutthe ways that in our
(14:49):
contemporary kind of knowledgework sphere, a lot, a huge
amount of.
Of us are doing work.
That's not a deep craftsmanship,you know, necessarily we're not
like making these really complexthings.
We're dealing with ideas, youknow, but the, the way that we
deal with those ideas, the mostdeeply, and kind of the most in,
in get to the place where it'smore transformative creative
(15:11):
work, requires that kind ofattention.
we can do a lot.
We can be very, very busy andvery, very kind of pseudo,
productive.
If we're not, if we'remultitasking all the time and
we're in constant contact andcommunication with everybody
around us.
And, you know, we respond toemails and clear the inbox
immediately and things likethat, but it's a diff it's a
fundamentally different kind ofwork and orientation to work.
(15:33):
and those, you know, thoseauthors and others argue that
there's something inherentlysatisfying about work that
happens in a state of deepattention.
so I know there's like, The ideaof flow.
Are you familiar with kind ofthe idea of flow crazy?
Oh, you do remember that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think it's Haley.
I don't, I'm not going to it'slike, she'd say the Haley or
(15:54):
something.
I don't want to pretend to, I'vetried.
I've like tried to shout out
Matt Boettger (15:58):
so you guys can try to sack the
Mark Kissler (16:00):
podcast is not the time to like launch it.
Yeah.
But anyway, cause like, causenot only, well I butchered
accidentally visits thenpreserved for posterity that I
did that.
So that's great.
But.
But, but the sense that likeflow, you know, is the state of,
again, sort of a certain type ofself forgetfulness, where the
(16:21):
interface between you and whatyou're doing really collapses.
And you're just in this state oflike extreme attention, you
know, and it's difficult.
It takes, you, you in, but youenjoy the difficulty of that.
Like you're in, you're enjoyingthat.
Freedom is kind of a sense ofyour own action, and your
ability to act and do somethingmeaningful.
And so I think there's thisinherent satisfaction to
(16:42):
attentive work that, that isoften really crowded out by the
urgencies or pseudo urgenciesthat we encounter.
Matt Boettger (16:51):
Yeah, I, this a lot of things percolating right
now.
I, when the thing, the image, Ithink you mentioned the artist
concept and I feel like thevalue of attention is the
difference between a copy and anoriginal, right?
When our life is not having afocus of attention, we just are
copies.
So this I'm thinking of a lot ofthings like school.
the way a way our educationalsystem has a tendency to work by
(17:12):
just, here's what you memorizeand you're on your test is what
you're expected.
To regurgitate back, right?
This is a copy.
This requires not, not a, not agreat sense of attention, but
just simply ability to memorizethe formulas to be able to.
And I remember I wrote, Iwatched this documentary like
seven years ago.
I forgot what it was.
It was about the educationalsystem.
(17:32):
I was at the university ofColorado.
I watched it.
It was really good, but just thefear, right?
I don't know, to what extentthis will manifest itself in the
coming 20 or 30 years of these,these students coming up.
Caribbean educated in this kindof system of there is demands by
students to say, after an exam,wait a minute, you didn't ask
the question the way you weretold us you were going to ask a
(17:54):
question and that's why I failedthis, this, this, this inability
to be creative and be nuancedand to give answers.
And then the fear was, gosh, youknow, in your, in your area of
expertise, what are these peoplecome down and become doctors?
30 40 years from now.
And there's an unknown pandemic,right.
Or whatever, and requires, it'sno longer in the context of a
(18:14):
book and that you just can'tcarbon copies something out of
a, of a manual.
So I think it's, especially forus, I think it resonates deeply
with me.
That attention is to cultivateattention is the same thing as
cultivating a sense of creating,right.
And our, both of our spiritualtraditions.
Is is, is basically about how weco-create with God, right?
(18:35):
That's our school tradition.
So that's the highest call of ahuman is to co-create.
Now we can see that and on themaintain level of marriage and,
and, and that kind of stuff, butI mean, in general, that's our
kind of our desire.
And, and w and when you talkabout the flow, I feel like flow
is this mysterious ability toinsert ourselves into the realm,
this like mystical reality ofcreation, right?
(18:57):
While we're like, we're doingsomething, that's not just a
copy, but we're, we're bringingour, where we've we let go of
ourselves.
And we're creating an originalon some concept we're entering
to this with reality of thatbeing.
So I think attention is soimportant.
So I, in my mind, I'm like,gosh, I have, I struggle with
attention.
Not just not necessarily add,like I can be focused, I can be
(19:20):
focused on something.
I can just, I can grind it outfor an hour, but I, maybe my
attention may be on the wrongthing.
I was just talking about how Iwas with someone and in a, not
so good a situation.
And I was attending to an aspectof their life thinking that I
was on it, like, this is theright thing.
And I was just.
I was not.
(19:41):
And I was in the wrong spot andnot attending to, to the right
circumstances, not onlyattending, but understanding the
other person before you to knowwhat you're attending to, that
actually is received by them aswell.
Mark Kissler (19:55):
Yeah, I think, I mean, there's, there's, I think,
and it could do as well.
And I think even to just start,I don't think we can do it here,
but to start to define like,what is attention, you know, and
when, what do we mean when we'retalking about it?
Cause we think we know what wemean, but maybe there's a little
bit more of a precision that wecan add to that, which then
includes, you know, what are weattending to and, and what does
that mean?
You know, to sustain thatattention to something.
(20:17):
I think it all seems to be thatthere's, it seems, it seems as
if there's, There's sort of adiscipline around it, you know,
sort of a practice aroundattending well, and, that
includes discernment as to itsobjects.
That includes like our own.
Practices around, how do wecreate a, you know, an
environment and a life forourselves in which we can
(20:38):
sustain our attention on thethings that matter, and that,
you know, that we want to attendto, instead of having our
attention be commanded bysomebody else's idea of what
they want us to attend to.
you know, and, and I thinkthere's, there's just a hole
without being over some, youknow, reductive about it.
I think that there's a lot ofways that.
Our pursuit of, you know, beingexcellent at things, is related
(21:01):
to, or can be looked at throughthe lens of, you know, what are
the ways that we cultivate,right?
Matt Boettger (21:08):
Mm.
Yeah.
I I'm thinking of, I mean,again, I, for me, And again, I
think like, yeah, I'm surethere's.
We can talk about the specificobjective definition of
attention in my mind.
I guess I come from here where Isuffer from and attention for me
is that this striving to see thereal that is before me.
(21:28):
Right.
It's the striving part, becauseI think oftentimes my attention,
if I, if I don't have theattention, I'm either quickly
just applying my preconception,my judgment, and which we all
come with.
We all have our cognitive biasesare, but yeah.
But allowing that to be the ruleof our life versus saying, Nope,
that is just one variable that Ibring to the table.
(21:49):
But my goal is to constantlystrive to check my precept
positions, my, my, my, my, my,my theories, whatever it is with
what's really before me andallow that, which is before me
to reeducate my presupposition.
That's I think that the, the,the hard work of attention,
versus just allowing yournatural propensity to be.
(22:11):
Thrown at the thing before itdoes that.
Mark Kissler (22:14):
Yeah.
