This was an interesting read, as it intersects with my personal thoughts based on my experience studying how people work and how people perceive the world around them. In a nutshell, our senses are much stronger than we give them credit for, and our basic human ability to deal with the world around us is based on what we pay attention to.

Oscillatory Thoughts: We are all inattentive superheroes.

This article corroborates what I have learned, that people are constantly deleting, distorting and hallucinating most of their experience based on their limited attention to detials and the power of human mind to “fill in details” for understanding. In fact, the details are extremely rich in our senses, yet our prior experience, mood, thoughts, etc., create filters and bias in our ability to actually process that information, and make sense of it for ourselves.

Last night I was in a discussion with some people and we were talking about people’s inability to see things. It’s not that they cannot see, it’s that they don’t see, based upon their preconceived beliefs and prejudices about any particular situation. (in this particular situation, it was how parents were not realizing how they were causing pain for someone because of  their (the parents) disapproval of  the amount of time this person engaged in the activities to avoid more harmful behaviour).

To me, this is a matter of paying attention, of achieving more mindfulness and consciousness in any given situation. While obviously no one can be completely mindful in all situations, achieving more mindfulness in daily life is, I feel, a good thing. It does help one to recognize their own bias, and potential for those deletions, distortions and hallucinations we are all so prone to.