We now have nine icons to help us think about how to make the most of now.
This matrix of pictures represents some of the key ways in which we engage with the world around us. I refer to this complete set of nine icons as the Mindfield.
The top row is where you are right now. You’re doing something. You’re reading this. Reading is one example of doing something.
Why are you reading this? Because you think that what I write may be of some value to you.
Obviously, some people stopped reading what I wrote long before they got to this post, and some people who started reading this post will have stopped reading before they reach this sentence.
But you’re still here. Thank you!
Every sentence that you read is, for you, like a tree, the object of attention in the second row of the Mindfield.
You’re examining my writing sentence by sentence for evidence of value. You’re looking for something that makes reading this sentence worthwhile.
Once you’ve finished reading what I’ve written, you will want to feel that having read what I wrote was a “good” choice. By reading on, you’re gambling that the outcome for you will be something along the lines of: “I’m glad I read that”.
Writing that puts me under pressure. I suddenly feel conscious that I need to write things that will help you to win that bet.
There are so many other ways you could be spending the present moment, and it suddenly strikes me as amazing that you are choosing to use the present moment to read what I am writing about the present moment. Thank you again.
Using the present moment to think about the present moment is a quintessentially human thing to do, and in fact one of the key things made possible by the mirror of memory in the bottom row of the Mindfield.
For my own part, all I can say is that as I write, I myself am trying to work out why I’m writing what I’m writing. I’m the first reader of what I write. And I myself want to end up thinking, “I’m glad I wrote that”.
Composing ideas in order to share them is another function of the third row. The mouth is the original interface for sharing the ideas that I cobble together.
By sharing this particular idea, I am operating in the top row of the Mindfield. I, too, am doing something. I am writing. Writing is doing something.
Reading and writing are special forms of action. They are actions that presuppose the possibility of understanding. When you read what I write, it’s almost as if I have spoken and you can hear what I said.
The weird thing about writing a post like this is that even if you can “hear” what I “say”, I can’t hear you because writing posts doesn’t work like that. It would be shocking for me to start seeing words on this digital page that engage with what I am writing, as I am writing.
And yet, away from the world of Substack posts, we’re no longer shocked by that because we can now do it. I’ll send you a text message, and even if you’re halfway around the world you can respond immediately to what I wrote, just as if we were speaking with each other. It’s remarkable how banal that kind of communication now seems, considering how mindboggling it was when it first became possible.
When I was growing up, I would write a letter or a postcard. It might be a week before I got a reply. It might be two weeks. I might not get a reply at all, especially in the case of a postcard. But these days, depending on circumstances, I might feel frustrated if a reply doesn’t come back within seconds.
Reading and writing text messages is made possible by astounding technical magic, and yet we already take that astounding technical magic for granted. Most of the time, we are not conscious of that astounding technical magic. It is easy to become unconscious even of astounding things.
The Mindfield is a framework for reminding ourselves to be conscious of what it is to be conscious. It is a framework for reflecting on who we are as conscious beings.
What would life be like if we were constantly conscious of being conscious? This is one theoretical state of doing (top row), of being (middle row), and of knowing (bottom row).
But being conscious of being conscious doesn’t sound like a good way to get anything done apart from being conscious of being conscious.
An everyday phrase for getting stuck in the realm of being (middle row) is “navel-gazing”. That’s partly because being conscious of being conscious tends to end up with me thinking about me thinking, which ends up with me thinking about me.
I have to say I’m a huge fan of me thinking about me. But the result of that kind of thinking is that I isolate the object of attention called “me” from the real world of action (top row). The “me” that I am observing, and that my heart responds to with such passion, is trapped in inner space, surrounded by my wonderful thoughts about “me”.
Things like the Mindfield are often used as frameworks for such navel-gazing purposes, but Canjeez offers a clear warning. A tree in a box, 困, is problematic. 困 indicates that something is stuck, or trapped. Hemmed in.
If my attention is focused on me, then I am that tree in a box, walled off from reality.
If I want to activate the Mindfield, I must make the box disappear. Once the tree is free, it will be able to interact freely with the other elements in the Mindfield. The other elements, too, will be free.
Not only will the shapes imprisoning each icon disappear, so will the icons themselves.
The Mindfield, in fact, only comes to life when it is destroyed. The first step in that direction is simple, but also difficult.
Free your tree.