Yeah, I think, I mean, it foldsin nicely with your kind of your
larger project on living thereal, which is the sense that,
as, as much as we have, as muchas we can to come into a better
understanding of the things thatare real and the things that are
not real, and, and thenattending to those things that
are.
Really there and then conformingourselves to reality, as opposed
to, you know, the opposite ofthat, which is like, kind of
(22:36):
living in, in a more constructedsense and expecting the world to
conform.
To us.
there's, there's this funny way.
I know I don't want to keepbringing it back to our, I don't
think technology is necessarilythe problem.
but I do think that technologymanifests a lot of, sort of our
worst tendencies aroundattention.
but one of the very simpleexample is the way that most of
(22:58):
our information gatheringsources these days, whether
it's, news feeds or.
Facebook or YouTube or any ofthese things, learn your
preferences based on what you'veseen in the past and present
things in accord with whatyou've looked at in the past.
And so what you're creating isthis kind of aperture that
you're looking at the worldthrough that has been.
(23:21):
Changed based on your, you know,kind of all those things that
you, you bring, those, thosebiases, those tendencies, those
things that you like, and itsubtly reinforces that over and
over and over again, as opposedto, you know, I think in a more
ideal case you're encountering.
To the world, you know, the realworld out there and conforming
yourself to that as opposed toconforming your, your vision to
(23:45):
what you already think.
and it's hard.
I mean, I think the questionthen is like, how does one in a
little way move towards that?
you know, I think, I'm not in aplace right now where like
becoming a desert hermit makesany sense.
I don't anticipate becoming adesert hermit, you know, at any
point in the near future.
but.
There ideally are ways that welook at these examples, you
(24:08):
know, these, these examples ofpeople who exhibit human
excellence, whether it's in, inwhat they're able to create or
in what they're able to do inrelationship, or, you know, any
of those things.
And so it's like, how do we, howdo we nudge ourselves a little
bit towards that example?
and that's something that Ithink is.
w you know, worthwhile to thinkabout
Matt Boettger (24:27):
absolutely.
I mean, do you going back, andagain, as we begin to wrap this
up and I kind of want to talkabout, you know, well, one thing
is just that story, you know, Ithink what's so alluring what's,
so just captivating is, is asimple thing of just staying
with something, staying withsomething when it hurts and
just, and, and, and, and that isan important, cause I think our
(24:48):
natural disposition.
Is to, as soon as it hurts is torun away.
Right.
At least I feel like, I feellike it's something that can be
mine.
It's a first go-to, to, youknow, the, the old pivot or
persevere.
And that is, and I would say itis to, to, to pivot and to run
away and not to stay with it.
And so that's the first thingthat comes to mind.
(25:09):
And for you, like, what issomething when it comes to
attention that you feel likeyou're trying to like.
What first resonates with you inyour own life with attention.
Right.
And, and, and, and, and, wheredo you see.
You're life growing inattention.
Mark Kissler (25:23):
those are good questions.
I mean, I think there's, sothere's one place that it
resonates a lot isprofessionally.
So I'm thinking a little bitstructurally about the way that
we do business in the hospital.
and the ways that a lot of thethings that we do that increase
art.
What are our parentconnectivity?
You know, our avail avail ourability to be reached at any
time from anyone in the hospitalactually can be really
(25:46):
counterproductive to the type ofdeep interpersonal attention
that I want to be able to giveto my patients and that there
are structural issues aroundthat.
So there's ways that we use,like, this is a Cal Newport
thing, but we use busy-ness asa.
As a proxy for productivity.
and it's like, well, if I'mbusy, if I'm communicating a
lot, then I must be doingsomething.
When in fact that's actuallyoften the opposite is the case.
(26:08):
and so I've been thinking of ita little bit about that on a
professional level, on apersonal level.
you know, far more, I think,right now I'm thinking a lot
about how do I, how do I stripaway some of the less essential,
dis kind of highly distracting.
Things, whether it's media or,or kind of like what often it's
media actually, for the mostpart where it's these things
(26:30):
that are constantly calling outfor my attention and like, I
need to be personally investedin emotionally invested in this
story right now.
It's like, well, actually, maybeI don't.
Yeah.
And so I've been trying to turnthat off a little bit more, and
then I think the, the other wayis trying to think, and I'd love
to hear any thoughts that youhave about this, about how to
create an environment in whichyou're raising kids, for, you
(26:51):
know, in, and starting to buildthe foundation for them to have
attention when they grow up.
Cause I look at our, you know, Ilook at my kids who are really
young right now and, you know,they have a huge amount more.
Kind of highly distracting,highly personally tailored
technologies that are kind ofcoming in at them at every
(27:13):
moment than I ever did growingup in.
And I think that's only going toincrease.
And so how do I create afoundation in which they learn?
How do I tend to think slowlyand how do I sit with something
for a long time?
And in large part that hasmeant, you know, trying to keep
really limit the amount of, ofexposure that they have to these
highly stimulating artificialenvironments and try and.
(27:36):
Get into less stimulatingimmediately real environments,
whether it's outside or, youknow, with slower toys, you
know, things like just coloringand like sitting with things
like that.
And I think it's, you know, Allof that sounds a little bit
simplistic in some ways, but Isee it as building a capacity,
(27:56):
you know, that ideally thatthey, then when they get a
little bit older, they have thisfoundation where like, Oh, I can
I have the power to attend alittle bit longer, you know?
And then that.
Builds because it's sopleasurable, you know, when you
make something beautiful, it'sso pleasurable or when you're
really present with somebody, itfeels so good that then you want
(28:16):
more of it.
I think it's just like givingthem enough of a foundation
that, that doesn't get drownedout by all the other things that
are competing for theirattention right now.
Matt Boettger (28:23):
Yeah.
Mark Kissler (28:24):
Great stuff.
Have a pretty grim view of theway that we, I have a pretty
cynical view of the way that ourattention has become, the
biggest commodity.
I, I feel like our attention isbeing bought and sold outside of
our own lives.
And you know, other people havean interest in me watching their
advertisements and in thereading their news sources and
in me doing these things.
(28:45):
And, but I have a, I, I have abig stake in my own attention
too.
And, I don't, you know, I don'tknow often hadn't until recently
started thinking about that insort of this antagonistic way
that if I give my attention overto these other things, that
means that I'm not attending tothe things that matter.
(29:05):
you know, and, and so, I thinkthat there's a real struggle
kind of at the heart of our, youknow, what we, in these, in
these little, very mundane ways,that it's, but it's a pretty
profound struggle because youdon't get to be the kind of
person you don't get.
You don't wake up one day andare suddenly the kind of person
who can endure imprisonment,torture, and death for an eye
(29:28):
for a worthy idea.
That's not something.
I'm going on about this a littlebit.
I apologize, but there's thisbeautiful.
I love them.
Do you know the power and theglory?
Graham Green's novel.
there's this meditation right inthe middle of, about how
uncommon is the, the deathbedconversion.
You know, there's this, we havethis whole story.
We're talking about thebeginning about like the
(29:49):
glorious martyrdom or like theone big decision that you make,
you know, or like the deathbedconversion.
Like you lived your life in thisone way, and then you make this
radical change at the end.
And there's this brilliantinsight, you know, that Graham
green kind of draws through hischaracter of like how.
Oh, how utterly rare that isthat how much more often our
life is actually.
