You probably know this:

You had a stressful day. You ran from point A to Point B, hoping to get there in time. You just made it, only to find yourself running from point B to point C.

For the whole day, you never really stop, always feeling one step behind…Your schedule is filled with things you have to do. But where are the things you want to do..?

You fight through your schedule. At the end of your day you are disappointed because you didn’t manage everything you wanted to do. You drop into bed, exhausted, yet with your mind racing about what’s to come tomorrow. At some point you fall asleep and immediately wake up the next morning to repeat the same process.

And so it goes, from day to week, from week to month, from month to year, and from year to a lifetime.

But if we hate this so much, why do we let it happen?

A Life Spent in Pursuit

What’s going on here?

Aren’t we on some level aware that this running from point to point is not really fulfilling us?

Sure, from time to time we get the chance to drop into flow and get some genuinely productive work done (if we are lucky). But even that doesn’t help to overcome the hollow feeling inside.

Deep deep down, we all know this. And yet, we continue to fall into the same old trap.

Why?

Because we need it…

Two Modes of Tending to the World

In another post I have written about the fact that there are two major modes that we can embody when engaging with the world. These have been described in different ways…

• The Mode of Having or Being – Erich Fromm

• The realm of the profane and the realm of the sacred – Emile Durkheim

• The human world and Phantasia – The Never Ending Story by Michael Ende

…but here, I want to focus on how Iain McGilchrist describes these two modes, in his book ‘The Matter With Things’. There he describes that we have two modes to tend to the world:

1. That of the left hemisphere. And that of

2. The right hemisphere…

The mode of the left hemisphere is the one we are familiar with. Narrow but sharp. Very detailed. Smart, at least in the narrow sense. The left hemisphere is what helps us make and execute our plans, achieve goals, and compete against others. Simply put, it’s the mode that allows us to manipulate the world.

The mode of the right hemisphere on the other hand looks quite different. It’s mode is more open and holistic. Because of its broad scope, it has a lower resolution. It pays a “softer” type of attention. But it has the actual smarts! And: it is also the mode that usually is – and should be – in control of which mode we use in a given situation. Simply put, it’s the mode that allows us to see the world for what it is, without reference to a specific goal.

I underlined the word ‘usually’ in the previous paragraph because, according to McGilchrist, western culture is currently in a crisis. One that is caused (at least in part) by us being stuck in one mode of being: that of the LH…

Now, the tricky thing here is this: we need both modes. We cannot simply get rid of the LH. We have the two hemispheres because they are adaptive. It makes sense to be able to narrowly focus on one thing at one point in time, and to broaden one’s horizon at another. We need to pursue, because we are biological beings with needs. We need water, food, shelter, sex, and so on. These things don’t just fall into our laps. They need to be went after.

However, the risk here is that we get stuck in this mode of pursuing. And this is exactly what McGilchrist claims has happened to us…

We have become so stuck in pursuing more and more control over the world (remember that the LH’s mode of being mainly serves to manipulate the world). This has made us very powerful. But because of that, we have tapped into the pitfall of the LH: We think we understand. And now, the LH doesn’t want to pass over the control over our mode of being back to the RH, where it usually belongs…

The problem with this becomes clear when we understand what the LH’s mode of being is lacking.

It lacks understanding.

The LH is simply there to “apprehend the world” (McGilchrist’s phrase). It is there to allow us to control the world. And so, as long as we are in the LH’s mode and can control things, we think we understand what we are dealing with. But this is an illusion.

Let me explain…

Just because you can control something, doesn’t mean that you understand it. You understand what you can do to make the thing do what you want. But this does not constitute true understanding. It constitutes power… (the kind of power that the LH gave to us)

For example, I can move the shower curtain in my shower from one side to the other. I have power over it. I know how to manipulate it so that it fulfills the purpose that I attributed to it: to make sure that I don’t flood the rest of the bathroom while showering.

Similar things happen with sociopaths… They manipulate people for their own gains. They look down on people. They don’t respect them… And so, they just see them as useful tools, for the moment being.

This is the strength of the LH (and it becomes toxic and sociopathic when we over-rely on it).

The problem is that even if I can control and manipulate things, I don’t understand them… I don’t understand how the atoms in my shower curtain hold together. I don’t truly understand the gravity that holds it down. I don’t know how to make a shower curtain etc (I could go on for ever with what I don’t know about shower curtains)…

So, the LH is incredibly powerful in fooling us into believing that we understand the world, simply because we can manipulate it. Simultaneously, we lose respect for the world and the things and people within it. They become mere tools. And we become blind to what we don’t know…

Now, you might say that you are fine with this. That you don’t mind disrespecting others and the world. And that it’s fair to manipulate others, if you are “smart” enough to do so. The problem with this is the following:

The world – reality – doesn’t like being disrespected…

And so it fights back…

When Things Go (Horribly) Wrong

The objection above – why is it wrong to use my power – is one of many that can be posed against the argument I am making here:

• It doesn’t matter how you feel or how in touch with reality you are. It’s just about the hustle…

• You can only be great at one thing, so it’s good to narrowly focus on that.

