Attention vampires and priorities

So many things to do. So little time. What are my priorities? And how do I change my life so that I'm following them?

First, this insight:

Information consumes ... the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of information sources that might consume it. Herbert Simon (Designing Organizations for an Information-rich World, 1969). Quoted here.

Time is a scarce resource. I get max 24 hours of it ( Earth time) a day. My subscription to "The daily 24" may run out all too soon.  Bummer!

Until then, I get my 24. I spend some of it in bed, eyes closed, mostly unconscious, with almost no attention available for my intentional use. I spend most of the rest of it moving through the world, eyes open, with more attention available, but barely conscious. Not as unconscious as sleep. More aware. But conscious in the way that a sleeper might be conscious of a dream.

In that state, most of my attention consumed by entities purpose-designed to capture my attention and devour it. In return for my attention they give me small, occasional rewards, but little that I consciously desire. They live on my attention and the attention of others. They're attention vampires.

Time is scarce, attention scarcer, and consciousness is rarest of all. Once the vampires start feasting there's no chance for consciousness to rise. Even awareness fades. As the vampires feed, I lose awareness of everything but what the vampires want me to be aware of. That would be awful if I realized it. But I don't. I only remember it and hazily at that. How can it be otherwise? I was barely conscious.

From time to tome I break free, but breaking free is not enough for me to move to consciousness. For that, I need a reminder. Something has to prompt me to go beyond attention to some stage of consciousness--of which there are many.

I can rank consciousness in levels (or perhaps a partial ordering) from lowest to highest. The highest is both the rarest and the best. And that's my priority: more time in more conscious states.

Perhaps the consciousness of animals is more shadowy than ours and perhaps their perceptions are always dreamlike. On the opposite side, whenever I talked with the sharpest intellect whom I have known - with von Neumann - I always had the impression that only he was fully awake, that I was halfway in a dream.’ Attributed to Eugene Wigner, quoted by Steve Hsu, cited here

What's the value of an experience without consciousness? Certainly, it has some value;  most of what I have experienced I have experienced unconsciously, and I'm glad that I've had it. But the value I assign of an experience without consciousness is far less than the value I assign to that same experience with consciousness.

So that's my first priority. More conscious experiencing.

Note: this post was written while more than usually aware and conscious.