(30:09):
Yes.
It like, it is the sum of allthe little tiny decisions that
we made on the way, and thatyou're not going to suddenly
become an able to do thisamazing feat, you know, of
attending to the real, if youhaven't practiced that over and
over and over and over again,you know, before.
so anyway, those are, those arekind of the things that I've
been stewing on a little bit inthe background is we're trying
(30:31):
to just like, I don't know.
Yeah, make breakfast and get thekids up to school and survive
another day, you know?
Matt Boettger (30:41):
All right.
You know, it, this is exactlyliving the real living, the real
it's really the Mo a very smallnuanced life.
It's a small thing.
It's the habit.
It's not some big grandiosepivot or change your life.
It's a bunch of small.
Actions that come together toaccumulate this, something that
transforms your life.
You're talking about your kids.
Like, I mean, just the simplethings of what you just said.
(31:01):
You know, my wife and I lookingat what shows they watch and if
they're too fast, we try to findslower ones like tumble leaf out
of your wife's unbelief.
Tumble leaf is like a slow.
Moving thoughtful.
you know, but if you go to like,Oh, the airplane ones and the,
the, the they're like fast, theyjust constantly are moving from
scene to scene.
And these small things cultivatein our children, an incapacity
(31:21):
to be able to sit with anything.
So that's one thing we're doing.
I think the biggest thing we'llend on this, but I think you
mentioned something that was sopowerful is what do we do to
help.
Bust increase our ability toattend.
And I think you just said likethe biggest commodity is
attention.
What, what we're being inundatedwith is people, social media
things, constantly telling ushow we ought to live, behave,
(31:44):
act, right.
They're telling us we're beinginformed by other people.
So how then do we invert thisand live in intent of examined
life?
Well, then we need to make surethat we strive to create
environments within ourselves.
Other, the people that is nolonger about telling people what
they should think believe behavedo, which is my go-to.
If I'm coaching someone and I'mdealing with something, when the
(32:06):
first thing I'm gonna to do, assoon as I see an insight, I want
to tell them, aha, this is whereyou should go.
Right.
But that is now taking, takingthe whole idea of attention and
commodity of social media andusing it against them the best
way we can actually reversethis.
And sit with our kids is movingaway from telling someone what
they should do, or your opinionsabout them.
(32:27):
And focusing on simply questionsand questions that are not Y
oriented because Y typically,like you've mentioned to me has,
has a, has a negativeconnotation, but simply with
what.
When and how questions with ourkids instead of going to right
away and telling them how theymisbehaved to sit with them and
ask the questions.
They can actually come to theself-revelation and be attentive
(32:48):
to their self of how theymisbehaved and they did wrong.
And it's really hard with afour-year-old, but it's hard
with a 42 year old as well.
Mark, it's really, really hard.
And I think the,
Mark Kissler (32:59):
yeah, and I think importantly, it's not, not
necessarily about not listeningor not in engaging with how
other people say we should thinkor form us, but it's being
really selective about where weget that formation.
That it's not just the firstthing that you pick up.
but it's, but you really likeyou really being.
Discerning about the, you know,where you get that, that
(33:20):
external, cause it is about, itis about encountering other
things and other ideas andchanging the way that you think
based on what you see, but it'snot.
but, but not just the firstthing that you see.
Matt Boettger (33:30):
And oftentimes what we do is we immediately
stick with what we see and thatbecomes part of what we believe
and behave versus asking thequestions like, yeah.
Is this really the right pieceof information?
Where should I go to look, toget a more balanced perspective,
but we never asked evenourselves the questions.
I think that having a sense ofsolitude, regular life, to be
able to check in with ourselves,ask the deeper questions so that
(33:53):
whatever we end up believing nowthat we're asking ourselves, is
this something that I want to bepart of my life?
And am I actually looking at allthe different dimensions?
You know, the one thing andwe'll end on this, we're getting
long that I've learned Mark fromthe pandemic, is that more than
ever, that life is complicated.
And we see this concretely withCOVID and I think this is just,
(34:13):
and then the black lives mattersand then all these things we're
just seeing that life is reallycomplicated and it's okay to
allow it to be complicated andstill bite down on something
without being overly simplistic.
Right.
And that's the goal, right?
The examine life is to allow thecomplexities in.
Right and feel okay.
Right.
And still be able to bite downand constantly allowing our
(34:34):
self, our self dispositions, ourpre, our cognitive biases to, to
allow us to be open for it, tobe informed and nuance and
changed with the information wereceive.
All right.
I think this land is about ahalf hour.
It might be edited down.
It's good to see you, buddy.
Thank you so much for coming in,
Mark Kissler (34:52):
coming out.
Yeah, that's great to see too.
And, yeah, so it'd beinteresting to kind of develop
some of these ideas.
I have a lot to learn in thisrealm, so I'm interested to kind
of keep on, keep on learning.
Matt Boettger (35:01):
Yeah.
And for those out there, I, mybiggest thing is I will, on my
I'm a strive to ask morequestions.
This is my area of attention Ihave.
So I'm so quick to give myopinion within, within 30
seconds and not just a tend torealize that no, there's a
nuance perspective in thisperson's life that I need to
attend to, and to sit and askand ask and ask and ask and
attend.
(35:21):
And then at the very end offermy insight.
That's my go-to.
I'm gonna try this next sevendays.
I'm going to just focus onasking questions, Mark.
What, what's your, what?
What's stuff that you're gonnatry to attend in your practice.
You're going to work on beingmore available in that area.
Mark Kissler (35:33):
Yeah, I think I'm going to focus a lot this week
on, on being very selectiveabout the, media that I allow to
kind of take over mydisposition.
so I think that we're going to,you know, I, I'm going to be, I,
I want to be engaged and knowwhat's going on, but I also,
want to just make sure that I.
I bound that a little bit.
and don't get lost in it.
(35:53):
So that's, that's the thing I'mgoing to focus on this week,
Matt Boettger (35:56):
given that you just said that, and we said, I
want to have you on moreregularly the next time you're
on we're checking on how thatwent and I will do the same.
And for you out there who arelistening.
I encourage you to pick upsomething that Mark said, if
you're really struggling withjust being sucked into the one
type of, of information toexpand that and be careful of
what you're receiving into yourmind, your mind is a sacred
(36:16):
place and your soul as, and ifyou struggle like me, that loves
to give opinion over listening,that really encourage you, man.
I've taken a whole three yearsin spiritual direction and that
was a life-changing event.
Pyramid experience for me, thatwas all about asking questions
and never giving your opinion inthe cognitive spiritual
direction.
And that's what I needed and Istill need today.
So if you, if you're, Iencourage those of you to
(36:37):
practice asking way morequestions, six to one, and then
giving your opinion, attend tothe people around you,
especially those who you lovemost.
Okay.
Take care.
Have a wonderful week.
We'll see you.
Next step episode, take care.
Bye-bye thank you for listeningto this episode of living the
real.
If you want to check out moreinformation, go to living the
real.com and sign up for mynewsletter.
(36:58):
If you want to support thispodcast, you do that at
patrion.com/ltr as well as onetime.
Payments at Venmo and PayPal inthe show notes.
See you all next episode.
Take care.
Bye-bye.
