Multi-tasking and Meditation

"How can you be in two places at once when you’re not anywhere at all?" This was a goofy line from a very excellent Firesign Theater album back in the day. Yet it reminds me of a conundrum I’ve been trying to solve for some time. In my book Digital Mythologies I wrote about what might be called the spiritual implications of multi-tasking.

When I look at distracted multitaskers, not fully giving their attention to either one thing or the other, rightly or wrongly it always reminds me of the precise opposite of Zen mindfulness. In the book I talked about a Sprint commercial that urged us to “Be There Now” through the use of the Internet. The great irony of course is that phrase was ripped off and negatively transmuted from a well known Ram Dass book called “Be Here Now”.

I don’t claim to have the ultimate answer here just a lot of questions. For example, John Selby talks about how if you try and follow your breath during meditation, you get a certain result. But he also says (and I’ve tried this and concur) that if you focus on another element (it could be anything in the process), you effectively short circuit the mind and generating thoughts are close to impossible. How does this “two for one” activity compare to multitasking? Is multitasking somehow a function of a newer kind of consciousness or does it represent a step away from the mindfulness that’s necessary in these difficult times?