Is our attention being reshaped without us noticing?
We just released a short film featuring Iain McGilchrist exploring something many of us experience but rarely pause to examine: how attention gets pulled, fragmented, and narrowed over time.
It raises a simple question:
Are we relating to the world directly, or mostly through a task-driven lens?
The video is only ~6 minutes, but it points to something deeper. The way we use attention doesn’t just affect productivity. It shapes how we experience reality itself.
Great video, I love Mr. McGilchrist. This is something I notice a lot in day to day life. There’s a clear difference between when attention is tight and task-focused and when it opens up a bit. The same environment can feel completely different depending on that.
For me, the shift usually happens through the body. Slowing down slightly, taking in more of what’s around me, not just what I’m doing. It’s subtle, but it changes the tone of everything.
This video gives me a kind of uncomfortable recognition.
There are days where everything feels like a sequence of tasks, even things that aren’t really tasks. Walking somewhere, having a conversation, even sitting down to meditate. It all gets pulled into that same narrow mode without me really deciding to do that.
It’s strange noticing how long I can stay in that autopilot mode without realizing anything’s off. It just feels normal until I “wake up”.
I don’t have a clean way of shifting out of it. Sometimes it happens on its own, like my awareness field widens a bit and things feel less compressed. Other times I stay in that tighter mode most of the day. Meditation helps. Listening to inspirational podcasts also helps keep me in this wider brainspace more often, too.
I didn’t used to, but the fitmind app is where i first learned to understand the concept of open awareness. it feels good to widen your awareness. i do it a lot now on purpose and it gives me an immediate sense of calm.
Watch here: Fragmented Attention: The Silent Crisis of the Modern Mind