> Goodbird, Max.[‘How to Enjoy Things’](https://superbowl.substack.com/p/how-to-enjoy-things). Superb Owl, 8 July 2023. # Practicing wide attention makes you more mindful - Distinction between narrow and wide attention: - *Narrow* attention is the default way to pay attention to things: **you attend to whatever interests you**. - *Wide* attention occurs when your questing purposes are held in leash. Since there is nothing to select, nothing to *want*, **you can look at the whole at once**. > **==Try a very simple experiment. Take a pencil and hold it in front of your eyes, a few feet away. Narrow your attention to the pencil itself, so you cease to be aware of the room. Then let your attention expand, so you become aware of the room as its background. Then narrow your attention again. Do this a dozen times.==** At the end of this time, you will begin to experience a curious mental glow, not unlike what happens if you exercise your muscles. Because in fact you *are* exercising a muscle of whose existence you are normally unaware. — Colin Wilson, *The Outsider* In my opinion, this is, in the end, another form of meditation. Whether you focus on your breath, on the surrounding sounds, on the sensations of your body, or on a pencil, the goal is the same: **to become more aware of what is happening around you, and in your mind as well**.