Tag: auto pilot

  • A mind beyond auto pilot

    The world we create for ourselves, as I wrote a fortnight back, is a filtered version of all the stimuli we encounter. As we grow older, our stream of consciousness gets more populated because of our experiences and we automatically try to find patterns. That’s the brain’s basic learning process which helps us to navigate stimuli. The world though, does become complex, the navigation more difficult, and that’s probably how we slip into auto pilot.

    We think we’re conscious of the things we do, and we are, at a superficial level, but are we really mindful? The simple experiment to do, and I think I’ve written this earlier, is to re-imagine the last hour of your life. How many actions you can remember is probably an indicator of mindfulness. There’s no question that the auto pilot is useful, but I doubt we’re in actual control of the takeover, and that’s where the problem is. Our decisions and our actions become mechanical, and even when they’re not, they’re dictated by filters designed by the auto pilot.

    mindfulness2

    (via)

    But I think there is hope. One of the best 2014 trend reports I’ve seen – by Zambezi – has ‘Mindful Society’ as its first trend. While that is more a take on digital devices and our time spent on them, the JWT trend forecast has ‘Mindful Living’ as their final trend, and talks about a growing interest to experience everything in a more present, conscious way. I also think that we might have unwittingly figured out a way to start out on this. One of the hottest trends this year is the quantified self – self knowledge through numbers – it encourages people to monitor all aspects of their physical, emotional, cognitive, social, domestic and working lives. (via)

    At this point, it is more focused on the physiological aspects, and there will most likely be a deluge of devices, services and allied products that would be an end in itself. However, it is also possible that we will truly understand our body, as numbers show the impact of our behaviour and consumption, and as a result, we’ll become more mindful in our actions. And maybe, just maybe, once we’re done with that, we’ll begin trying to do the same for our mind, and the decisions it makes. It’s difficult to imagine how that will work out, I agree, but hey, even five years back, did you think something you wear on your wrist could give you analytics on your sleep patterns?

    until next time, a qualified self 🙂

  • Autonomy.. or not?

    Much as filmmakers love to claim that there’s no formula, sequels happen. And when I see sequels completely spoiling the memory of the original (in this case, the Malayalam movie August 15, whose first edition ‘August 1’ released in 1988 was a scene by scene lift from Forsyth’s awesome “The Day of the Jackal”), I wonder if this approach is just the greed to milk the most out of a franchise or just the lure of a safe template. In the case of movies, it’s probably more the greed.

    But I realise that the latter goes not just for movies, but many decisions in individual lives as well – from where we go for a dine-out to the travel plans we make, and many other preferences that somehow seem to get a life of their own and run on auto pilot after sometime.

    The auto-pilot mode is quite comfortable really, especially if you’re not aware of it. The problem, I think, arises when templates are followed but expectations are not met. That’s when the questioning begins, and ‘awareness’ begins to dawn. Then, unless you allow yourself to fall back, it becomes an itch you can’t scratch away.

    And you see the mask you unwittingly made for yourself slowly slipping, and then begins that terrible phase when you realise that there’s nothing to hold it up and nothing to take its place.

    until next time, mask charades

  • Losing my religion – II

    the system
    since i essentially slept through the weekend, and had a very uninteresting existence, i thought i would stick to some gyan distribution..tell me when the series gets boring..hehe..
    the auto pilot- that which propels us through the mundane things of life,and mundane here is an extremely wide array of things. propels us to do things in a predictable way..the auto pilot is an essential part of the system, but the key is the higher being inside us. if we can find it and awaken it, it will guide us to higher levels of consciousness.
    heres an interesting example i picked up from “Tomorrow’s God” that best explains the working of the system – consider a rock, it is at a particular frequency..left to itself, it will become a diamond, after eons of temperature/pressure fluctuations..now consider the rock in the hands of a human, who, within hours can get the diamond out of the rock, with his science , because he is at a much higher frequency/ level of consciousness.
    from the rock’s point of view, the rock is the highest state of frequency,but we humans know it is not. but we humans also think we are at the highest level, no we are not..but the good part is that higher the level of consciousness, the easier it is to move ahead..think about this, millions of years to move from cell to organism, lesser millions of years from organism to ‘human’ form, tens of thousands of years to move through hunter/gatherer mode, thousands of years to move through agrarian civilisations, hundreds of years to move through industrial revolutions, decades to move through technological revolutions.. if you look closely you will see a movement starting with collective consciousness,(a system whose constituents were aware of its existence) to self consciousness, where we are now.. it is a cycle and now its time we started to think of collective consciousness again….the collective consciousness is the system where conscious thoughts and therefore actions are not based on ‘i’, but on ‘us’.and the collective consciousness is the fastest way to the higher ‘us’.
    before i extol the system, there is a small deviation i will take…until next time, be conscious….