• Or, somewhat different: ignorance is bliss.

All of these actually have something going for them. And most of this comes from the fact that I have mentioned above already: we actually need to live at least some of our lives in pursuit.

The problem arises when we use the above statements to just do that.

Here are some examples…

Imagine you subscribe to the first objection: it’s all about the hustle. What happens if you really act this out?

You will be blindly working all day, all night, with some time here and there to meet the most basic biological needs (but even those you will most likely neglect). You treat yourself as a machine – and are proud of this.

But the chances are low that you are the 1 in a million who's happy to sacrifice almost everything to a single pursuit. And worse, you won’t even get your basic needs met, which keeps you from working on needs at a higher level. You think that you are fulfilling your potential, but all you do is mindlessly chipping away at something that likely isn’t even your dream.

Similar things can happen with the “You can only be great at one thing, so you should only focus on one thing” objection. Again, there are a handful of people for whom this is the right way. But really take a second and think whether you are willing to do the same… Look at people at the top of their fields:

• Michael Phelps

• Boris Becker

• Jordan Belfort

• Janis Joplin

• Heath Ledger

...just to name a few.

All of them are or were exceptional in their respective field. But all of them fought some major demons. And some of them lost this fight…

• Heroin addiction

• Fraud

• Fraud

• Heroin addiction (and overdose)

• Drug abuse (and overdose)

I’m not making this list to talk shit about these people. I particularly admire Janis Joplin and Heath Ledger…

What I am trying to say is that this greatness that you think you want to be going for – the one that is driven by the narrow focus of the LH – comes with some serious sacrifices that most people simply cannot handle…

Think about that. Step into the open frame of the RH for a second and really think about this. What are the costs that are you willing to incur. And why?

The problem with this is that while reality is not just objective, it’s not just subjective either. It’s both. We cannot simply impose our will on it without consequences. If we do, reality bites back. Hard.

And we need to act accordingly.

The danger of sticking with the LH is to confuse the power that it gives us with understanding. And you see the result of this above. Tourment, imprisonment, and death. That’s how running into the wall of reality can feel like if we are too stuck with the LH’s mode of being.

So, what can we do instead..?

Unlock 99.5% of Your Brain!

Yes! This is an overstatement. But stick with me for a second and I’ll explain…

We know that our conscious mind – the narrowly focused one that the left hemisphere is so in love with – only makes up a tiny percentage of the information processing that our mind engages in every second.

And this is not some odd bro science. We actually know that. Different experts in the field talk about it differently:

Iain McGilchrist, for instance, focuses on specifying it in percentages. According to him, the narrow experience that we are consciously aware of makes up about 0.5% of all the information that are being processed at any given point in time.

Tor Norrestranders, author of ‘The User Illusion’, talks about it in bits: the conscious mind processes about 20 bits/sec while we perceive a total of 12 million bits/sec.

This of course doesn’t mean that we can suddenly learn to be 99.5% more productive. (Notice that impulse if you had it. It’s the LH talking.)

But what it means is that there is much more to the world than you perceive in your narrow focus of day-to-day pursuit. You have access to much more information that you are consciously aware of. And because of this, you risk running into the wall that is reality…

But it does not have to be this way.

What if you could actually learn to find a true balance between the the modes of the LH and RH? To use them in collaboration and complementation? To use them according to what you as an individual need to really bring forth your humanity in the world?

Imagine being able to use the energy that you are currently putting into the mindless pursuit for something more worthwhile. Instead of focusing on goals that most likely were set for you (e.g., getting a degree, having a career, becoming the best in whatever…), you start focusing on pursuits that are actually aligned with who you want to be as a human being…

Imagine becoming what Dan Koe describes as “multidimensionally jacked”. Why just be great at one thing? One narrow facet of what life has to offer… Why not get great at building a life that you want to live? With all its facets maxed out to the greatest possible degree...

Wouldn't that be amazing?

Why not invest your energy and processing into the things that make you who you want to be?

Doesn’t that get you excited?

If yes, that’s where the right hemisphere’s mode of being comes in…

What the RH Adds to The Picture…

When you start using your RH mode, it might just feel like you are super-human…

What the RH mode allows you to do is to look at things in a clearer way. Think about a bathroom mirror after a hot shower. The LH mode is a tiny dot that you made with your finger and through which you can see clearly. The RH mode is when the condensed water on the entire mirror starts to evaporate. It's what allows you to see yourself (and the world) clearly.

