Brown leaves bobbing

Thoughts, feelings and moods (TFM) present themselves like brown leaves bobbing on an autumnal stream. They emerge from the unconscious where they were created. They are the result of new stimuli being compared with memories of similar stimuli that have been stored in long term memory modules.

The mindbrain is active 24/7. There is a churn of everchanging TFM linked to special purpose modules and to the links between them. This allows the mindbrain to integrate the various sources of information and build a holistic and pragmatic model of ‘reality’. The model includes the assumption that there is an individuated ego that makes decisions about what to seek, avoid or ignore when foraging, fighting and fornicating in social and physical environments.

I have been a sporadic meditator for many years. I have learned how to switch to non-judgemental witnessing of whatever the unconscious throws up. There are still many awkward mentations but, these days, they seldom totally commandeer the attention centre.

On the negative side the mentations include anxiety, panic, depression, lust, anger, shame, low self-esteem, and fear of what the neighbours think. On the positive side they include gratitude, calmness, bliss, focus (singlemindedness) and generally being non-egoic and in Flow (in the athlete’s zone, in the musician’s groove). From the evolutionary perspective the various positives and negatives are evolved adaptations

On a personal whim I have given up being totally in control of what ‘I’ get up to. When I am doodling there is no grand plan. I just sit with paper and pens and the drawing begins. There is no ‘ego’ and no thoughts of the past and future. The mindbrain is focused on the ‘now’ and the overall state is of calm.  The phenomenon is similar to the recent craze for colouring books.

My blogposts use the same process except that the output is words and sentences. Many fiction writers operate in a similar non-egoic way. It is as if the characters dictate the words and the author simply writes them down.

I have a niggle about this art/craft in terms of quality. The unconscious is constantly churning in a search for patterns and agents. It is capable of parallel processing and it is hierarchically structured to integrate the contributions from the reptile, mammal, hominid and human mindbrain areas.

The unconscious is a mess of interlocking stories. It has been evolving for millions of years and has an almighty stockpile of TFM many of which are hard wired as instinct, reflexes, intuitions and biases. Note in passing that neural plasticity can soften the edges of the hardwired features.

The self-conscious is recently evolved. It is linked to the pre-frontal cortex and is concerned with the executive functions of situation analysis, prioritizing, planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation.

And so to the niggle. I want the unconscious to be omniscient and omnipotent. When the stories are dictated to the author there should be no need for editing. This brings to mind the myths and magic of the long gone iron ages where the causal agent of change was usually a male, grey bearded, master planner who works in mysterious ways and demands sacrifices (austerities?)

But let us remember that evolution generates models and systems which are functional rather than elegant. There is no central planning committee. Rather than wiping the slates clean and beginning again new uses are found for the innumerable older units. Nature, nurture, and serendipity begat variations upon which natural or man-made selections are made and thus generate the mind-made, brown leaves briskly bobbing on a fast autumnal stream.