Tuesday, January 4, 2022

I have been trying a meditation practice using Sam Harris' "Waking Up" course. Today, he had us try "Metta" which means "loving-kindness". What he had me do was wordlessly wish someone I care about, "May you be happy. May you be peaceful. May you be free from suffering." I am amazed at how good that made me feel. I might like this meditation stuff.

If the solution you've chosen isn't boring you've probably chosen the wrong thing.

I use a 32-inch monitor on my desk at home and I love it. I can do one big thing like, say, editing photos with room to spare. Or, I can do a bunch of small things all at once.

It's that second part that gets me. Most of the time I can see the windows of at least a half-dozen different apps at once. This has been causing me some consternation. I find myself flitting about between apps and windows and tasks, simply because I happen to notice something somewhere on the screen.

I've noticed that whenever I detach the MBP and work on only the "little" 14-inch screen, I feel much more focused. Calmer, even. It's happening right now as I type this. The Tinderbox note window I'm typing in takes up most of the screen, leaving me to relax and pay attention to what I'm doing.

Of course it depends on the task. Launching Lightroom Classic is a harsh reminder of the limited the screen real estate here. If I needed an IDE and browser and terminal side-by-side all the time I'd feel cramped. But for general computing stuff, email, blogging, etc. Smaller may be better.

Here's the window size from the MBP after plugging it into the big monitor. You can see why I'd feel cramped.

Ain't it adorable?

I see Phil having similar thoughts as me around mobile access to Mac-only information. In recent months, I've come to realize that I almost never need the stuff in my logs when I'm out and about. I worry about needing it, but don't. Most of the things I think I might need are nice-to-haves. There are a few things I do occasionally truly need, so I just keep them in Apple Notes. I think I'm finally learning to tell the difference.