Solve it with less.
In the age of AI, you could spin up a cloud architecture, orchestrate agents, connect to the latest foundation model, build a RAG pipeline with vector embeddings, wire up GitHub Actions, deploy to Kubernetes, add authentication and analytics, collect stakeholder feedback through a custom web app, and ship weekly feature updates.
Or you could just use a Word doc.
The best architecture is the one you don’t have to build.
Solve it with less.
One of the challenges of meditation is knowing whether we are improving. Some sessions feel calm, others seem filled with distraction. Over weeks or months we hope our attention is becoming steadier, but progress is often difficult to perceive because attention is largely invisible.
Recent years have seen the emergence of neurofeedback devices that estimate attentional states using physiological signals such as EEG. These technologies are fascinating and continue to improve, but they are also relatively expensive and introduce another layer of technology into meditation.
This essay presents a simpler approach.
Rather than attempting to measure attention directly, this method records a specific metacognitive event: the moment a meditator recognizes that attention has wandered. That moment of recognition is central to meditation. Before it, the mind is absorbed in thought. After it, attention can be deliberately returned to the meditation object.
Throughout this essay, counting distractions refers to counting these recognized distractions. The method does not objectively measure attention itself. Rather, it provides an objective, standardized record of metacognitive events. By applying the same counting protocol from one session to the next, the resulting counts become meaningfully comparable across meditation sessions.
More importantly, this is not merely a method of measurement. It is also a method of training. Each time a distraction is recognized, the meditator performs the very mental act that meditation seeks to cultivate: awareness of distraction followed by a gentle return of attention. The act of measurement becomes an act of practice.
This method draws upon several well-established findings in cognitive psychology and contemplative science.
First, researchers have shown that the human mind naturally wanders. Conscious experience rarely remains on one topic for long; attention regularly shifts away from the present task toward internally generated thoughts and feelings. Mind wandering is therefore not a failure of meditation but a normal feature of human cognition (Smallwood & Schooler, 2015).
Second, an important distinction exists between mind wandering itself and meta-awareness–the moment we realize that the mind has wandered. Schooler and colleagues argue that the mind is only intermittently aware of engaging in mind wandering, and that this recognition represents a distinct metacognitive process (Schooler et al., 2011). This distinction is central to the counting method proposed here.
Third, mindfulness training has been associated with reductions in mind wandering and improvements in sustained attention. Mrazek, Smallwood, and Schooler (2012) found that mindfulness and mind wandering are opposing constructs in relation to undistracted attention, and that a brief period of mindful breathing reduced behavioral indicators of mind wandering on a later task.
Fourth, contemplative science has increasingly examined meditation as a training of awareness of spontaneous thought. Brandmeyer and Delorme (2021) propose a neurocognitive framework in which meditation cultivates awareness of mind wandering and supports attention regulation. Their work is especially relevant because it links meditation, spontaneous thought, and metacognitive awareness.
The method presented here builds on these findings. It does not attempt to detect mind wandering through physiological measurements such as EEG. Instead, it provides a simple, standardized way for meditators to record moments of meta-awareness during meditation itself. Each click records one such event, creating both a measurement of practice and a form of immediate feedback that helps cultivate the very capacity being measured.
To my knowledge, the literature has focused on detecting mind wandering through experience sampling, behavioral tasks, or physiological measures. The method proposed here offers a simple, standardized practice for recording naturally occurring moments of meta-awareness during meditation itself.
The method is simple.
Hold a tally counter comfortably in one hand throughout the meditation. Whenever you recognize that your attention has genuinely wandered from the meditation object, press the counter once. The click records a single metacognitive event: the conscious recognition that attention has drifted. Then gently return your attention to the meditation object.
The counter is used only when awareness returns after a distraction. Most of the meditation proceeds without interacting with it. At the end of the session, the total provides a standardized record of recognized distractions.
The tally counter does not objectively measure attention itself. Rather, it provides an objective, standardized record of moments of meta-awareness. It is this distinction that makes the method both simple and scientifically meaningful.
Meditation develops through repeated cycles of attention, distraction, recognition, and return. The moment of recognition is easy to overlook, yet it is the pivot on which the practice turns. Without recognizing distraction, there can be no intentional return to the meditation object.
The tally counter reinforces this moment. Every click acknowledges, “I noticed.” The click does not record failure. It records awareness.
Over time, practitioners often notice that distractions are recognized sooner and attention returns more naturally. Early in practice, the distraction count may even increase as awareness becomes more sensitive. This should be welcomed. The goal is not to suppress thoughts but to cultivate the ability to recognize them without judgment.
Unlike many measurement tools, the tally counter does more than observe the practice. It actively reinforces the skill it measures.
I recommend a simple mechanical tally counter.
