Can You Hear Me?
Discover more from The Optimalist
Welcome to the 20 new subscribers we’ve received since our last issue. And keep the feedback coming! Anytime you like what you read, remember to click the heart button at the top of this post. And don’t be shy! - we’d love to hear from you in the comments, if you’re so inclined.
Nearly two years ago, Focusable founder, Brian Lamb, wrote an essay and published it for our team called “What are the trade-offs of attention-optimizing algorithms?” Its purpose was to talk about how we must consider the risks of living in a world that is now designed to take pieces of your time, your attention - your life - from you. Does that sound harsh? It’s only harsh if you don’t believe that the attention you give to each present moment is not precious. Or when you’re not ready to hear the story.
Also, the ideas were rough. The essay in question was one part of a series of pieces, collected under the title of “The future of education in an AI-driven world” - a collection we can all admit we were not ready for at the time. Who’s living in an AI-driven world? Algorithms, yes. But AI? Sounded like something far-off, something most of us couldn’t figure out why we had to worry about at the moment. And how does it apply to our work? Despite his efforts to get people thinking, the experience left Brian feeling like he was writing into the void and getting no response. He was struggling with being clear. With each attempt, he’d shift the perspective a little, seemingly shouting, can you hear me, now? We didn’t. We were distracted and confused. But what this did do was provide a foundation for what we would soon build.
When you’re trying to make a change, you always have to aim way bigger than the place you might end up. When Brian wrote about diminishing emotional regulation and dopamine overdrive in 2021, he was attempting to bring us further into a mission driven by relationships. Through better relationships, we can strengthen the values that combat the trade-offs of attention-optimizing artificial intelligence. I mean, isn’t this the origin of the loneliness epidemic? Digital addiction and increased averse reactions to boredom or perceived negative experiences lead to stress responses that make us prone to emotional reaction. This is very difficult to break and recover from. So we reach for more. The distraction from our own problem becomes the isolation from the life we actually want to live.
As it turns out, we need more than better relationships to address loneliness and isolation. “This means we have to go deeper into the problem if we want to find solutions,” as Brian wrote in that original essay. As it turns out, we need better attention to get us there.
So, we started this conversation a long time ago. And while we have left AI out of our public discourse for much of the time we’ve been developing Focusable, we have certainly not shied away from tackling the issues surrounding it. We set out on a journey to explore. But it was more than just that people still weren’t ready for it; it was that we needed to learn something to figure out how to tell this story. We needed to pay attention.
Now, something is different. Basically, the entire world seems to have tuned in all at once, and all at once are talking much more loudly now. And we are quick to pick up on that signal, asking, “can you hear me, now?!”
It’s no secret that AI is dominating discourse in the fields of tech, education, and the future of work. It seems that the world is now primed with the language to think about the state of things in the way Brian was writing about it in early-mid 2021. And that means we are also ready to be introduced to Focusable in the way it was fully intended. At least - that’s the hope. :) We first wrote about this here, in December, in what became the most-read issue of The Optimalist to date. So I’m inclined to believe we might not be wrong. And now the challenge has become, over the last few weeks: how do we explain ourselves? What does focus really have to do with algorithms and living in the age of AI? The answer can now be found by scrolling through the new Focusable homepage and its supporting application pages. But I’m also going to outline it for you here.
The master skill is focus. AI is about to enter every aspect of your life, whether you want it to or not. In fact - it’s already been there for a long while. It’s only now that you are able to manipulate it - train it - yourself. As you’ve probably already gathered, it comes with a wide range of reactions and emotions. From excitement to anger to indifference - you likely know someone who falls into each of these categories. And what about you? Can you pinpoint your reaction, or are you experiencing it all at once? (This is overstimulation, btw) AI’s intro into mainstream life will be exciting, entertaining, and, no doubt, wildly useful. It will also be impossible to keep up with. And depending on how you react to it, it’s also coming for your job, your personal growth, your meaning, and happiness. Yes, here we are again: I know this sounds harsh. But it is not outside the tone of discourse surrounding the now very public conversation about what the heck we’re supposed to do now. We’re just addressing it head-on. Because now we’re all ready - but there is still a choice.
We believe that human beings have a choice at this particular juncture in history. It’s tempting to compare ourselves to every other generation that has gone through a major technological advance. But it would help us to remember that the nature of our particular advance - beginning with the Internet itself - is that we bring the whole world in sync in every way. And our ancient brains are not meant to handle this. Johann Hari calls social media “the machine that is re-patterning the world’s attention.” Either surrender control of your attention to the machines for the excitement it offers, or retain the ability to self-direct and find your path to thrive. The choice is yours. Did you know that there’s a whole category of people who undergo surgery to look like their Instagram filters?
It’s time we stopped looking at these stories - and experiencing them! - and turned towards doing. You need a pulse of energy to mindfully unhook from the machines that wither your attentional capabilities - and start living better.
Still, I’m wondering if the importance of this is clear.
Here’s one reason why: AI devalues human skills. As a result, it will bring a transformation to education greater than ever before. Skills and knowledge will remain part of education - these things define what we are and bring us joy. Priority must now be given to the nurturing and development of each student’s skill of focus. This is something we’ve been talking about with our community since fall of last year, but now we wish to double-down on why we think this is important. So let’s redefine focus for the world we live in. We think this could be called the Post-skills Era.
