Mindsets.

[thesubtleknife]

I thought I would pose a question here which has given me a good bit of difficulty.

Context: Lately I've been trying to focus completely in the present. That is, no contemplation of the past, no analysis of the future. Everything seems great about this philosophy up to the point where I have to plan things, which breaks me out of the present

Comments

[andronikus]

I realized the other day that one of the main things that subconsciously attracted me to grad school is the fact that it's something I can/will do for a while, and then I'll stop doing it. This is something that appeals to me, lest I get stuck doing the same thing for fifty years. With that in mind, I am often fairly future-oriented, especially when I'm killing brain cells with physics. Maybe a mantra along the lines of "At least I won't have to do this for much longer" is not a "good" thing in the traditional sense of the word, but at least what I'm doing now will help me do what I want to do later.

I'm having a hard time getting my eyes focused to proofread that paragraph, so I hope it was a propos of something. Good luck!

[thesubtleknife]

Yeah, same here, to a degree. It is nice to have some bigger structure to relax in, from time to time. But maybe... ooo, epiphany moment... the structure imposed by grad school is a false structure, and the bigger picture is that in order to relax, you have to realize the whole world is that bigger structure, and you don't need to panic because you're in exactly the right place. Hmm.

Oh! I'll be in Michigan this weekend, in the U.P. How's the weather looking?? And Ron Paul's coming to your university on Tuesday! So jealous.

[andronikus]

Whoa, cool. Yeah, the weather's been pretty nice. S'pposed to be in the 80s this weekend in the LP, anyway. Plan for it to rain up to a foot though. Just in case.