It's sometimes said that a Zen practitioner remains alert to the constant flow of life - so when circumstances change, they are more likely to be aware of the new context. Perhaps it's no accident that Zen has an unusual (for Buddhism) tradition of playful and witty personalities! This seems not unrelated to your idea of lucidity here.
However, I don't think this lucidity attribute exists in any context-agnostic sense. You may think that someone "has it" or "gets it" but that's just an illusion arising from the combination of two things: (1) they're playing the same or at least a proximal game to you (2) they "get it" in that domain.
In my experience, the closest you can get to this is an extreme form of empathy that asymptotes towards this lucidity but in actuality falls short, specifically in its duration. In other words, you can hold this empathy for awhile and climb the meta layer of understanding that specific game, but eventually you get worn down and either give in or worse become cynical. You wonder how someone can continue to play this game because it takes actual work for you to uphold.
The ability to let go of rigid perceptions and instinctive rise of reactive thoughts, being conscious of and adaptive to the fluidity of internal and external transformations, seems rare and ability related. However, Buddhism, and various cultures, cultivate such awareness, deliberate practice of meta reflection, and acceptance of multilayered nuanced changing realities. On the other hand, in rational fact-driven, materialistic, attachment/ownership/self driven societies, the multilayered, passing, unimportant, intangible is all too often lost. However, faced with complexity, scale, virtual, and existential challenges of rapid transformations, adherence to the modern mechanic control, stability and fact seeking, methodological anchoring will have to give way to meta reflection and self transformation…(:
I'm so glad I stumbled upon this essay today. Sometimes it is necessary to be reminded to ‘zoom out’ and see life as it really is.
The piece reminded me of Aldous Huxley’s Island, particularly its simple, repeated mantra: “attention.”
I imagine lucidity as the ability to pay attention at every moment of life, rather than getting ‘lost in the game,’ so to speak. It seems like a very happy way to live—detached in a spiritual sort of way, yet alert and ‘tuned-in,’ ready to enjoy life.
I’d be interested to hear if you’ve ever read the book, and if so, what you think of it.
I like the way you distinguished lucidity from the related concepts of wisdom, intelligence, and competence, and really enjoyed your conceptualization of life as a series of games.
(Also, I’m going to be involuntarily performing a ‘lucid analysis’ of every conversation I have for the foreseeable future.)
Love this, thank you. Shout out to Tyler Cowen for linking. In which social contexts is lucidity a liability? Brings to mind the whole smart VS happy contradiction. I imagine people who are more lucid generally have to do more “work” than non-lucid people? What’s the relationship between lucidity and happiness? How much does that matter?
An analogy I like is that mental lucidity is like visual depth of field--how far can one "see" across a relevant set of thoughts to the stimulus. Like with sight, lucidity wanes with age.
"Lucid people aren’t dogmatic. Most ideologies are full of heuristics that non-lucid people rely on since they can’t actively evaluate different situations. Since they have eclectic life philosophies"
This one really resonated with me. On the other side, it puts them often in decision paralysis.
Wanted to read more on this topic, any references/suggestion? Thanks.
This is very good!
It's sometimes said that a Zen practitioner remains alert to the constant flow of life - so when circumstances change, they are more likely to be aware of the new context. Perhaps it's no accident that Zen has an unusual (for Buddhism) tradition of playful and witty personalities! This seems not unrelated to your idea of lucidity here.
Insightful and thought-provoking.
However, I don't think this lucidity attribute exists in any context-agnostic sense. You may think that someone "has it" or "gets it" but that's just an illusion arising from the combination of two things: (1) they're playing the same or at least a proximal game to you (2) they "get it" in that domain.
In my experience, the closest you can get to this is an extreme form of empathy that asymptotes towards this lucidity but in actuality falls short, specifically in its duration. In other words, you can hold this empathy for awhile and climb the meta layer of understanding that specific game, but eventually you get worn down and either give in or worse become cynical. You wonder how someone can continue to play this game because it takes actual work for you to uphold.
Beautiful insightful text.
The ability to let go of rigid perceptions and instinctive rise of reactive thoughts, being conscious of and adaptive to the fluidity of internal and external transformations, seems rare and ability related. However, Buddhism, and various cultures, cultivate such awareness, deliberate practice of meta reflection, and acceptance of multilayered nuanced changing realities. On the other hand, in rational fact-driven, materialistic, attachment/ownership/self driven societies, the multilayered, passing, unimportant, intangible is all too often lost. However, faced with complexity, scale, virtual, and existential challenges of rapid transformations, adherence to the modern mechanic control, stability and fact seeking, methodological anchoring will have to give way to meta reflection and self transformation…(:
Wow, you explained a phenomena I'd always broadly noticed with certain people but had never quite been able to put into words. Amazing!
I'm so glad I stumbled upon this essay today. Sometimes it is necessary to be reminded to ‘zoom out’ and see life as it really is.
The piece reminded me of Aldous Huxley’s Island, particularly its simple, repeated mantra: “attention.”
I imagine lucidity as the ability to pay attention at every moment of life, rather than getting ‘lost in the game,’ so to speak. It seems like a very happy way to live—detached in a spiritual sort of way, yet alert and ‘tuned-in,’ ready to enjoy life.
I’d be interested to hear if you’ve ever read the book, and if so, what you think of it.
I like the way you distinguished lucidity from the related concepts of wisdom, intelligence, and competence, and really enjoyed your conceptualization of life as a series of games.
(Also, I’m going to be involuntarily performing a ‘lucid analysis’ of every conversation I have for the foreseeable future.)
Thank you for writing this.
Love this, thank you. Shout out to Tyler Cowen for linking. In which social contexts is lucidity a liability? Brings to mind the whole smart VS happy contradiction. I imagine people who are more lucid generally have to do more “work” than non-lucid people? What’s the relationship between lucidity and happiness? How much does that matter?
An analogy I like is that mental lucidity is like visual depth of field--how far can one "see" across a relevant set of thoughts to the stimulus. Like with sight, lucidity wanes with age.
~80% of drivers ARE better than average. But only 50% are better than the median.
"Lucid people aren’t dogmatic. Most ideologies are full of heuristics that non-lucid people rely on since they can’t actively evaluate different situations. Since they have eclectic life philosophies"
This one really resonated with me. On the other side, it puts them often in decision paralysis.
Wanted to read more on this topic, any references/suggestion? Thanks.