What is your attention on right this very
second.
Is it my voice, this podcast,maybe a conflict there's
unresolved work issues, drama,family, your career choices.
The fact that you maybe are notwhere you want to be right now
in life.
Attention is the number onecommodity that everybody's
fighting for right now.
And it's so easy to getdistracted and to attend to
(00:21):
those things that really aren'treal in our life.
This is why I'm having thisepisode.
I bring on dr.
Mark Kissler, a good friend ofmine.
He's a doctor at university ofColorado, which has been a big
focus of his study and readinglately on how he can attend
better to his patients, whichclearly pours over to
everything.
We're not siloed individuals.
What we do at our work impactsour home life.
(00:43):
And so I hope you enjoy thisepisode about attention and how
we can cultivate it.
What is it and why it's just sodang difficult to attend.
So the most important things arelife.
All right.
So let's get to it.
Are you living the most reallife possible?
I ask myself this question allthe time.
(01:05):
Most of the time, the answer is.
I just don't know, but sometimesthe answer is definitely not.
This is why I have this podcast.
I'm Matt Bacher and welcome tothe show.
Two small things.
If you get a chance, pleaseleave a review like on Apple
podcasts and also check out mywebsite, live in the real.com
where I offer lots of resourcesin how to live the most real
(01:27):
life possible.
Now on with the show.
Okay, Mark.
Welcome to the show again.
It's good to have you back,buddy.
How you doing?
Mark Kissler (01:36):
Thanks.
Yeah, it's great to be back.
I'm good.
I'm good.
It's great to see you.
Matt Boettger (01:39):
Yeah, it's great to you too.
I'd say we, you know, we're ondifferent podcasts.
I'm having to come on here.
We're trying to figure out,gosh, it's, it's fun to rift
together.
And so like, Can we come on acouple more times a month on
living in the Rio chat and yourschedule is a little wonky dude.
So it's not like you, you don'thave a regular,
Mark Kissler (01:56):
I'm not very consistent, but
Matt Boettger (01:58):
no, no, not at all.
So it's, I mean, it fits ourprevious podcast.
Your life is complicated.
So it's, just trying to getahold of you during those times.
You're a busy guy,
Mark Kissler (02:08):
but it's what this is nice.
I think this gives us a chanceto go a little deeper about.
Some of the things that we touchon, you know, we try and keep
the other one really sciencefocused as much as possible.
and this is fun to talk a littlebit about the processes.
I think behind, you know, the,the ideal case, you know, the
things we're, we're shootingfor, you know, in terms of how
we think about complex problemsand things like that.
Matt Boettger (02:29):
And that's, I think how it all, how it all
began, where we I've.
Living the real was.
So they had been doing for a fewyears and it kind of started to
come to the surface.
And then when you and I, andSteven kind of came together
with, with the other podcast, itwas kind of this blend of gosh,
man.
We definitely want to providescience and insight.
And we also want.
To create a context to deal withthis in a human way.
(02:52):
But I think we've realized thatlike there's so much coming at
us a lot of times, we're, we'realways stuck in the science
realm for about 95%.
And every once in a while we getthese awesome value bombs.
They're just dropped you.
Typically, you do that at themiddle of nowhere and, and
they're pretty awesome.
And then we go though deeper,but it's not the normal rhythm
of our, of our other ones.
So I'm glad to have you on.
Mark Kissler (03:11):
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's been an interesting, Imean, I think this, we talk
about it almost ad nauseum, butat this year has really put a
point on how, how it's notenough just to eat, how we have
to have really robust ways aboutthinking about things and put
almost as, you know, as muchattention in how we know as what
we know.
and so it's been interesting toriff with you and Steven and
(03:32):
kind of, you know, talk aboutour different worlds and, eh,
you know, and even as connectedas we are, with zoom and
podcasts and whatever, it'sfunny how at the same time,
everybody feels a little bitlike their own in their own.
Little world these days.
I feel that really strongly.
So it's great to, it's great tojust kind of connect about all
that stuff.
Matt Boettger (03:52):
Let's start with this.
So what's going on in your life?
Were you talking a little bitbefore we, we prepped for like
10 minutes before we did this,that was the maximum prep.
And I want to know what's goingon.
What's something that's beensurfacing in your life.
You mentioned something you'vewatched recently.
That sounds good.
That I haven't
Mark Kissler (04:06):
watched yet.
Yeah, we were just talkingabout, the, hidden life by it's
a film, that Terrence Malickjust put out a couple of months
ago.
I'm a big fan of TerrenceMalick.
So I like his kind of a quasislow, it's, it's like right at
the interface between, you know,real art film and kind of more
popular film.
and so I find it like it'saccessible, but it's slow and
(04:27):
it's, and it's really kind of isreflective and, and ruminative.
Approach to filmmaking, which Ilove.
And it's just so beautiful andspare.
so anyway, this movie is, isabout, a man who was a
conscientious, objector.
He was a farmer in Austria and aconscientious objector of sorts,
during world war two.
(04:47):
And I say of sorts because itwasn't as if he was, it was very
much not like, you know, I.
Like he was going through thelegal processes of being a
conscientious objector oranything like that.
It was just that he was kind ofpushed to a certain point and
there was a certain point towhich he wouldn't cross that
line.
Like he wouldn't make an oath ofallegiance to Hitler and then
everything that happened as aresult of that single refusal,
(05:11):
and the way that he had tosustain that, that it wasn't one
big moment of like, no, but itwas really just this grueling
months long.
Consistent kind of commitment tothat.
you know, to that in movingstance, it was really
remarkable.
Beautiful.
And it, it, brought out sort ofthe, the life of his family and
(05:32):
particularly his wife, I thoughtwas just heroic in this movie.
and it's based on a true story,really, really well done, and
very, very heavy, very kind ofemotionally impacting.
but I've been thinking about ita lot since I watched it.
It was great.
Matt Boettger (05:46):
Well, it was winter.
You just mentioned this, aconscientious objector and how
it's not, my mind is kind ofblipping out.
I have not watched this, so thisis something totally new.
Now there's other films by him.
Right.
I don't even know.
I don't think I've watchedanything.
Mark Kissler (05:59):
Yeah, he's done a lot of great stuff.
So, he did then red line, daysof heaven.
He did tree of life was kind ofthe big, recent one that, you
know, he's done a few sincethen, but that was kind of the
biggest theatrical release thathe has done in recent memory.
Okay.
Matt Boettger (06:12):
well, I couldn't help, but to think when you said
that about this, how it wasn'tjust like one event by which it
was as culminating event whereshe had to make a decision,
which I feel like, Oh man, Ifeel like.
There's a lot of films that arekind of followed that format of
everything builds this onemoment at which you make a
decision.
And like, man, have we beengroomed to carve and create life
that moves this direction sothat when it doesn't, it just
(06:35):
does violence to our soul.
And so what am I thinking aboutthinking about the pandemic?
I think when you were sayinglike, this is what it's been
like, it's like this longgrueling now, you know, kind of
getting into the topic thatwe're talking about.
Attention, exhausting attention.
To this pandemic of COVID whenyou just want to escape.
And the really, the only way youcan escape is a state home and
(06:56):
have no contact with the outsideworld.
Otherwise, if you have anycontact, it's just constant
attention, attention, intention,I'm exhausted.