Before using any device, I experimented with counting on my fingers. Beginning with both hands closed, I extended one finger after each recognized distraction. Ten fingers are generally sufficient for a twenty- or thirty-minute meditation. This method works, although I occasionally lost track of which fingers had already been extended. A counter simply performs the same task more reliably.
Digital tally counters are widely available, but I found them less suitable for meditation. The digital counters I tested entered power-saving mode after periods of inactivity. During meditation I could not tell whether the device was awake, and if it had gone to sleep, the first button press merely woke the device instead of recording the distraction. This introduced an unnecessary interruption into the practice.
A mechanical counter has none of these limitations. It requires no batteries, never sleeps, fits comfortably in the hand, and registers every press immediately with a quiet, reassuring click. After a few sessions, operating it becomes almost automatic.
The counter should interfere with the meditation as little as possible. Its purpose is not to become another object of attention, but to provide a reliable, consistent record of recognized distractions.
To make the tally counter a meaningful measurement tool, use it consistently. The objective is not to count every fleeting mental event but to apply the same criteria during every meditation session.
When in doubt, do not click. Consistency is more important than attempting to count every possible distraction.
A single meditation session reveals little. A meditation log reveals patterns.
After each session, record:
| Date | Time | Minutes | Internal | External | Distractions | Note |
| 2026-06-27 | 7:00 am | 30 | 2 | 1 | 12 | Poor sleep; noise outside. |
The purpose of the log is not to judge individual meditation sessions but to observe trends over weeks, months, and years. You may discover that certain times of day produce better concentration, that poor sleep predicts higher distraction counts, or that environmental conditions influence your practice. These observations provide context for the distraction count and help explain changes over time.
The strength of this method lies in its simplicity.
It requires no specialized equipment, no software, and no knowledge of neuroscience. It asks only that the meditator consistently recognize and record one well-defined metacognitive event: the moment attention is seen to have wandered.
Over time, those simple observations become a record of practice, a source of feedback, and a means of cultivating greater mindfulness.
What can be measured can often be improved. By measuring moments of awareness, we train awareness itself.
If you would like to try this method, I recommend a specific mechanical tally counter that I have found reliable for meditation. Details are available on my website.
I also host online meditation sessions using this counting method. Practicing together helps develop a consistent approach while exploring how metacognitive awareness develops through practice.
Finally, I invite practitioners to contribute anonymous meditation logs. By collecting standardized data from many meditators, I hope to better understand patterns of attention, distraction, and the development of meditation practice.
For information about the recommended counter, meditation sessions, and participation in the anonymous logging project, visit johnmiedema.art.
Brandmeyer, T., & Delorme, A. (2021). Meditation and the wandering mind: A theoretical framework of underlying neurocognitive mechanisms. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 16(1), 39-66. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691620917340
Mrazek, M. D., Smallwood, J., & Schooler, J. W. (2012). Mindfulness and mind-wandering: Finding convergence through opposing constructs. Emotion, 12(3), 442-448. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0026678
Schooler, J. W., Smallwood, J., Christoff, K., Handy, T. C., Reichle, E. D., & Sayette, M. A. (2011). Meta-awareness, perceptual decoupling and the wandering mind. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 15(7), 319-326. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2011.05.006
Smallwood, J., & Schooler, J. W. (2015). The science of mind wandering: Empirically navigating the stream of consciousness. Annual Review of Psychology, 66, 487-518. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-psych-010814-015331
Today is the summer solstice, the longest day of the year. At home in Canada, the sun rises before 5 a.m. and sets after 8:40 p.m., giving nearly sixteen hours of daylight. Yet after two weeks in Fife and Moray, Scotland, Canada’s longest day feels almost short. There, as we travelled northward through the days leading up to the solstice, it often seemed that the summer sun never truly set. Evening stretched past 10 p.m., darkness never fully arrived, and the sky retained a lingering silver-blue glow through much of the night before dawn returned a few short hours later. Over those two weeks, we gradually lost our sense of where afternoon ended and night began. Harbours, village streets, and coastal paths remained illuminated long after we expected darkness, creating the feeling that the day was continuous—a single extended northern summer day unfolding from one sunrise to the next.
Energy consumption is not the problem. The Sun provides more renewable energy than humanity could ever need. The problem is our stubborn dependence on oil for profit and power, and the carbon emissions that continue to destabilize the climate.
Resource consumption is not the problem either. With abundant renewable energy, we could recycle far more effectively and eventually access resources beyond Earth. Energy is the limiting factor.
Artificial intelligence is not the problem. Why cling to unnecessary corporate jobs when abundant clean energy and intelligent machines could help provide the essentials for human flourishing? The challenge is not technology itself, but how we choose to organize society around it.
I don’t worry about AI wrecking writing skills. I don’t worry one bit. I learned to write from story tellers, drawing comics, reading poetry, and music listening.
