With Our Thoughts We Create The World

MINDFULNESS

Writer: Martin Stepek
Photographs: Kristjan Fridriksson

September 2021

“I think therefore I am.”

Descartes’ view has held sway for a long time. It’s one of those revered quotes, so familiar it’s more like an advertising slogan for the human race than something we should take seriously nowadays. For me, it’s also a classic statement of human arrogance and superiority. It stems from the idea that only humans have the gift of deliberate thought, that other animals are just dumb instinctive, lesser beings.

It is also extremely harsh on those people who through an accident or a genetic disorder seem incapable of thought. Think about it. If you are only you because you are capable of thought, because you can reason and explore ideas, create new concepts, then what about those who can’t?

It stems from the idea that only humans have the gift of deliberate thought. JONAA©Kristjan Fridriksson

I think therefore I get distracted

Yet this view of us as a species that is defined as being capable of thinking independently, freely, without limitations is plain wrong, at least in part.

A Harvard study some years ago found that our mind is distracted on average about 47% of the time. By distraction, they meant that the mind was not where we expected or wanted it to be. So as an example imagine you’re reading this article when you start to think about the fact that your car is getting a bit old and unreliable and maybe you need a new one.

You wanted to stay focussed on reading this but your mind just took you away from it, without your consent, possibly even without your conscious awareness that you had started thinking about your car.

We could therefore rephrase Descartes. “I think therefore I get distracted half my life.” Or “I think sometimes but half the time my mind does what it wants to do whether I like it or not”. Granted neither of these are as pithy or profound sounding as Descartes’ version but at least now we’re on real solid ground.

We are far more conditioned than we think we are. Ironically we don’t think we are conditioned precisely because we are conditioned not to think we are conditioned. This is the absence of mindfulness. We are being dragged continually by thoughts, moods, and emotions rather than us being in control of what the mind thinks, feels, and chooses in any circumstance.

Think about it right now. Who gets angry when you get angry? Who chooses to feel depressed? Or anxious? Or hateful? Who decides that they’ll carry a grudge around with them for thirty years or more?

Who chooses to be a bigot, a racist, sexist, ageist?

It’s not you, or at least not the reasoning, intelligent, thoughtful you that Descartes suggests, because no reasoning intelligent, thoughtful person would ever allow these toxic moods or views anywhere near their precious mind.

Imagine Descartes was right. Imagine we really could be capable of total control over our thoughts, which include our feelings, moods, emotions, gut reactions. What would most of us choose to feel like? I’d imagine we’d love to feel fulfilled, happy, have a sense of joy of life, a sense of purpose and meaning. Most of us would also like everyone else to feel that way, including our leaders in government and business so that a decent, secure, happy, and purposeful society would develop.

With our thoughts, we create the world

The Buddha got it so much more accurately than Descartes. “With our thoughts, we create the world.” That’s extraordinarily profound. It’s also scary because if we’re not in control of our thoughts and where they take us, the world we create with those thoughts can become horrific. What we are witnessing in our world right now, with the resurrection of openly racist and in some cases literally neo-fascist views, can only have arisen as the result of people’s thoughts.

So if you want just a happy life for yourself, free from worries, anxiety, depression, anger, resentment, bitterness, and a score of other harmful and often self-destructive moods and emotions, you need to train your mind so it becomes less automatic, less conditioned, less distracted, and in its place, more under your direct control.

And if a good society or a sane, fruitful world is to become a reality this will require billions of people to develop control over their minds so that they do not fall prey to the influence of hateful demagogues. It starts with you. I know dozens of people who are politically engaged and active in what we’d call progressive campaigns, know what they oppose, and know what their idea of a good society is. But they’re not in charge even of their own minds, let alone able to convince others to change theirs. They display hatred and a total absence of compassion for their political opponents, celebrate every minor mistake the “enemy” makes, and generally demonstrate precisely the attitudes that they believe we need to eradicate if society is to improve.

If you want a love of life, which is simply a state of mind, you have to develop it. If you want peace of mind then do the work that brings you closer to it. Do not accept being a semi-automaton.

If you want a good society then it really does start with you. Gandhi was another one who got it right. “Be the change you want to see in this world”. You could add, more obviously “Train yourself so that you become the change you want to see in yourself”. Or in the words of another social radical “first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye”. ▢