That’s what is expressed in the image above (and the banner at the top of this post).

Tight focus on the left.

Open awareness on the right.

The RH mode of being allows you to step outside the boundaries of your narrow pursuit. When you are in its mode of tending to the world, you temporarily put aside all goals…

The LH is great at pursuing goals. So, when you are in pursuit the LH mode of being interprets all the incoming information in relation to a goal. To do this, it ignores most of the information that are processed unconsciously (20 of 12 million bit/sec). And it decides what to ignore based on your goal…

• Does it bring you further or keep you from reaching the the goal → Attend to it

• Is it irrelevant to your goal → Ignore it

The problem with this is the following: This decision process can go wrong. You could spend your life pursuing something that you thought you found important, only to notice at the end that you did not really care about it…

This has several reasons, but one of them is that you might just set your goal wrong. The LH mode is great for pursuit of a goal, but not for setting one. It’s scope is to narrow. It does not see the world holistically. It simply tries to manipulate the world to move you closer to whatever goal you (and it) has in mind at the moment.

The RH on the other hand is great for stepping back and evaluating which pursuit is actually worthwhile. The RH does this by taking a broader set of information into account. It allows you to see opportunities where the LH just sees obstacles. And it manages to look at yourself (and your potential goals) across time. This way, you can set your goals appropriately before achieving them.

You can learn to listen to what the other 11,999,980 bits can tell you. You can learn to listen to what your body tells you as you think through different scenarios.

Simply put, you can learn to get in touch with yourself…

And thereby make your life and the lives of the people around you, infinitely better!

Now you might say “But aren’t you talking about another pursuit here? Aren’t you just pursuing MORE of the RH?“

Yes and No.

Look at the quote above… The real world is full of paradoxes…

As I said in the beginning, you need both: the mode of the left and the right hemisphere – in perfect balance. So, while you need pursuit, you also need the absence of pursuit. You need to learn to hold such contradictions in mind. Because the world is not always logical… It’s also paradoxical.

You manage this through practise (and I am going to give you different practises that you can engage in in a bit). By practising, you will learn to hold paradoxes in your mind. You will learn to see them as opposing parts of an integrated whole. You will see that you can deeply engage in something without being in pursuit.

In the end, what I hope you will learn is to be able to step into a genuine openness to what reality has to offer. To just be able to take it for what it is. To notice how much of what we label as “Good” or “Bad” is just exactly that – us putting labels on things that just are.

What you can learn is to be informed by this openness. You can learn to surrender to the information that you receive from just looking at the world and itself as it is. You can learn to accept. And to commit to acting on this acceptance.

This does not mean that you are accepting some limitation forever. It means accepting that you are limited in two ways:

1. Eternally as a human being

2. In some specific regard right now

Accepting means to accept that being human is being imperfect.

But at the same time it means to accept a limitation right now and to set a goal to overcome that limitation. It is again, a paradox…

Learn to live on this edge of contemplation, acceptance, and pursuit, and you will learn to hold and find energy in the paradoxes of life.

Do this for a couple of years and you won’t recognise yourself…

Practises for Everyday

So, now that you know why you should practising to voluntarily step into the mode of the RH, it’s time to give you a couple of ways of doing so…

1. Notice States of Mind

As you go through your day-to-day, your state of mind changes. Sometimes you are stressed, trying to get to your destination in time. Sometimes you are relaxed, just sitting by yourself. And another time you are excited because you are meeting a friend.

All of these things can teach you something about yourself.

And just paying attention to how it feels to be in a particular state can already bring you a long way. It's the first step to deliberately stepping into the mode that you want to be in at any given point in time…

One of the most well known states of mind is Flow. In this state, you forget everything around you. When you are truly in flow, you won’t be able to be aware of how it feels, because that would take you out of it. But you can look at it later and recall how it felt.

Flow is one of these states that is a paradox… You usually drop into it when you are pursuing a goal. And indeed, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi has found that you need a challenging goal that you care about to drop into flow. But flow is also worthwhile in itself. That’s what makes so many experts great at what they are doing. They are pursuing, through flow while letting themselves be guided by the flow. They do it just because the activity is worthwhile doing, not because they want the money that comes from their greatness.

This is what I have described elsewhere as Resisting With the Flow.

It’s worthwhile to learn to appreciate this.

But it’s only one of many facets that you can train…

2. Engage in Daily Practice

Yes, now comes what you probably expected: Meditation.

I know, it is a cliche. But like so many cliches, it's one for good reasons.

