Conscious Living and the Practice of Attention

The Concept

Conscious living is the opposite of autopilot. It's noticing the defaults — what apps you open, what you do when bored, how you spend time — and deciding whether to keep them.

It connects to 方可成's "媒体食谱" idea: you wouldn't eat whatever's handed to you without thinking, so why consume information that way?

Autopilot Isn't Comfortable

Common framing: autopilot is easy because you don't have to decide.

But that assumes not deciding feels good. For someone who values meaning and agency, autopilot isn't restful — it's dread. The absence of intention creates background anxiety.

More accurate: autopilot is low-effort, not comfortable. It takes less energy in the moment but trades immediate ease for knowing you're drifting.

Autopilot might only be comfortable for people who don't notice they're on it. Once you see it, you can't unsee it.

Do People Really Not Think?

The frightening feeling: how can so many people live without reflecting?

But maybe the premise is wrong. People might reflect on different things — a farmer on soil, a parent on their children, a tradesman on craft. Reflection doesn't always look like words or journals.

What's actually true:

Almost everyone reflects sometimes — usually forced by crisis
Few people reflect habitually — as a regular practice
Even fewer reflect on reflection itself — meta-cognition

The lonelier possibility: reflection is a one-way door. Once you start, you can't stop.

Helping Others Practice

You mostly can't. Not directly.

Reflection is pull, not push. What you can do:

Ask questions (curious, not leading)
Model it (be visibly intentional without performing)
Create artifacts (newsletters, tools that create natural reflection points)
Build tools that create reflection moments

The Real Problem: Continuity

Not inability to focus, but lack of continuity. Thoughts happen but don't compound. You can't build depth if you don't return.

Student life had forced return — curriculum made you revisit the same topics. Same textbook, same class, same problems. The chaotic classroom didn't matter because the topic was fixed.

Now everything is self-directed. Infinite inputs. No one makes you return. Capturing isn't the same as returning.

Practices

Noticing (in the moment):

Interrupt patterns. Pause before opening apps.
Name what you're feeling. "I'm avoiding." Naming breaks autopilot.
One hard question per day.

Reflecting (looking back):

Weekly review: what did I actually care about? what did I ignore?
Re-read old notes before writing new ones.

Deciding (looking forward):

Pre-decide: "Tomorrow I will ___."
Protect emptiness. Unscheduled time forces choice.

Building continuity:

One question per week. Written, visible, returned to daily.
Constrain inputs to the focus topic.
Revisit before capture — read yesterday's thought first.
Same time, same place, same topic.

The meta-practice: Notice when you're not noticing. Autopilot always creeps back. The practice isn't being conscious all the time — it's catching yourself faster when you drift.

Desirable Difficulty — Effortful processing builds deeper encoding
Engineering Maturity — Growth requires returning to fundamentals