And why there's so many peoplesaying, forget this, like I'm
just moving to a differentreality.
I am just changing my behavior.
I'm going back to normal.
I don't care about whatever'sgoing on and to seeing that, and
that's like on a micro level tohere.
(07:17):
What this, in this particularcontext, the hidden life of, of
the consequence of, of stayingstrong is way more dramatic and
acute in the pandemic.
Mark Kissler (07:27):
And not necessarily glamorous, there's
this, I think there's this waythat we kind of valorize like
the, you know, the single kindof glorious martyrdom of, you
know, somebody who, who has, whomakes this big stand and, you
know, and influences all thesepeople as a result.
And one of the things that Iloved about this film, you know,
of course the story has grownand influenced people, but at
(07:50):
the time, you know, he, he hadno way of knowing.
That it would, and he was toldagain and again, like, nobody's
going to hear about this.
Like this is utterly few tile.
and yet it kind of the fortitudeto just like to stay and to do,
you know, it's, it's very big.
It's, it's one of those thingsthat there's so many angles of
(08:11):
approach in, to this story.
And there's so many likedifferent things about the film
itself that are worth.
Sort of a slow reading of, and,and, but that's one of the
things that's sticking with meat least today as I think back
on it.
So
Matt Boettger (08:25):
yeah, more things that kind of surface in my, in
my mind, you were talking aboutthat, about how this.
He was able to keep hisattention on something that is
mundane.
There is unknown uncertainty yetat the same time, he was able to
remain steadfast in this kind ofbanal, like reality and not
knowing the specific outcome.
And I guess, I guess I wouldpropose like what makes.
(08:48):
The subject of hand, we want totalk about just the nature of
attention, because we feel like,gosh, it's like, I know in my
own life, I suffer with a lackof attention, or what I'm
attending to and how muchattention to it.
it feels like this is a reallyimportant topic to just chat
about, but when it comes tothose, like maybe like hallmark
figures who have this sense ofattention and steadfastness, and
(09:09):
being able to stick withsomething that they believe in,
right.
Even though you don't know theoutside, what's.
What is the difference?
Like what's, what's, what's thedefining characteristic of
someone like this person who hasthe capacity to attend, right.
To something that with no oneknown where many of us, like, I
can't stick with something for10 minutes, right before I'm
(09:31):
either being, being influencedto let it go get rid of it, move
to something else.
What is what's differencebetween what's the there's.
We have these two types ofpeople that can keep one in one
way or another and another.
Mark Kissler (09:43):
Yeah.
It's I don't know.
I think so attention is such abig topic.
I think that in some ways it's,attention is something that we
can study.
you know, you could just study,you could devote your whole life
to studying the differentmanifestations of attention and
the ways that it relates tohuman excellence to compassion,
to kind of the ways that webecome who we are.
and so there's, there's just somuch there.
(10:05):
I've been thinking a lot aboutit in the context of my medical
work, and what the role ofattention is in, being with.
Patients, and then also withkind of technological competence
and excellence there.
But I think to your question of.
You know, what makes some peopleable to attend?
There is something semi heroicabout it, right.
(10:26):
That we think about.
and I think about it in, youknow, we see it in a lot of
different places.
I think we see it in, you know,in a man like, like that.
We see it in an artist.
I think, a lot of times that,that who's someone who's able to
sustain this vision through allof the rough drafts and the.
You know, the times where itfeels terrible and failed and,
(10:47):
and, and then is able to kind ofsee through that to a finished
product.
And that takes a tremendousamount of attention.
And of course, I think one ofthe biggest places that I see
attention in my daily life isthe type of care that, ordinary
people can extend towards otherpeople.
Like my mother's, caring for mygrandmother was pretty profound
dementia.
and we were just, you know, wejust had a doctor's appointment
all together yesterday.
(11:09):
Then, and just the amount ofit's not necessarily that it's
like a.
you know, it's, it's not likethis, this is it's, it's a type
of attention, actually.
So Simone Bay who's, who is aFrench philosopher writer kind
of mystic.
it said something like, and thisis a quote that Abraham Nussbaum
actually directed me tosomething like attention.
(11:31):
Attention is the purest form ofgenerosity, that there's this
sort of self gift component tothat.
And so I think so.
So the question then is, youknow, what makes some people
able to attend and others not.
And I really do think that,Yeah, it's something that takes
a huge amount of practice, atleast in what I've read and
seemed to see around me is thatit's not something that
(11:53):
necessarily, I think you may beborn with a tendency to value
that.
but it is something thatatrophies, if you don't.
Practice it, and it is somethingI think that if you do
intentionally practice, itpotentially can, your, your
powers to attend can reallyincrease in very meaningful
ways.
it's tricky because ourenvironments are engineered in
such a way to prevent.
(12:14):
Or sustained attention, in a lotof ways,
Matt Boettger (12:18):
which makes sense.
I would say, I mean, if you juston an evolutionary level, I
mean, I think we're justhardwired for self-preservation
and attention is that is, isthe, is the kind of the inverse
it's actually.
not self preservation.
That really is self gift.
It's like letting go of oneself.
And it seems, it seems to screamthe violence against, on the, on
the most, on the most simplestlevel of preservation.
(12:40):
And that's why I want to get toyou like,
Mark Kissler (12:41):
Oh, go ahead.
Which makes sense.
I think, you know, if in, wehave to be careful with like,
you know, pseudo, evolutionary,like we can get into
pseudoscience really fast, butthere is a sense in which like,
that makes sense.
Like I want to be distracted bythe snake coiled at the, you
know, the outside of my cave.
Right.
I want to be able to be pulledout of myself, you know, not
self-absorbed really it's otherabsorbed, you know, whether it's
(13:04):
another person or somethingoutside of myself, Into the here
and now, but the trick is wehave, w we have the situation in
which we often don't have snakescoiled outside of our doors, but
we do have.
Email alerts on our cell phone.
And we do have, you know, newsnews flashes that are urgent,
you know, but it's actually thesame news that it's been for,
(13:25):
you know, year and a half.
And, just like rehashed in adifferent way.
And that by hijacking that kindof limbic, you know, kind of
animal sense of, I need, this isimportant for my survival.
We get all these things that areactually.
Destructive to our flourishing,that command our attention all
the time.
And it's a really perversesituation that we find ourselves
(13:46):
in.
I think, a lot of the time ourenvironments are no longer
really adapted to that type of,that balance between attending
to the here and now andattending to these bigger
things.
Matt Boettger (13:59):
just for the sake of the people listening, I
guess, throw into you.
Why would attention even bevaluable to begin with?
I mean, It's it's it's we cantalk about it.
And it's context of, there arepeople who can attend greatly
and those who don't and just areconstantly from one thing to the
next, and aren't present forvery long with people around
them.
Why does it even matter if.
(14:21):
What's the value of, ofbuilding, a strength of being
able to attend to someone elseor something?
Mark Kissler (14:29):
Yeah.
I mean, I think, maybe there's acase to be made for someone
who's able to do to multitaskand do everything at once.
And there's certain.
You know, roles for that, butthere's an interesting way in
which I think we, and, and so acouple of the authors that I
know that we share, like, CalNewport and, Matthew Crawford,
have talked a little bit aboutthe ways that in our
(14:49):
contemporary kind of knowledgework sphere, a lot, a huge
amount of.