Think about it like that: Meditation (and other mind altering rituals) have been part of humanity forever. All cultures of the past and present have mind-altering rituals that transport them to a higher plane. So, if everybody tells you that you should meditate, you tried it two times, and stopped it because you didn’t see any results, who do you think is in the wrong?

You… or all of humanity?

The point is this: meditation, and specifically mindfulness meditation, is a great way of practising to just be aware.

What you are doing when practising mindfulness meditation is to step into the mode of the RH. You are open. You are curious. You just take your experience for what it is. And simultaneously become aware of how your mind rebels against this. How it tries to pull you back into the more narrow attention that it is so used to.

This is normal. But if you learn to sit through this and always return to an open awareness, you will get better and better across time.

This is what I meant above with “being deeply engaged without being in pursuit”. You end up in the same place as with flow, but you come at it from the opposite direction. Rather than leaning into full pursuit, you completely step out of it… Yet, again paradoxically, you end up in the same place…

So, how do you actually practise this?

I learned a way of mindfulness meditation from Actualized.Org:

1. Sit still in a relaxed position

2. Just look, hear, or feel around you.

3. When something captures your attention, notice it.

4. Once you noticed that something captured your attention, give it a label

   1. Seeing: something visual caught your attention

   2. Hearing: something audible caught your attention

   3. Feeling: a feeling or emotion caught your attention

   4. This can be done for external and internal perceptions.

5. After you identified that you see, hear, or feel something, just pay attention to it without describing it in your mind. Just let your awareness rest on this experience for 7-10 seconds.

6. Then, move on to the next perception

Do this on a daily basis, and you will be truly surprised about how much more aware you become of all sorts of things in your day to day life…

3. Practises in Daily Life

Finally, you don’t have to rely on meditation alone to be able to step into the mode of the RH more often. Rather, you can actually practise in your day-to-day life to step outside a reactionary and narrow mode of the LH, into the open and appreciative mode of the RH.

The example that works wonders for me is this:

When I am walking or cycling and it starts to rain, my immediate reaction is “ahh f*ck, this sucks”. But here’s what I learned (surprisingly) from Alex Hormozi. When this happens, just think to yourself: The rain does not suck. The rain just is…

This might sound silly at this point. But if you combine it with the practises above, you will truly be able to step outside that narrow focus into an open one – and even learn to appreciate the experience of the rain. And the best thing: you can do this with everything to which you have an automatic negative reaction…

• A doctors appointment

• working with a colleague you dislike

• Having to do the dishes

• etc.

But there are also other opportunities to practise openness when going through the day-to-day:

• When you try to remember something and you have it on the tip of your tongue

• When you want to write something but are staring at a blank page

• When you are trying to solve a problem (which the two first points also fall under)

All of these have something in common: You can practise stepping into the RH mode of being by just leaning back (literally) and not force anything.

The problem with openness is that you cannot force it. You can only invite it. The next time you face any of the situations above, think back to reading this:

1. Take a second to set your intention. What do you want to remember? What problem do you want to solve?

2. Then, just physically lean back and just be (you can close your eyes or stare at a wall if this helps you). The important thing is to not try to force the answer (which is not the same as not thinking about it). Basically, just let go and allow your mind to take the path it needs to take.

3. Wait for 10-20 seconds.

Usually when I do this, I remember whatever I tried to remember (and when I try to force it, I don’t).

Make use of the opportunities of practising openness that life throws at you… And see how you and your life changes in response…

So, What Now..?

What are the next steps?

To actually implement what I wrote about.

1. Start a meditation practise. This does not have to be long. 10-20min a day is good for a start.

2. Practise throughout the day, using the opportunities that life throws at you.

3. Start noticing how your mind becomes more and more open and appreciative of the world

After some time, you can come back to this post and read it again. If you put in the practise, the things will resonate on a deeper level and you will most likely get something new out of it.

Another thing: It can be helpful to start doing this sort of practise with someone else. This does not mean that you have to do the actual practise together (although you can) but to go on the journey together and share your experiences and tips and tricks that you encounter on the way. That’s a win-win.

If you liked what you read here, you could even share my work with the person you would like to start this with and turn it into a win-win-win.

My whole goal here is to help as many people as possible to become aware of who they want to be as human beings and to share the Good that comes from this with the people around them. All I write about is in service of this goal…

I believe that if you make your own life better you a) make the world a tiny bit better and b) make yourself ready to take on larger challenges that benefit something greater than yourself.

That’s what the Good Life Digest is about…

In any case, thank you for making it until here! I appreciate your attention and I hope I could offer something of value to you.

Now you know how you can practise openness and the mode of the RH.

Now it’s time to Go and Do! Much Success with It!

All the Best,
Niklas