A welcomed if unexpected visitor

As with reading, we’re all aware of a kind of ‘voice’ in our minds which is how we are aware of our thoughts. Sometimes it is as if we actually ‘hear’ the words spoken in a literal sentence form, while at others it’s a cognitive state of mind that emerges and crystallizes in the moment.

Reflect upon last 24 hours. Through your journey from stepping out of bed, the morning wash and dress routine, the hours you spent engaged in industry, the commute home, the arrival and passing of dinner and retiring to bed: several thoughts came into your mind during that time. But how many did you actually choose to think and how just many appeared in your mind beyond your will?

Your thoughts might have seemed deliberate and connected in a direct way to your own personal life, such as musing while passing a grocery store on the ride home “What am I going to have for dinner tonight?” Especially in situations where there is no evidence of context and it seems to happen spontaneously, the question of control or influence in the emergence of a thought is a perplexing one. Can we reasonably claim to be in control of what we think if the emergence of a thought it beyond our control?

One we’ve had a thought, are we any more in control of what happens with it? Can we choose deliberately not to think about something like a pink elephant and shut it out of our mind? Can we stop a thought once banished from returning? If so, why is it that some have an orbital trajectory, cycling into our awareness persistently over a matter of minutes, or days, or weeks, or years?

One of the few times that we deliberately seek to exercise control over our thoughts happens while in a meditative state, or an activity inducing one such as Yoga. But even here at a time when the consciousness is being purposefully channeled in a specific way, the deliberate focus on specific thoughts or senses is usually not our own, but being guided by an expert, or advice.

There is no conspiracy theory lurking here. Psychologists would contend that we are the originators of much of our thinking even though it may be beyond our direct control or access. That the magnificent machinery operating in the expansive reaches of the subconscious is the forge. And the gifts of everyday existence are the thoughts that break the surface and appear in our mind, often unannounced.

Rhett Butler on controlling the mind

Does it matter that there is so little awareness and interest in control of the emergence or existence of thoughts in our minds?

We are living in an age of fear and illusion. Fear because our mortal vulnerability and the deep appreciation of the scarcity of time we have to live have been dramatically heightened in the ‘public mind’ from events in the last 6 years. Illusion because our attempts to cope have come in the form of false belief in control. A tremendous industry – both businesses and our own duplicitous cooperation – has sprung up to feed this beckoning call.

We can postpone death (by controlling aging, or just the signs of it). We can control birth (when it happen contraception, if it can happen infertility and even what happens offspring gender). And almost everywhere in between, control comes from a plethora of devices that permeate all aspects of our lives and instantly respond to our command:

* The originally humble but now much more complex TV remote
* The cell phone
* DVRs and Tivo
* Blackberries/Treos
* Remote home lighting and heating systems
* The multiplicity of security devices
* The ubiquity of the internet which allows us unprecedented reach to manage the many areas of our lives.

These ‘tools’ foster the sense not just that we are can influence but control the direction of our day, the situations we find ourselves in.

It makes us feel good but that it missing the point. The fact that it is not working is becoming increasingly evident through the dysfunction that occurs when people find themselves not in control. How quickly people lose their composure nad become hostile is only one expression. In airports, on aeroplanes, in cars, in hotels, In fact, any place where our day and time is not unfolding how we think it should and we are unable to direct it otherwise.

With all this abundant focus outward on mastering all we survey, OFD suggests that greater success lies – where it does with happiness – which is through an inward journey, of understanding, development and progress. Jung and Csikszentmihalyi are in agreement on this matter.

The closing line of Gone With The Wind is an apt sentiment. Frankly, society doesn’t give a damn. It requires too much effort of the wrong kind where the result does not meet our instant gratification craving. We our indifferent to the one true and sustainable domain we have an opportunity to guide: control over internal phenomena rather than external ones.