Ethan Cowan

Thu, 14 May 2026 19:14:07 +0200

Finished reading: The Attention Merchants: The Epic Scramble to Get Inside Our Heads by Tim Wu

Like 30 related New Yorker pieces all strung together, this book is mostly a series of easy-to-read, quickly told stories about the rises and falls of various Attention Merchants, whose general M.O. is to draw our attention with apparently free stuff (entertainment, diversion, or even just email) then resell our attention to advertisers, but whose methods and means change as media technologies develop. The fundamental pattern is that a small number of nameable people with huge amounts of economic ambition and power have, for two centuries now, continually offered “grand bargains” to anyone whose attention is up for grabs, and most of us keep accepting their terms, which are typically not great.

And merchandising attention is socially corrosive in the long run.

I’m really on an attention kick this spring, since reading Attensity!, about attention and how it gets hijacked. Dopamine Nation was about the way our nervous systems can tend toward compulsive overconsumption that gets us stuck in ruts. The Attention Merchants paints a broader picture of massive attentional “markets” or contests (economic, political, moral and intellectual) where powerful people are playing to win the public mind via mass attention capture.

This book helped me get an historical perspective that mass production of the industrial revolution NEEDS mass attention capture, because it’s easier and easier to make more and more consumable goods, and the people who make them need consumers… Maintenance of Everything had a helpful outline of the developmental path of mass production, which is the development of precision manufacturing, which went: government guns, private guns, sewing machines, bikes, Ford autos…

Also helpful to be shown that many successful attentional captures have inspired revolutionary reactions. One way to look at the 1960s and early 70s is as an attentional revolution. Leary and Alpert had the “International Federation for Internal Freedom.” Herbert Marcuse suggested the “Great Refusal” might lead to the ultimate freedom of living without anxiety. The counter-cultural vision was that “public mind would attend to non-commercial stuff—nature, spiritual paths, friends, family, lovers… media would maybe be live concerts or public interest programming.” (159) That’s the milieu in which Feldenkrais first came into public prominence at Esalen in 1972, and that’s the same vibe that inspired me in Attensity! And yet, the book also shows that every revolution, so far, has ended up perpetuating the status quo, once a new technology comes along…

The book ends with the point that any economic or political or moral or intellectual contest or “market” actually consists of two: the competition “on the merits,” but PRIOR to that, the contest for attention that determines what options or choices seem available. So the availability of our attention means there is the constant risk that the contest for attention will make the contest on the merits irrelevant…

Wed, 06 May 2026 01:02:54 +0200

Finished reading: Maintenance of Everything Part One by Stewart Brand

This is a beautiful book, like the actual materiality of the book is really nice, cover has kintsugi veins of gold, page layouts with interesting margins for captions and commentary, blue highlights whose meaning and function gradually dawn through reading. Some of the marginalia comes from people who helped Brand during the writing of the book by reading and commenting through a public drafting website tool called books in progress. Just seems like innovative, well considered book design.

The reading of the book was nice. Yet the shape of the argument or maybe just the shape of the content felt weird to me. Banger first chapter of three interlocking stories about solo boat racing (and maintenance). Then a much longer, more varied, subdivided second chapter, nominally about vehicles, but full of (well labeled) digressions… Good fun, but no feeling of beginning, middle, end, or where it’s going. No conclusion, i guess because it’s only part 1, but neither any cliffhanger or much effort to tease future parts.

Abstractable quotes:

“Just owning and using something is not yet mastery—we need a basic intelligibility of our possessions.” (58) That’s Crawford (Soulcraft) quoted by Brand. Ouch… so few of my possessions do i understand well enough to fix or maintain

“The power to maintain is the power to improve.” (63) Means that knowing how to maintain something means knowing how it works means seeing opportunities for improvement.

The developmental path of mass production is the development of precision manufacturing, which went: government guns, private guns, sewing machines, bikes, Ford autos… And i want to pair that with the rise of advertising (attention merchants).

So much of this book was about military history, which makes sense for the topic but also makes a different kind of sense after learning Stewart Brand was “a professional rifleman in the early 1960s, serving for two years as an infantry officer teaching basic training.” I had to update my model of him cause i had only ever heard him talk about himself as a flower child.

