“Some [people] see things as they are and ask why?
Others see things as they could be and ask why not?”
John F. Kennedy Jnr.
(my edits in square brackets to update gender)
The biggest operational crude oil tanker in the World is the DHT Colt measuring 336 meters in length and having a deadweight of 319,713 tonnes – it can carry about 3 million barrels of oil. However, because of its size and weight it has considerable momentum and will take about 5 kilometres to stop and roughly 15-20 minutes to come to a complete stop. It’s turning diameter is approximately 2 kilometres!
The human brain can process 11 million bits of information per second however the conscious mind can only handle about 40 to 50 bits of information per second – to cope with this we use cognitive shortcuts to help make decisions – these short cuts can create implicit or unconscious cognitive bias. From an Existential perspective we are making reactive decisions based on how we think the World works based on our Past experience.
Most of us are going around and around the Past Present loop up to 90% of the time with estimates that about 40% of our behaviour is mindless habit. The Past Present loop has momentum just like the massive oil tanker and what holds us in this Past Present loop is fixed thinking. This type of thinking has four key types: Right/Wrong thinking; Blame and Judgment; Us and Them; and, If only…
The Past Present loop is pervasive because it’s safe – going around and around here we are walking through Past experiences – we can stay in our comfort zone and argue our position using logical and rational thought and of course evidence from the Past. So, for example we can have an argument about who is right or wrong – we can lay blame for events – we can divide into Us and Them – and we can deny ourselves the ability to take action to move things forward by saying – Yes but if only we had … we could act, but we don’t so we can’t…
Stepping into the Future Present loop can be risky because we don’t have direct evidence in the form of Past experience to inform and support our choices – we need Will and Courage to hold us there. The challenge is how long it can take to enact change and how long we must therefore be able to hold ourselves and possibly others in the unknown and uncertain space of the future. It’s relatively easy to find the courage to act boldly in a moment, however if we consider the change literature then it becomes apparent that it takes 6 – 12 months to create some sustainable behavioural change and up to 2 years to actually reap the full benefits of that change.
Along the way we are faced with challenges and setbacks that can create a fear based reaction in us – this fear sends us straight back to the Past and the continued creation of things the way they have always been.
Additionally, as we travel through life we have setbacks along the way that hurt us emotionally and create markers in our brains to alert us to similar events so that we don’t get hurt again.
The Past Present loop will trap us in the Past and the way things have always been because it’s scary to change and especially when we are operating in a volatile changing environment the future and the World can be scary – fear can drive us to the safe comfort of what we already know – the Past. In this way the momentum from the Past can actually inhibit our ability to create something new and better for the Future. Operating from the safe position of the Past we see options not true possibility and our interactions can become relational rather than intentional.
What this means is that we may start off with heartfelt and good intentions – let’s say to create Peace in the World – but then something happens – a trigger event that causes us to have an emotional reaction that makes us feel that whatever has happened is unfair or unjust – maybe someone has abused us for cutting them off in traffic. Our emotional reaction drives us into the Past and into judgement about who is right and who is wrong – we adopt our fixed position or interpretation of the World and we decide that we are right to be able to abuse them back – our justification is simple – they deserved it!
But wait – now we have acted in a way that is out of alignment with our intention to create Peace in the World and instead we have actually contributed to more negativity. The ‘Yes but…’ reaction will undermine our intentions – “I would really like to be like that…” or “You should really be like that…” - “Yes but everyone else is doing it so I had no choice…”; “Yes but I deserve it…”; “Yes but I’m doing it for you…”; “Yes but it’s not hurting anyone…”; “Yes but it’s just this one little thing…”
All of these justifications are relational – they are based on our fixed understanding of the World and how it works. The killer defence when this is pointed out to us by others – or possibly internal dialogue – is – “OMG you are so idealistic and naïve – that’s not how the World works, get a grip on reality!” – and that brings us neatly back to the way things are…
Even worse is when you have experienced some setback in the Past that has created a negative emotional marker – the trigger event can bring all of this back up and trip you straight into reactive mode. Again, inhibiting your ability to be intentional.
The point?
Mysticism remember? The World is a mystery that we cannot hope to understand but we must never stop trying. If we want to be able to step into this epistemology, we need to find some way of releasing the Past and the hold it has on us. Only by releasing the Past and our belief that we are right about how the World works can we find ways to step into an intentional and aspirational way of being without being riddled by fear.
That is – to be FREE
How to?
This happens on many levels – personal, social, organisational, country, global.
Remember the epistemology of mysticism is you can’t comprehend the World and there’s a whole lot more going on behind the scenes than you can experience with your five senses. The requirement to get on board is some level of faith that there is deeper meaning in life and that things are happening for a reason. It’s worth noting too – if you recall the last post and the discussion about Narnia, the Lord of the Rings, and Star Wars – there is a battle between Good and Evil. So, it’s not good to do nothing – we must act on our aspirations and intentions no matter how small or powerless we believe we may be.
“Nobody made a greater mistake than [they] who did nothing because [they] could do only a little. The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good [people] to do nothing. The greater the power, the more dangerous the abuse."
Edmund Burke
(my edits to update gender in square brackets)
Back to the how – and note here the stats above on how much information the human brain can take in compared to how much we can consciously process. We are pattern matching and short cutting a lot!
So, the analogy here is that the little mouse in the head is driving the while body based on the limited amount of information it is actually getting out of the total pool of information the brain is receiving. How do we choose which bits of information go through? Pattern matching – so when we are trying to release this Past stuff we are digging into the hidden aspects of the self – recall from previous posts the Johari window – a simple tool that divides the self into – the known self, the hidden self, the blind spot and the unknown self.
So OMG we are back to digging into the parts of the self that are unknown – the shadow – Luke in the cave in the Empire Strikes Back – yes feel the Force Luke…
Anyway… How to start when you don’t know where to look?
With Vision of course! Jump into the Future – What’s your Intention for how you wish to BE?? Ask then listen – part of you will start to tell you what all the “Yes but…” blocks are, part of you will remind you of all of the Past experiences that show you why this is not possible.
In Buddhism there are samsaric loops of craving and aversion that cause us unhappiness – if you consider the Existential framework of Past Present Future these samsaric loops are the loops that go around and around the through the Past. In Buddhism new samsaric reactive loops are always being created which means that the old buried stuff cannot come up. To allow the old to come up the aim is to be still enough so as not to create new samsaric loops – so breath meditation, single point or stillness meditation. Insights will then arise – to heal something we must first be able to see it.
Other mystical teachings such as Toltec teachings tell us that there are strands of energy that link us to Past events and people in our lives and we need to go through a process of recapitulation to be able to release the ties to these events. To recapitulate our lives we can either do it chronologically replaying the events of our lives and reclaiming our lost energies from those events and releasing anything we are still holding onto – or we can do it randomly as blocks from the Past arise. Either way the key is intent – choosing to release the ties to Past events and experiences to enable us to be free, Present and able to create a new Future.
Whichever process you use the trick is to embed routines so you can systematically identify and release blocks from Past experiences.
Next bit is to Assume Responsibility.
“It’s the best possible time to be alive, when almost everything you thought you knew is wrong.”
Tom Stoppard, ‘Arcadia’
In peace and love always.
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