“We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art, and very often in our art, the art of words.”
Ursula K. Le Guin
What will we fill our heads with?
This is an oft remembered quote for me. Every time I see patterns of behavior that I hope will be changed for humanity’s arc, I think of this. Sometimes, in order for things to change, it has to reach levels of intolerable.
Maybe that is where the attention industry will reach, and it this feeling of overwhelm that will herald in a new system of reward.
We had our hands full with survival in humanity’s infancy,
we filled our heads with myths and legends of heroism, superhuman strength, superhuman abilities.
We evolved and figured out ways of relatively sustainable food sources,
we filled our heads with epics, art, and music.
We figured out mass production,
we filled our heads with science fiction and fantasy seeking out other planets, other environments.
We figured out how to amass our thoughts and search/retrieve with ease,
we filled our heads with social media.
We are figuring out meta-cognition,
what will we fill our heads with then?
Some days it isn’t the woodpecker who brings on the musing. It is the memory of a gas station.
The gas-station quandary
I had stopped the other day at a gas station (for gas – the clarification is necessary. These days we can stop at gas stations for milk, chips, entertainment and so much more) . Now, I don’t know about you, but I usually like to see the steady increase in the gas the tank is taking in. 12.00, 12.11, 12.12, 12.13, 12.14, 12.14, 12.15, 12.16.
A smile on my face when I see our car gulp in the gas like it’s a thirsty horse after a long run. The silly comparison makes me cringe a little, yes, but then I had seen a few horses trot in their pasture once just before stopping to fill gas, and often when the mind wanders at a gas station, I think of these chestnut beauties throwing their manes back and feeling the breeze.
But the other day, my attention was pulled towards a screen perched over the meter showing me advertisements on what they think should occupy my attention for the three minutes I was there. Combined with all the flashing billboards, and the moving screens, and the flashing games mobile phones are full off, I felt off-kilter.
How did we get here?
When did attention become such an important commodity that we sacrifice almost everything at its altar? Peace, quiet, steady study, calm, concerted effort – everything giving way to drama, loudness, frenzied movement, and quick reward systems.
What can be done so that the opposite is rewarded again? For it is clear we are driven by reward.
Can there be a small quiet reward to our brain when we quieten a loud intrusive distraction?
Bring in the horses
I smiled at that. “Monkey brain!”, I chided myself. Though I have to admit, I am not sure what the attention span of monkeys are. I hope monkey mothers are not yelling at their children as we speak – “Human-brain! Distracted all the time. Swing. Leap. Onward and forward!”
I forced myself to bring in the mental image of the horses I had seen all those years ago before getting to a gas station, and they came. Reluctantly at first. CNN was asking me to get affronted about something, and thoughts of monkeys and horses could not pull me away easily. But they finally did. They cantered into the mind’s eye, like William Wordsworth swaying daffodils, and the brain quietened down. The green pastures the horses trotted in bursting with flowers, and I felt a calm. By the time I pulled out of the gas station, I had needed help from a menagerie to pluck my attention.
What would it take to become focused on something so beautiful and deep, that nothing matters?
How many of you are flibberty-gibbets? What would the social order be to reward that and what would be incentive enough to disrupt our current trend?
Nourish-n-Cherish 