”Old systems fail in familiar and prepared for ways. New systems fail in unexpected and unprepared for ways.” (112 and 27)

Sustainability is a concept built around aspiration for the future. In contrast, sustainment is about getting to work now. (165)

“The opposite of maintenance mind is neglect mind. Neglect mind is part laziness, part ignorance, and part surrender to fantasy. Maintainers are realists.” (179-180)

“Sustainment is everything it takes to ensure prolonged endurance of capability.” (180)

How to Become a really good ATM teacher in 2026?

Wed, 29 Apr 2026 20:45:55 +0200

Today I could try to write a thing for my website about the state of my soul. No, I mean the state of my project.

Having made it somewhat clear to myself that I want to write a book, this month has been largely about putting in place a system for writing that helps me avoid distraction and get traction.

I’ve been putting a lot of time and effort into developing ways to write on paper, first with pens, then with a typewriter, then with a new computer that is stripped down so that it only takes input (no screen), which has then got me into trying to mess with printers, to get the screen-free writing onto paper.

I haven’t quite landed on my final writing set up—in fact I wonder if working on paper is part of me being distracted from the writing itself—but I have made significant progress. And it’s all part of me wrestling with the question of how to approach my own compulsive behaviors. That’s one of the questions I want to explore in the book: How to approach my own compulsive behaviors?

Re-wiring to lessen my compulsions is one reason why it’s important it’s a book I’m working on, because many of my compulsive habits are enmeshed with attention paid to screens. This isn’t something that Feldenkrais ever talked about because screens weren’t a big deal in his time? But screens really influence my life, and that’s something I want to re-wire about myself.

Questions right now:

One

How do I approach my own compulsive behaviors?

Two

How do I, a human being alive in 2026, become a really good ATM teacher? Some aspect of my answer, so far, is about writing. But I have the sense that maybe this book is a step in a direction of eventually not needing or wanting to write as much, since my bigger objective for studying the Esalen materials is to learn them well enough to deliver them unaided by notes.

Three

How do we keep the living, human aspect of the Feldenkrais tradition alive? How do I rewire myself, lessen my compulsions enough, to be able to maintain the tradition myself and to help others learn how to maintain the tradition?

Trying to write a book is me figuring out what technology to use to rewire myself to become a really good ATM teacher and keep the tradition alive. Moshe used tape recorders, that was his tool. Judith Stransky transcribed his notes to make study materials. I’m trying new ways of transcribing notes on cards, and I am also trying to make a book about my process.

Sat, 25 Apr 2026 00:05:00 +0200

Finished reading: Dopamine Nation by Anna Lembke

Compulsive overconsumption. That’s the phrase. That’s what we do with almost everything now, including digital drugs like youtube and “social media.”

Dopamine is used as a scientific currency to measure the addictive potential of experiences.

The companies that benefit from our addictions exploit our brain chemistry. ”Dopamine Economy” and “Limbic capitalism.”

The way to find balance again is to abstain or at least self-bind, so homeostasis of our pain-pleasure equilibrium resets.

Hedonic set point. Strangely, hedonism leads to anhedonia. Even frequent exposure to “natural highs” is related to anhedonia. Hamster wheels are addictive (pump tracks are a drug).

Binding ourselves is a way to be free.

“Compulsive overconsumption of high dopamine goods is the antithesis of human attachment. Consuming leads to isolation and indifference.”

Interesting stuff at the end of the book about “club goods,” which are the rewards of belonging to a group with strict rules that reinforce “pro social shame.”

Transcribing Esalen 4 - Tilting Crossed Legs

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 17:52:36 +0200

I’ve just acquired a typewriter, and it’s part of a new (to me) way of doing ATM transcriptions. I hope to write about this transcription process in the future, because it’s changing how I am approaching my ATM study.