Of us are doing work.
That's not a deep craftsmanship,you know, necessarily we're not
like making these really complexthings.
We're dealing with ideas, youknow, but the, the way that we
deal with those ideas, the mostdeeply, and kind of the most in,
in get to the place where it'smore transformative creative
(15:11):
work, requires that kind ofattention.
we can do a lot.
We can be very, very busy andvery, very kind of pseudo,
productive.
If we're not, if we'remultitasking all the time and
we're in constant contact andcommunication with everybody
around us.
And, you know, we respond toemails and clear the inbox
immediately and things likethat, but it's a diff it's a
fundamentally different kind ofwork and orientation to work.
(15:33):
and those, you know, thoseauthors and others argue that
there's something inherentlysatisfying about work that
happens in a state of deepattention.
so I know there's like, The ideaof flow.
Are you familiar with kind ofthe idea of flow crazy?
Oh, you do remember that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think it's Haley.
I don't, I'm not going to it'slike, she'd say the Haley or
(15:54):
something.
I don't want to pretend to, I'vetried.
I've like tried to shout out
Matt Boettger (15:58):
so you guys can try to sack the
Mark Kissler (16:00):
podcast is not the time to like launch it.
Yeah.
But anyway, cause like, causenot only, well I butchered
accidentally visits thenpreserved for posterity that I
did that.
So that's great.
But.
But, but the sense that likeflow, you know, is the state of,
again, sort of a certain type ofself forgetfulness, where the
(16:21):
interface between you and whatyou're doing really collapses.
And you're just in this state oflike extreme attention, you
know, and it's difficult.
It takes, you, you in, but youenjoy the difficulty of that.
Like you're in, you're enjoyingthat.
Freedom is kind of a sense ofyour own action, and your
ability to act and do somethingmeaningful.
And so I think there's thisinherent satisfaction to
(16:42):
attentive work that, that isoften really crowded out by the
urgencies or pseudo urgenciesthat we encounter.
Matt Boettger (16:51):
Yeah, I, this a lot of things percolating right
now.
I, when the thing, the image, Ithink you mentioned the artist
concept and I feel like thevalue of attention is the
difference between a copy and anoriginal, right?
When our life is not having afocus of attention, we just are
copies.
So this I'm thinking of a lot ofthings like school.
the way a way our educationalsystem has a tendency to work by
(17:12):
just, here's what you memorizeand you're on your test is what
you're expected.
To regurgitate back, right?
This is a copy.
This requires not, not a, not agreat sense of attention, but
just simply ability to memorizethe formulas to be able to.
And I remember I wrote, Iwatched this documentary like
seven years ago.
I forgot what it was.
It was about the educationalsystem.
(17:32):
I was at the university ofColorado.
I watched it.
It was really good, but just thefear, right?
I don't know, to what extentthis will manifest itself in the
coming 20 or 30 years of these,these students coming up.
Caribbean educated in this kindof system of there is demands by
students to say, after an exam,wait a minute, you didn't ask
the question the way you weretold us you were going to ask a
(17:54):
question and that's why I failedthis, this, this, this inability
to be creative and be nuancedand to give answers.
And then the fear was, gosh, youknow, in your, in your area of
expertise, what are these peoplecome down and become doctors?
30 40 years from now.
And there's an unknown pandemic,right.
Or whatever, and requires, it'sno longer in the context of a
(18:14):
book and that you just can'tcarbon copies something out of
a, of a manual.
So I think it's, especially forus, I think it resonates deeply
with me.
That attention is to cultivateattention is the same thing as
cultivating a sense of creating,right.
And our, both of our spiritualtraditions.
Is is, is basically about how weco-create with God, right?
(18:35):
That's our school tradition.
So that's the highest call of ahuman is to co-create.
Now we can see that and on themaintain level of marriage and,
and, and that kind of stuff, butI mean, in general, that's our
kind of our desire.
And, and w and when you talkabout the flow, I feel like flow
is this mysterious ability toinsert ourselves into the realm,
this like mystical reality ofcreation, right?
(18:57):
While we're like, we're doingsomething, that's not just a
copy, but we're, we're bringingour, where we've we let go of
ourselves.
And we're creating an originalon some concept we're entering
to this with reality of thatbeing.
So I think attention is soimportant.
So I, in my mind, I'm like,gosh, I have, I struggle with
attention.
Not just not necessarily add,like I can be focused, I can be
(19:20):
focused on something.
I can just, I can grind it outfor an hour, but I, maybe my
attention may be on the wrongthing.
I was just talking about how Iwas with someone and in a, not
so good a situation.
And I was attending to an aspectof their life thinking that I
was on it, like, this is theright thing.
And I was just.
I was not.
(19:41):
And I was in the wrong spot andnot attending to, to the right
circumstances, not onlyattending, but understanding the
other person before you to knowwhat you're attending to, that
actually is received by them aswell.
Mark Kissler (19:55):
Yeah, I think, I mean, there's, there's, I think,
and it could do as well.
And I think even to just start,I don't think we can do it here,
but to start to define like,what is attention, you know, and
when, what do we mean when we'retalking about it?
Cause we think we know what wemean, but maybe there's a little
bit more of a precision that wecan add to that, which then
includes, you know, what are weattending to and, and what does
that mean?
You know, to sustain thatattention to something.
(20:17):
I think it all seems to be thatthere's, it seems, it seems as
if there's, There's sort of adiscipline around it, you know,
sort of a practice aroundattending well, and, that
includes discernment as to itsobjects.
That includes like our own.
Practices around, how do wecreate a, you know, an
environment and a life forourselves in which we can
(20:38):
sustain our attention on thethings that matter, and that,
you know, that we want to attendto, instead of having our
attention be commanded bysomebody else's idea of what
they want us to attend to.
you know, and, and I thinkthere's, there's just a hole
without being over some, youknow, reductive about it.
I think that there's a lot ofways that.
Our pursuit of, you know, beingexcellent at things, is related
(21:01):
to, or can be looked at throughthe lens of, you know, what are
the ways that we cultivate,right?
Matt Boettger (21:08):
Mm.
Yeah.
I I'm thinking of, I mean,again, I, for me, And again, I
think like, yeah, I'm surethere's.
We can talk about the specificobjective definition of
attention in my mind.
I guess I come from here where Isuffer from and attention for me
is that this striving to see thereal that is before me.
(21:28):
Right.
It's the striving part, becauseI think oftentimes my attention,
if I, if I don't have theattention, I'm either quickly
just applying my preconception,my judgment, and which we all
come with.
We all have our cognitive biasesare, but yeah.
But allowing that to be the ruleof our life versus saying, Nope,
that is just one variable that Ibring to the table.
(21:49):
But my goal is to constantlystrive to check my precept
positions, my, my, my, my, my,my theories, whatever it is with
what's really before me andallow that, which is before me
to reeducate my presupposition.
That's I think that the, the,the hard work of attention,
versus just allowing yournatural propensity to be.
(22:11):
Thrown at the thing before itdoes that.
Mark Kissler (22:14):
Yeah.
