Perception
The Self Illusion - Why There's No 'You' Inside Your Head - Prof Bruce Hood
youtube.com"We are nothing more or less than the cumulative biological and environmental luck, over which we had no control, that has brought us to any moment."
— Robert M. Sapolsky, Determined: A Science of Life without Free Will
Do we move through the world or does the world move through us?
"We are constantly being shaped by seemingly irrelevant stimuli, subliminal information, and internal forces we don't know a thing about."
— Robert M. Sapolsky
Framing is decisive. At every moment, we live and operate and relate to the world from inside our framing of it, our mental model of it. Relating to the world as made up of ecosystems will result in very different outcomes than relating to the world as made up of individuals, of discrete things that can be treated distinctly.
Medium • The Ecosystem Hypothesis
“We are always in a perpetual state of being created and creating ourselves.”
― Daniel J. Siegel, The Developing Mind: How Relationships and the Brain Interact to Shape Who We Are, p. 221
the part of the unconscious that, according to Carl Jung, is common to all humankind and contains the inherited accumulation of primitive human experiences in the form of ideas and images called archetypes and manifested in myths as well as other cultural phenomena (e.g., religion) and in dreams. It is the deepest and least
... See more“You can be grateful for what you enjoy, not longing for what you are missing.”
― Daniel J. Siegel, Aware: The Science and Practice of Presence--A Complete Guide to the Groundbreaking Wheel of Awareness Meditation Practice
― Daniel J. Siegel, Aware: The Science and Practice of Presence--A Complete Guide to the Groundbreaking Wheel of Awareness Meditation Practice
Aware Quotes by Daniel J. Siegel
Yesterday, as I biked past the Seawolf Bakery on my way home from the gym I was hit, as I often am when I pass this spot in the evenings, with the rich intoxicating scent of yeasty, rising cinnamon rolls. Cinnamon rolls that aren’t quite cinnamon rolls yet. The smell filled the street. It was inescapable—so all-encompassing that that brief interstitial space, an unassuming stretch of street and sidewalk, became a place. The place where the scent of tomorrow’s cinnamon rolls balloons into a full-bodied experience. The place where this small ephemeral thing—nothing more than a particular collection of molecules in the air—can be found and savored, at about 7:30PM each evening.
But as I rode past, it occurred to me that the experience was two things. I felt a sense of pleasure in savoring the scent—and yet the pleasure was dulled by a yearning. I knew what the scent alluded to and it seemed to tease me. It conjured thoughts of those tall doughy rolls; the satisfying way that they softly tear apart, the chewy centermost fold drenched in cinnamon. The yearning made me disappointed. I wanted to eat one and I didn’t have one. I noticed the disappointment crowding out the pleasure.
What if I could just enjoy the scent for what it was? Savor it as an experience all its own? If I was not so intimately acquainted with the source of smell, I don’t think it would be so laden with yearning. I can’t un-know the connection between the scent and the cinnamon roll but perhaps I can still choose how I experience it. Perhaps I can choose to let the pleasure exist without wanting for more. I think that lies in cultivating a fuller awareness of the present and a sense of gratitude.
"Genes are rarely about inevitability, especially when it comes to humans, the brain, or behavior. They're about vulnerability, propensities, tendencies."