One big aha, so far (I started transcribing Esalen 4 - Tilting Crossed Legs) is seeing how much of Feldenkrais' original language was edited out of the Stransky notes, namely some of the bigger picture ideas…

For example:

With some they draw (the legs) much nearer to the floor than with others. Is this structural? Is it human or is it personal? We want to know all that. And I want you, by the end of the lesson, you will see that it’s different from what’s now. And the real difference will remain only inasmuch as the body is differently built. But not with those fancy, parasitic contractions that there are in the body left over from the standing, from previous experience which has not been digested properly.

All this cool stuff Moshe says about the difference between structural constraints and personal habits, and the leftovers of previous experience that haven’t been properly digested… these details don’t appear in the Stransky notes.

I’m not sure who made the decisions to leave these things out. Was it Judith Stransky or Feldenkrais Resources, who published her “notes” in 1987? Based on this interview with Judith Stransky, I can imagine she might have felt like he was bloviating. Another possibility is that the ideas were just over her head? I’m saying that not as a knock on her, but because I have had the personal experience of not being able to really “hear” some stuff Moshe says when I don’t understanding it, and it all goes by so fast… Or maybe their removal stems from the fact that the opening lecture isn’t included in the notes, so when Feldenkrais refers back to ideas like these that he did introduce before, the editors didn’t think there was enough context to include the ideas?

Anyway, I’m trying to make sense of the editorial focus that leaves out ideas like these.

Mon, 13 Apr 2026 14:52:16 +0200

Finished reading: A System for Writing by Bob Doto

This is a very helpful primer on how to make notes that lead to writing.

Attensity!

Mon, 13 Apr 2026 06:43:56 -0600

Finished reading: Attensity! by The Friends of Attention

The five biggest companies in the world, including Apple, are in the business of human fracking. They are fracking our collective attention and polluting our inner environments! They’re driven by greed. Their goal is making money. And my “time on device” is the only thing about me that is real to them, because that’s the part of my being that can be recorded, quantified and eventually sold.

This book helped me see how It benefits them if my habits of attention calcify around their devices. When I saw that and felt it clearly, all of a sudden I had a very actionable desire to stop paying so much attention to the screens.

It’s not so often that reading a book has a concrete effect on my life, but this one had me switching off my digital tools and turning my attention back to other ways of being, and it feels so good. Thank you for the inspiration, Friends of Attention!

Mon, 06 Apr 2026 20:14:08 -0600

Number Five, from the Twelve Theses on Attention:

An attentional path is the trace left by a free mind. To submit to the attentional path of another, to retrace it, is a form of attention. Retracing the attentional path of a free mind is one of the keenest pleasures we can take in each other and in the world.

Concrete examples of retracing attentional paths: transcribing solos of jazz musicians and transcribing Feldō Awareness Through Movement Lessons.

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 13:20:41 -0600

I just gave a lesson at the Stroke Support Group at Lutheran Hospital in Denver, my first time presenting Feldenkrais to adult stroke survivors, who seemed to enjoy the lesson, and the broadest idea I shared was: We, as a community, can set aside time to do less and try softer, and it’s worth it.

Tue, 31 Mar 2026 11:38:41 -0600

Went on a hike this morning then vibe coded a map making script that puts together gpx and heart rate data.

Sun, 29 Mar 2026 18:07:07 -0600

I just finished reading: Shu Ha Ri by Richard Griffiths @writingslowly

I liked how short it was. I think it would fit in well with other books from Tracy Durnell’s In praise of the hundred page idea.

Shu Ha Ri is about learning through lineage, then keeping lineage alive. I liked the weave of examples from different ways (dōs) that run through the book. Most touching was the story of Jigoro Kano, founder of Judō, whose final request in life was to be buried wearing his white belt. I had already heard a fair bit about Kano because Moshe Feldenkrais studied with Kano, so Kano feels like an ancestor in the Feldenkrais lineage I’m practicing in. But I had never heard this detail about Kano’s intention to maintain beginner’s mind even after going through death.

I also appreciated the explanation of Keiko, a word for training that includes reference to 10 generations of practitioners before. It had me thinking about how lineage holders actually want an endlessness for their practice, for the “living knowledge” or the meme of the practice to go on and on.