Yeah, I think, I mean, it foldsin nicely with your kind of your
larger project on living thereal, which is the sense that,
as, as much as we have, as muchas we can to come into a better
understanding of the things thatare real and the things that are
not real, and, and thenattending to those things that
are.
Really there and then conformingourselves to reality, as opposed
to, you know, the opposite ofthat, which is like, kind of
(22:36):
living in, in a more constructedsense and expecting the world to
conform.
To us.
there's, there's this funny way.
I know I don't want to keepbringing it back to our, I don't
think technology is necessarilythe problem.
but I do think that technologymanifests a lot of, sort of our
worst tendencies aroundattention.
but one of the very simpleexample is the way that most of
(22:58):
our information gatheringsources these days, whether
it's, news feeds or.
Facebook or YouTube or any ofthese things, learn your
preferences based on what you'veseen in the past and present
things in accord with whatyou've looked at in the past.
And so what you're creating isthis kind of aperture that
you're looking at the worldthrough that has been.
(23:21):
Changed based on your, you know,kind of all those things that
you, you bring, those, thosebiases, those tendencies, those
things that you like, and itsubtly reinforces that over and
over and over again, as opposedto, you know, I think in a more
ideal case you're encountering.
To the world, you know, the realworld out there and conforming
yourself to that as opposed toconforming your, your vision to
(23:45):
what you already think.
and it's hard.
I mean, I think the questionthen is like, how does one in a
little way move towards that?
you know, I think, I'm not in aplace right now where like
becoming a desert hermit makesany sense.
I don't anticipate becoming adesert hermit, you know, at any
point in the near future.
but.
There ideally are ways that welook at these examples, you
(24:08):
know, these, these examples ofpeople who exhibit human
excellence, whether it's in, inwhat they're able to create or
in what they're able to do inrelationship, or, you know, any
of those things.
And so it's like, how do we, howdo we nudge ourselves a little
bit towards that example?
and that's something that Ithink is.
w you know, worthwhile to thinkabout
Matt Boettger (24:27):
absolutely.
I mean, do you going back, andagain, as we begin to wrap this
up and I kind of want to talkabout, you know, well, one thing
is just that story, you know, Ithink what's so alluring what's,
so just captivating is, is asimple thing of just staying
with something, staying withsomething when it hurts and
just, and, and, and, and that isan important, cause I think our
(24:48):
natural disposition.
Is to, as soon as it hurts is torun away.
Right.
At least I feel like, I feellike it's something that can be
mine.
It's a first go-to, to, youknow, the, the old pivot or
persevere.
And that is, and I would say itis to, to, to pivot and to run
away and not to stay with it.
And so that's the first thingthat comes to mind.
(25:09):
And for you, like, what issomething when it comes to
attention that you feel likeyou're trying to like.
What first resonates with you inyour own life with attention.
Right.
And, and, and, and, and, wheredo you see.
You're life growing inattention.
Mark Kissler (25:23):
those are good questions.
I mean, I think there's, sothere's one place that it
resonates a lot isprofessionally.
So I'm thinking a little bitstructurally about the way that
we do business in the hospital.
and the ways that a lot of thethings that we do that increase
art.
What are our parentconnectivity?
You know, our avail avail ourability to be reached at any
time from anyone in the hospitalactually can be really
(25:46):
counterproductive to the type ofdeep interpersonal attention
that I want to be able to giveto my patients and that there
are structural issues aroundthat.
So there's ways that we use,like, this is a Cal Newport
thing, but we use busy-ness asa.
As a proxy for productivity.
and it's like, well, if I'mbusy, if I'm communicating a
lot, then I must be doingsomething.
When in fact that's actuallyoften the opposite is the case.
(26:08):
and so I've been thinking of ita little bit about that on a
professional level, on apersonal level.
you know, far more, I think,right now I'm thinking a lot
about how do I, how do I stripaway some of the less essential,
dis kind of highly distracting.
Things, whether it's media or,or kind of like what often it's
media actually, for the mostpart where it's these things
(26:30):
that are constantly calling outfor my attention and like, I
need to be personally investedin emotionally invested in this
story right now.
It's like, well, actually, maybeI don't.
Yeah.
And so I've been trying to turnthat off a little bit more, and
then I think the, the other wayis trying to think, and I'd love
to hear any thoughts that youhave about this, about how to
create an environment in whichyou're raising kids, for, you
(26:51):
know, in, and starting to buildthe foundation for them to have
attention when they grow up.
Cause I look at our, you know, Ilook at my kids who are really
young right now and, you know,they have a huge amount more.
Kind of highly distracting,highly personally tailored
technologies that are kind ofcoming in at them at every
(27:13):
moment than I ever did growingup in.
And I think that's only going toincrease.
And so how do I create afoundation in which they learn?
How do I tend to think slowlyand how do I sit with something
for a long time?
And in large part that hasmeant, you know, trying to keep
really limit the amount of, ofexposure that they have to these
highly stimulating artificialenvironments and try and.
(27:36):
Get into less stimulatingimmediately real environments,
whether it's outside or, youknow, with slower toys, you
know, things like just coloringand like sitting with things
like that.
And I think it's, you know, Allof that sounds a little bit
simplistic in some ways, but Isee it as building a capacity,
(27:56):
you know, that ideally thatthey, then when they get a
little bit older, they have thisfoundation where like, Oh, I can
I have the power to attend alittle bit longer, you know?
And then that.
Builds because it's sopleasurable, you know, when you
make something beautiful, it'sso pleasurable or when you're
really present with somebody, itfeels so good that then you want
(28:16):
more of it.
I think it's just like givingthem enough of a foundation
that, that doesn't get drownedout by all the other things that
are competing for theirattention right now.
Matt Boettger (28:23):
Yeah.
Mark Kissler (28:24):
Great stuff.
Have a pretty grim view of theway that we, I have a pretty
cynical view of the way that ourattention has become, the
biggest commodity.
I, I feel like our attention isbeing bought and sold outside of
our own lives.
And you know, other people havean interest in me watching their
advertisements and in thereading their news sources and
in me doing these things.
(28:45):
And, but I have a, I, I have abig stake in my own attention
too.
And, I don't, you know, I don'tknow often hadn't until recently
started thinking about that insort of this antagonistic way
that if I give my attention overto these other things, that
means that I'm not attending tothe things that matter.
(29:05):
you know, and, and so, I thinkthat there's a real struggle
kind of at the heart of our, youknow, what we, in these, in
these little, very mundane ways,that it's, but it's a pretty
profound struggle because youdon't get to be the kind of
person you don't get.
You don't wake up one day andare suddenly the kind of person
who can endure imprisonment,torture, and death for an eye
(29:28):
for a worthy idea.
That's not something.
I'm going on about this a littlebit.
I apologize, but there's thisbeautiful.
I love them.
Do you know the power and theglory?
Graham Green's novel.
there's this meditation right inthe middle of, about how
uncommon is the, the deathbedconversion.
You know, there's this, we havethis whole story.
We're talking about thebeginning about like the
(29:49):
glorious martyrdom or like theone big decision that you make,
you know, or like the deathbedconversion.
Like you lived your life in thisone way, and then you make this
radical change at the end.
And there's this brilliantinsight, you know, that Graham
green kind of draws through hischaracter of like how.
