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let's play an awareness game there seems to be a common phenomenon for many people, whereby only part of the world around you seems 'interactive' it's as though the space near you seems 'real', like you can actually interact with stuff in it, but further away is 'theoretical'
see if you can get a sense of this if you look at objects within arms' reach, can you detect a sense of: "yes, I could actually pick up that object, this is a real action I could take" then look across the space: do you get the same sense of real potential for action?
for me, the further away something is, and particularly once it is beyond reach, something flips where the potential for action diminishes it's as though there's a bubble around me. Inside the bubble, the world is interactive. Outside the bubble, it's a kind of projection
what I invite you to do now is go beyond 'merely' expanding your awareness, as I talk about a elsewhere don't just expand your awareness, but expand this bubble of interactive-ness look to the edges of the space you're in and know that you could interact with the objects in it
that space is real, you could actually walk into it right now, manipulate things in it, talk to the people in it if this were a video game, you could take your character into that space - it's fully accessible to you how does your experience change when you expand this bubble?
let me give you a counter example to make the thing clearer imagine you're on a packed subway train, stuffed in nearly face to face with strangers notice how you collapse your bubble of 'the real world' to a tiny space around you - the other people become somehow less 'real'
in this state you can't talk to people because the space they're in isn't available and real to you in some sense whatever the mental move is when you get off the subway train and head for the exit, where you bring the exit into existence, do that globally right now
the habit I'm pointing at is something like 'constantly operating in a state where most of the world seems like an unreal projection that you can't interact with' and the change I'm inviting is to drop that, such that all of the world seems 'interactive' all the time
things to pay attention to as you play with this: - your experience of the vividness of the world - patterns of muscle tension and 'aliveness' in your body - your subjective sense of agency see what happens to these as you remember that you really can interact with everything
I am still very much groping for language on this, but here is something I wrote some time ago on 'couldness' what I'm pointing here is 'high couldness within an expanded awareness', as opposed to 'passive noticing within expanded awareness' https://t.co/Pk5WVUDXg3
@m_ashcroft I think @nosilverv has touched on this before, using the term "affordances" https://t.co/wYRXzTjt6c
Best way (with least work) I can explain meaningfulness vs meaninglessness. In meaningfulness everything SHINES with its own COLOR, CALLING YOU to interact with it IN SOME WAY. All is AFFORDANCES, READY-TO-HAND. In meaninglessness all is hollow: objects. No interiorities. https://t.co/iRyjzrCQDz
@m_ashcroft ooh I like this, and have some off the cuff thoughtsLiterally looking around me, far-off places/things I am more familiar with seem more interactivee.g. looking out my office window, I can see my neighbor's house/shop. (cont)
@m_ashcroft I like this neighbor a lot and talk to him often, walk over to chat, etc. quite frequently. They're always outside working, it's a familiar space.looking over there, it feels interactiveBUTnext door to there, ppl I only know in passing, don't really chat, etc.
I think there is some sense in which familiar things and places seem more interactive yes like there is a switch of "can touch" and "can't touch" maybe things are familiar because we have already mapped them as 'something I can interact with'