Focus is the ability to manage the impulse for things to be easy, safe, or entertaining. It’s the ability to self-regulate overwhelm and stress without losing attention. And it’s the ability to retain the curiosity and resilience needed to find pathways for personal growth and future employment. Investing in focus is how students will thrive in the age of AI. It’s how you discover and sharpen the comparative advantage of humans in order to define your career and the future of human jobs. It’s the applied mindfulness that helps you cut through the pressure of a 24/7 digital world to find happiness and meaning.
Here’s another reason the importance of this is not yet made clear: it’s really hard to tell this story effectively. Especially when you’re a bit early in telling it. There is no frame of reference. AI seems like sci-fi. When it comes to solving problems, people are historically not good at seeing the long game. So we can talk about social media and personal devices being a distraction, but we can’t think about how that might affect the jobs our children are able to get in 2035. This, ironically, is also a form of focus - what Daniel Goleman calls, “singular focusing ability.” It is the ability to see how a decision now will impact years to come. Those who possess this are often found yelling into the megaphone, can you hear me?
I’m not saying we have known everything that is to come and have it detailed on paper, waiting to watch it unfold. Far from it. I’m only saying that we have been holding the megaphone, looking for like-minded discourse as we figured things out. You - the readers of this newsletter, the Optimalist community we have on Discord, Twitter, and elsewhere - you are the ones that have been listening. Even if it’s hard.
“The problem with talking about problems is that you can come across like a downer,” Brian wrote in 2021. “We also recognize that pessimism is too often used as a shortcut for critical thinking. We believe our mission is rooted in optimism. Optimism in human potential. Optimism that our problems are solvable. Optimism that technology can be used in better alignment with human needs. Optimism for the profession of teaching and the system of education.” That is to say, we are optimistic AI will create value, but we are being cautious about the problems it will create. This rational optimism - looking realistically at a challenge that’s in front of us, and taking the steps to overcome it - is a good thing. A healthy mindset.
We believe that you are focusable; that on an individual level, people have the capacity to build up their control of attention in order to thrive. But as a society, we have to take responsibility to support this path. Johann Hari, in his book Stolen Focus, writes, “Solving big problems requires the sustained focus of many…to pay attention long enough to identify real problems…People who can’t focus will be more likely to be drawn to simplistic solutions, and less likely to see clearly when they fail. A world full of attention-deprived citizens alternating between Twitter and Snapchat will be a world of cascading crisis where we can’t get a handle on any of them.” Hari might as well be talking about our team back in 2021: we didn’t want to listen - perhaps even couldn’t listen - to what Brian was saying.
This is why we started the Optimalist community. This is why you’re reading a newsletter of the same name. This is why we want to know - what are your thoughts on how the world is changing? How are we doing with telling this story, with building a tool meant to help you live a better life, and with having conversations that support it? What can we do better? Focusable and the Optimalist together are meant to help us all bring clarity to this moment, to support each other, and our students, as we make the decision to choose better attention. Because this is going to be really hard.
Even I have felt tinges of the void, of venturing to shout things that I knew would not be understood, and therefore, ignored. When I had to re-name the tagline for this newsletter at the beginning of January, Brian challenged me to start weaving AI messaging into Optimalist material. My attempts left me feeling awkward and crappy. Why would anyone subscribe to something that claims to “create an optimal future for education in the age of AI,” or “help us prioritize focus in the age of AI”? No one knows what that means, I would repeat to myself as I tried alternate versions of the line and then finally pressed save. Now? I just caught a glimpse of the tagline on our subscriber page while sending this draft to Brian, and thought, wow that’s not scary at all. In fact, I’ve been tweeting versions of that statement that are way more provocative. So you see? Now I’m ready. I can hear it. The signal is really, really clear.
My greatest hope is that the number of voices who are hearing that signal and answering keeps growing. As we are fully engulfed by the speed at which AI is developing, we can actually replace “Can you hear me now?” with “Are you paying attention?” Your answer there is what’s most important; it determines not only your daily happiness, but also our future relevance.
The Optima List
The best possible list of opportunities
📣 Join Our Virtual Community Space
We are exploring the intersection of mindfulness and focus as the way to create the optimal future for education - especially as the age of AI has arrived. We invite you to join our growing group of educators interested in:
discussions about mindfulness and focus, and their importance now and in the future of edu
sharing how they use Focusable, as well as feedback & requests
direct support from the product team and community
contributing to a community / collaborating with others
early access to new features, plus a space to grow personally and professionally
🧠 The All-New Focusable Experience
Focusable’s latest release this week was very big, and very exciting. It represents a huge step forward in bringing you the best tool for learning how to build better attentional habits. Focusable is the pulse of energy you need for better attention.
Included:
New Power Breathing activity
A cleaner, simpler, 1-2-3 style experience: Recharge, Refocus and Record
The Pulse timer
Some examples of how we’re finding the experience useful
Check out the video here for a more detailed description, and create your own free account by downloading Focusable on iOS or Android devices, or by going here.