Oh, how utterly rare that isthat how much more often our
life is actually.
(30:09):
Yes.
It like, it is the sum of allthe little tiny decisions that
we made on the way, and thatyou're not going to suddenly
become an able to do thisamazing feat, you know, of
attending to the real, if youhaven't practiced that over and
over and over and over again,you know, before.
so anyway, those are, those arekind of the things that I've
been stewing on a little bit inthe background is we're trying
(30:31):
to just like, I don't know.
Yeah, make breakfast and get thekids up to school and survive
another day, you know?
Matt Boettger (30:41):
All right.
You know, it, this is exactlyliving the real living, the real
it's really the Mo a very smallnuanced life.
It's a small thing.
It's the habit.
It's not some big grandiosepivot or change your life.
It's a bunch of small.
Actions that come together toaccumulate this, something that
transforms your life.
You're talking about your kids.
Like, I mean, just the simplethings of what you just said.
(31:01):
You know, my wife and I lookingat what shows they watch and if
they're too fast, we try to findslower ones like tumble leaf out
of your wife's unbelief.
Tumble leaf is like a slow.
Moving thoughtful.
you know, but if you go to like,Oh, the airplane ones and the,
the, the they're like fast, theyjust constantly are moving from
scene to scene.
And these small things cultivatein our children, an incapacity
(31:21):
to be able to sit with anything.
So that's one thing we're doing.
I think the biggest thing we'llend on this, but I think you
mentioned something that was sopowerful is what do we do to
help.
Bust increase our ability toattend.
And I think you just said likethe biggest commodity is
attention.
What, what we're being inundatedwith is people, social media
things, constantly telling ushow we ought to live, behave,
(31:44):
act, right.
They're telling us we're beinginformed by other people.
So how then do we invert thisand live in intent of examined
life?
Well, then we need to make surethat we strive to create
environments within ourselves.
Other, the people that is nolonger about telling people what
they should think believe behavedo, which is my go-to.
If I'm coaching someone and I'mdealing with something, when the
(32:06):
first thing I'm gonna to do, assoon as I see an insight, I want
to tell them, aha, this is whereyou should go.
Right.
But that is now taking, takingthe whole idea of attention and
commodity of social media andusing it against them the best
way we can actually reversethis.
And sit with our kids is movingaway from telling someone what
they should do, or your opinionsabout them.
(32:27):
And focusing on simply questionsand questions that are not Y
oriented because Y typically,like you've mentioned to me has,
has a, has a negativeconnotation, but simply with
what.
When and how questions with ourkids instead of going to right
away and telling them how theymisbehaved to sit with them and
ask the questions.
They can actually come to theself-revelation and be attentive
(32:48):
to their self of how theymisbehaved and they did wrong.
And it's really hard with afour-year-old, but it's hard
with a 42 year old as well.
Mark, it's really, really hard.
And I think the,
Mark Kissler (32:59):
yeah, and I think importantly, it's not, not
necessarily about not listeningor not in engaging with how
other people say we should thinkor form us, but it's being
really selective about where weget that formation.
That it's not just the firstthing that you pick up.
but it's, but you really likeyou really being.
Discerning about the, you know,where you get that, that
(33:20):
external, cause it is about, itis about encountering other
things and other ideas andchanging the way that you think
based on what you see, but it'snot.
but, but not just the firstthing that you see.
Matt Boettger (33:30):
And oftentimes what we do is we immediately
stick with what we see and thatbecomes part of what we believe
and behave versus asking thequestions like, yeah.
Is this really the right pieceof information?
Where should I go to look, toget a more balanced perspective,
but we never asked evenourselves the questions.
I think that having a sense ofsolitude, regular life, to be
able to check in with ourselves,ask the deeper questions so that
(33:53):
whatever we end up believing nowthat we're asking ourselves, is
this something that I want to bepart of my life?
And am I actually looking at allthe different dimensions?
You know, the one thing andwe'll end on this, we're getting
long that I've learned Mark fromthe pandemic, is that more than
ever, that life is complicated.
And we see this concretely withCOVID and I think this is just,
(34:13):
and then the black lives mattersand then all these things we're
just seeing that life is reallycomplicated and it's okay to
allow it to be complicated andstill bite down on something
without being overly simplistic.
Right.
And that's the goal, right?
The examine life is to allow thecomplexities in.
Right and feel okay.
Right.
And still be able to bite downand constantly allowing our
(34:34):
self, our self dispositions, ourpre, our cognitive biases to, to
allow us to be open for it, tobe informed and nuance and
changed with the information wereceive.
All right.
I think this land is about ahalf hour.
It might be edited down.
It's good to see you, buddy.
Thank you so much for coming in,
Mark Kissler (34:52):
coming out.
Yeah, that's great to see too.
And, yeah, so it'd beinteresting to kind of develop
some of these ideas.
I have a lot to learn in thisrealm, so I'm interested to kind
of keep on, keep on learning.
Matt Boettger (35:01):
Yeah.
And for those out there, I, mybiggest thing is I will, on my
I'm a strive to ask morequestions.
This is my area of attention Ihave.
So I'm so quick to give myopinion within, within 30
seconds and not just a tend torealize that no, there's a
nuance perspective in thisperson's life that I need to
attend to, and to sit and askand ask and ask and ask and
attend.
(35:21):
And then at the very end offermy insight.
That's my go-to.
I'm gonna try this next sevendays.
I'm going to just focus onasking questions, Mark.
What, what's your, what?
What's stuff that you're gonnatry to attend in your practice.
You're going to work on beingmore available in that area.
Mark Kissler (35:33):
Yeah, I think I'm going to focus a lot this week
on, on being very selectiveabout the, media that I allow to
kind of take over mydisposition.
so I think that we're going to,you know, I, I'm going to be, I,
I want to be engaged and knowwhat's going on, but I also,
want to just make sure that I.
I bound that a little bit.
and don't get lost in it.
(35:53):
So that's, that's the thing I'mgoing to focus on this week,
Matt Boettger (35:56):
given that you just said that, and we said, I
want to have you on moreregularly the next time you're
on we're checking on how thatwent and I will do the same.
And for you out there who arelistening.
I encourage you to pick upsomething that Mark said, if
you're really struggling withjust being sucked into the one
type of, of information toexpand that and be careful of
what you're receiving into yourmind, your mind is a sacred
(36:16):
place and your soul as, and ifyou struggle like me, that loves
to give opinion over listening,that really encourage you, man.
I've taken a whole three yearsin spiritual direction and that
was a life-changing event.
Pyramid experience for me, thatwas all about asking questions
and never giving your opinion inthe cognitive spiritual
direction.
And that's what I needed and Istill need today.
So if you, if you're, Iencourage those of you to
(36:37):
practice asking way morequestions, six to one, and then
giving your opinion, attend tothe people around you,
especially those who you lovemost.
Okay.
Take care.
Have a wonderful week.
We'll see you.
Next step episode, take care.
Bye-bye thank you for listeningto this episode of living the
real.
If you want to check out moreinformation, go to living the
real.com and sign up for mynewsletter.
(36:58):
If you want to support thispodcast, you do that at
patrion.com/ltr as well as onetime.
Payments at Venmo and PayPal inthe show notes.
See you all next episode.
Take care.
Bye-bye.
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