We are going through a CLIMATE WINTER in which we stay silent about carbon emissions, climate policy, and renewable energy out of fear for THE ECONOMY and ALBERTA and TRUMP. How long until Spring? 🌼
Me and My Shadow is a comic work I created during the pandemic under my pen name, Jan Andreas. It follows Jay, an isolated man in the early days of the 2020 lockdown, who begins noticing his only constant companion: his shadow. I published 50 print copies and distributed them free to the first 50 people who asked. Last year, I published it as an e-book through Snail Books, where it is still available for purchase. I also made an open-access legal deposit with Library and Archives Canada. The work is now available to view online for free, forever. Enjoy.
The article is from 2012 but I’m honoured by the mention, especially since my name is cohabiting space with Amy and Jimmy Carter.
You are the first to know: an update is coming to Slow Reading this year, with new chapters by myself and two literary colleagues.
Veganism makes a compelling claim: that humans do not need to eat animals. I am largely in agreement. I eat increasingly vegan, and I object, deeply, to the scale and anonymity of violence in factory farming. And yet, I still eat meat. Not often, and not casually. When I do, it is usually local. It comes from a place I can name, from a life that was part of the same landscape I inhabit. I also respect Indigenous practices of hunting, where the act is not hidden but understood as part of a relationship.
A vegan friend challenged me on this inconsistency. The argument was simple: if we do not need to kill animals, why do it at all? My answer felt insufficient at the time, but it has stayed with me. I countered that animals eat animals. Life feeds on life. The question is not easily resolved by declaring ourselves outside of that pattern. Are we so separate, so superior, that the rules no longer apply? Of course, it is not a perfect symmetry. We industrialize death in ways no other species does, and we distance ourselves from it. That distance may be the real ethical rupture.
Still, I live close enough to the edge to feel the older pattern. On my rural property, my dogs keep watch, barking and keeping coyotes and wolves at bay. Bears come to the apple trees. My house is not just a home but a fortification. When I camp, I hang my food to protect myself. I am not outside the food chain.
The boundary dissolves further when I look closer. Bacteria live on and within me, entire ecosystems sustained by my body. At death, the exchange becomes more visible. Worms, insects, and microbes will do their work. We resist this with coffins and chemicals, as if permanence were an option, but it isn’t. Nature takes us back, slowly and completely. For my part, I find myself wanting to accept that exchange, not as something abstract, but as something literal: to return what I have taken, and to allow my body, in the end, to feed the same world that sustained me.
This does not resolve the ethical tension of eating animals, and it doesn’t make the question go away. But it places it in a wider frame. We are not outside the cycle. We are participants in it, whether we acknowledge it or not.
It is now widely accepted that Western neuroscience has something meaningful to offer the modern practice of meditation. By identifying neural correlates of attention, awareness, and emotional regulation, it has helped clarify mechanisms that practitioners have long described from within. What remains less clear is how this same lens might extend to other cultural practices, such as Indigenous storytelling. If meditation has been understood as a disciplined training of attention, storytelling may reveal a different but equally structured mode of mind, one that binds attention to memory, identity, and relationship. I am not Indigenous, but I offer these reflections with care, with the view that neuroscience can provide meaningful insight into aspects of this practice, even if it cannot fully account for it.
With meditation, the science has largely focused on the regulation of attention and self. Studies often point to changes in the default mode network, the prefrontal cortex, and the insula. These correlate with reduced rumination, steadier focus, and heightened awareness of the body. The practice is often solitary, deliberate, and method-driven. The brain findings map neatly onto that structure.
With Indigenous storytelling, the experience is less about directing attention inward and more about being drawn into a shared field of meaning. Neuroscience suggests several overlapping processes at work. When we listen deeply to a story, the brain enters a state of narrative absorption. Sensory and associative regions activate as if we are partially living the events. The usual analytic voice softens. This begins to resemble meditative immersion, though reached through story rather than breath.
At the same time, storytelling strongly engages memory systems, especially those linked to identity. The hippocampus helps bind narrative to place, lineage, and personal meaning. Repetition deepens this encoding. What is being trained is not just attention, but belonging.
There is also a social dimension that meditation research is only beginning to touch. In group storytelling, listeners’ brains can synchronize with each other and with the speaker. Rhythm, tone, and pacing entrain attention across the group. Emotion is co-regulated. The experience is not confined to one mind. It is distributed.
Imagery and metaphor add another layer. Stories guide attention through images rather than instructions. The brain’s perceptual systems engage as if encountering the world directly. In this sense, storytelling becomes a way of training perception itself, shaping how reality is noticed and interpreted.
So where meditation trains attention to stabilize and observe, storytelling may train attention to participate, remember, and relate. Neuroscience does not reduce one to the other, but it shows that both are structured ways of shaping mind and experience. One clarifies the mechanics of focus and awareness. The other reveals how identity, community, and world are carried and renewed through attentive listening.
Seen this way, the contribution of neuroscience is not to explain storytelling away, but to quietly confirm that something real and trainable is happening there too.