Our good friend Greg(arious) Narain has written a great little piece on the idea of “Continuous Partial Postponement” that he gleaned from a book he is reading called Breaking Open the Head: A Psychedelic Journey into the Heart of Contemporary Shamanism by Daniel Pinchbeck. He relates it to being the pessimistic view of looking at Linda Stone’s ideas around “Continuous Partial ATTENTION“. From my perspective it is simply another way of correlating to the brain as computer metaphor - we have to share/split the functions of the whole brain in order to interact with the ever quickening pace of life today.  This does not mean we lose the ability to be fully present in any given moment, just that we choose to operate differently for our own unique personal objectives.  Asking questions as to whether or not this is good or bad for us is the right thing to do, but I am not inclined to judge it as either good or bad - though like similar activities and experiences, it is best done in moderation.

It is though, more of an effect of the global network connectivity enabled by technology rather than the technology itself - but would of course not be possible without the technology. I make this additional distinction because we get to choose how we use our tools - or at least those of us who can make a conscious choice do. While the system demands us to be ever more hyper nodes of the network, scanning, processing, determining and taking action, we don’t need to feed it - most people don’t and won’t. However, in the knowledge economy that we live within today, those who have the talent and skills should be rewarded richly if they find their passion and joy in such activities. Only so much of it can really be taught, this contextualiation capability is an evolutionary and genetic trait.

My take on Greg’s insyte comes from an understanding that it is not one face of the coin, but the whole coin that must be considered. So, while Daniel may be interested in that which we don’t pay attention to and postpone to process later, and while Linda is interested in how we optimize what we pay attention to in the moment, I am still more interested in both. More importantly, I am curious to understand the systems at play and the changing landscape upon which it’s rules operate.

That said, I had a completely different understanding how the phrase “Continuous Partial Postponement” was being used when I first read it. Now that it is sinking in, I may have been right after all, but on an oh so deep abstraction layer. I had taken it to mean the continuous postponement of all the things I caught with my attention and which flitters across the wires everytime my Firefox browser crashes and the 100+ tabs reload - reminding me of all the things I want to write about, but am continuously postponing in order to get the highest priority things done.

Hmmm…. What do you think?