Practice & Presence

Practice & Presence

Be here now. Being present is a skill, not a state.

The practices threaded through this wiki aren't about achieving some transcendent state. They're about showing up fully to what you're actually doing. Presence as method, not mystique.

What Is Practice?

Practice is deliberate repetition with attention. Not mere repetition (that's just habit), not just doing it once (that's just experience).

Practice means:

• Notice what happens
• Adjust based on what you notice
• Repeat with intention
• Refine over time

This requires presence - otherwise you're just going through motions.

Presence as Skill

Presence isn't something you have or don't have. It's something you do.

Like any skill:

• You can be bad at it (distracted, reactive, asleep)
• You can get better at it (through practice)
• You can improve specific domains (good at listening, bad at waiting)
• It compounds (better presence leads to better noticing leads to better decisions)

The Practices

Daily Grounding

File:Cup of coffee macro.jpg

Coffee - ritual as presence, presence as ritual

Coffee ritual:

• Not about the caffeine
• About showing up fully to one action
• Grounding before the day's complexity
• Creating space for intention-setting

Simple practice:

• Grinding beans - notice the smell, sound, feeling
• Hot water - watch the color change as it brews
• Tasting - actually pay attention
• First few minutes of the day belong to this one thing

Intention-Setting

CIPHER Morning Ritual:

• Not planning the whole day (that's strategy)
• Asking: what matters most right now?
• Gathering context from tools that know your situation
• Using Claude as a sounding board, not a decision-maker
• Choosing your pomodoros deliberately

The presence here: recognizing you have limited attention, choosing where to direct it.

Attention in Creation

Film Photography as presence:

• 36 frames per roll means every shot costs something
• No chimping (checking the screen) - trust your judgment
• Manual focus requires active seeing
• Development is waiting - the image emerges, you don't instantly see it

This teaches:

• Attention before capture
• Acceptance of uncertainty
• Patience as a technique
• The image is an artifact, not data

Creative Principles all depend on presence:

• You can't be authentic while distracted
• You can't find your voice while copying others
• You can't serve the work while protecting the self

Embodied Practice

Motorcycle and Field Operations:

• Decision-making with your whole body
• Reading the terrain, the weather, the machine
• Not from abstraction but from direct contact
• This is where presence becomes survival

Exercise Philosophy:

• Your body isn't separate from your mind
• Physical practice strengthens mental clarity
• Movement creates thinking
• Taking care of the body IS taking care of the mind

Craft Presence

Soldering, Knots, Film development:

• Presence with your hands
• Temperature, timing, technique all matter
• Small failures teach clearly
• The work demands attention or it fails

1. 1. Presence in Different Domains ==

Domain	Presence Looks Like
Coffee	Actually tasting it, not just consuming caffeine
CIPHER Morning Ritual	Honest assessment of capacity, not wishful planning
Film Photography	Seeing before shooting, accepting uncertainty
Motorcycle	Reading terrain and machine, not lost in thought
Creative Principles	Writing what's true, not what's safe
Soldering	Temperature and timing, not rushing
Reading	Thinking with the author, not just consuming words

Obstacles to Presence

Distraction

The phone, notifications, competing inputs.

Not solved by willpower. Solved by:

• Designing your environment (don't keep the distraction near)
• Understanding what you're actually seeking (boredom? escape?)
• Replacing with better practices (Coffee, CIPHER Morning Ritual)

Anticipation

Worrying about what comes next instead of doing this thing.

Practice: notice when your mind leaves the present moment. Gently return.

Not fighting your mind - that's still not presence. Just noticing and returning.

Judgment

Being present to how you're doing it wrong. That's not presence, that's criticism.

Presence includes: kindness toward yourself in the practice.

The meditation teacher's job isn't to stop your mind from wandering. It's to help you notice without judgment when it wanders.

Perfection

Waiting until conditions are perfect to practice.

Presence is practiced in actual conditions, with actual limitations. The coffee isn't perfect. The weather is mediocre. Your focus wavers. Practice anyway.

1. 1. Building the Habit ==

Start Stupidly Small

Don't commit to "morning meditation". Commit to "three conscious breaths before coffee".

One actual practice beats ten theoretical commitments.

Find the Anchor

Tie the practice to something you already do:

• Coffee after waking
• A specific time each day
• Before a specific activity
• With a specific person

Anchors make practices stick.

Track Presence, Not Perfection

Not: "Did I meditate for 30 minutes?"

Rather: "Did I notice when my mind wandered and gently return?"

The metric is noticing and returning, not achieving some state.

Community as Practice

Harder to skip when others are doing it. This is why:

• Ham Radio communities persist
• Coffee with others matters
• Writing publicly keeps you honest
• Field Operations often involve others

Presence with others teaches presence with yourself.

1. 1. Integration ==

All these practices point at the same skill:

Showing up fully to what you're actually doing.

Whether that's:

• Tasting coffee
• Choosing intentions
• Taking a photograph
• Riding a motorcycle
• Writing true things

The skill compounds:

• Better presence → better noticing
• Better noticing → better decisions
• Better decisions → more aligned life
• More aligned life → easier presence

It's not circular because you're improving at each turn.

Not About

Presence is NOT:

• Zen detachment (you're here, not nowhere)
• Blank mind (presence includes thought)
• Passivity (presence enables more effective action)
• Purity (presence includes imperfection)
• Escape from difficulty (it includes difficulty)

Presence is showing up fully to your actual life.

Related

• Coffee - simple daily practice
• Film Photography - attention as method
• Creative Principles - authenticity requires presence
• Motorcycle and Field Operations - embodied presence
• Exercise Philosophy - mind and body practice
• CIPHER Morning Ritual - intentional practice
• Sensemaking Systems - present thinking about complexity
• Influences & Thinking - Ram Dass and presence

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