Sun, 29 Mar 2026 07:48:14 -0600

Attention is Precious

Turns out I started blogging in 2007

Thu, 26 Mar 2026 18:04:15 -0600

In 2007 I graduated from college and started blogging on blogger.com. I had one called Ethan Brand Development and another one called Acade-Me.

I only published that first summer. In the fall, I started more blogs but never published, just made drafts. Basically journal entries. I won’t bring the drafts forward onto my website now, but I’m definitely keeping them in my files for reference. Some juicy, personal stuff in there. Can’t believe it’s all still just sitting in blogger.com.

Tue, 24 Mar 2026 13:35:02 -0600

I’m thinking about retro-actively assembling my personal website as an archive of lots of previous stuff I did, including stuff I already posted online, which is what Lisa Charlotte Muth did bringing everything back to her website, but ALSO maybe some stuff I haven’t posted before.

Thu, 19 Mar 2026 16:54:00 -0600

Esalen 3

Wed, 18 Mar 2026 16:33:31 -0600

Esalen 2 - Scanning and 5 Lines

I want to write a book

Wed, 18 Mar 2026 13:44:10 -0600

I don’t know why. I’m not sure what it would be about. Plus I know it’s a BIG project and I don’t really have much training. But this desire to write a book just keeps coming up in my life.

And since I’m not getting any younger, I figure I might as well be honest with myself and try to get into it while I have time.

Most of the writing I’ve done until now has been in my journals. And like most people, I’ve also done a little bit of online posting, here and there, but nothing much of note.

But then every once in a while, this bigger desire comes along, to do a bigger project, and it’s always a feeling that just has this general shape, like, “I want to write a book.” And typically, when this happens, I rush into a headspace full of mental furniture and start arranging and rearranging, like guests will be arriving soon.

Sometimes, I’m vaguely aware this inner book fantasy must have something to do with my outer life. What’s going on with me that this is the shape of desire that keeps suggesting itself? A book shaped desire. But then, pretty quickly that hint of perspective turns out to be fleeting and flown.

And again, I’m not sure what I want my writing to do for me, or what I can do for my writing. I think I need to train if I’m going to make it to the top of this book mountain that I seem to be wanting to climb.

I know there are many ways to write: essays, novels, scripts, notes, journalism, blogging, all the sub-genres therein.

I’m not sure what my book would even be about. I’m not sure why my thing would even need to be a book. I don’t know why.

With everything going on in 2026, I feel strange. And haven’t there been enough books already? But I didn’t get my chance yet.

So, here I am, apparently, setting my sights on the top of book mountain. And I guess if I ever make it up there, to the top, I’m probably gonna end up like the bear in the song… to see what he could see.

Wed, 18 Feb 2026 10:39:00 -0600

One of my top contenders for 2026 slogan of the year (it’s early yet, but this does a lot of conceptual work for me).

Wed, 04 Feb 2026 17:00:00 -0600

Esalen 47 - Public Class Sitting Twist

Wed, 21 Jan 2026 17:02:00 -0600

Esalen 32 - Measuring

Mon, 19 Jan 2026 14:04:00 -0600

Esalen 30 - Bridge

Sun, 18 Jan 2026 17:06:00 -0600

Esalen 29 - Toes

Wed, 14 Jan 2026 20:07:00 -0600

Esalen 26 - Foot Above the Head

Unwrap the Present - Perfect Hinges

Tue, 25 Nov 2025 13:07:00 -0600

I’m trying something again, composing my own movement lessons. I’ve done it before, though this time feels different, like I have more faith in the process and more experience under my belt. I’m keeping the process fast and loose, minimal editing, opposite of fussy, like how I imagine the original Alexander Yanai lessons got done.

Make a recording. Try it out with a small audience. Keep moving.

This is a short lesson, no frills, maybe more like a sketch or demo than a finished thing. It’s a one sided, but if that bugs you, just repeat on the other side.

Please let me know if you do the lesson, how it is, what you notice, what doesn’t make sense, etc. Any and all feedback will be entertained.

Yours in gravity and support, Ethan

Transcript

Mon, 06 Oct 2025 17:11:00 -0600

Mia and Gaby SF Evenings 1978 - 1 - Coordinating Flexors and Extensors