Mind Management

An underlying simplicity

The family of mental states where we perform at our best overlaps with the family of mental states where we enjoy ourselves the most. In both families of states, three elements work together.

1. Attitude. We acknowledge all the great givens of the world and embrace the actualities of what we choose to do. Then we determine that we’ll do things well in their own terms.
2. Trust. We give up doubting our abilities and our sensibilities. We have faith in reality.
3. Attention. We keep bringing our attention back to the terrain of the particular game we’re playing.

Attitude

Sometimes what we’re doing feels hard, or pointless, and we get an urge to give up on it. But if we keep on, we always get through it one way or another.

Keeping on can become a habit. Things tend to work out best when we simply make the most of what happens to be.

There’s always something to be curious about. There’s always something to be glad of. It always makes sense to be playful.

Trust

If we place trust in our abilities, we won’t be scared of failing. So we’ll put ourselves in situations where we’ll learn what we need to learn. Our trust will prove well founded.

If we trust our sensibilities, our performance can be guided by what we feel. We will sense where the flow of effective action might rupture. And we’ll pick out lines of action that mesh with everything around us. We’ll zip together lines of effective action.

We should also trust our sensibilities. Our taste is our best guide to skilled performance. It helps us sense where a possible line of action would be problematic (where the flow of effective action would rupture) and where a possible line of action would be in harmony with the reality of the moment. It’s always the most harmonious actions that bring success.

The more we practise trusting our aesthetic sensibilities, the more reliable they become.

Maintaining attention

Once we’ve launched into an activity, we must let go of all the thinking that’s taken us to the launching point, and shift our focus to the field of play. We’ll then quite naturally discover forms of action to make use of.

We’ll often find that our attention has jumped and our mind’s been on something more or less irrelevant. But there’s no point in getting frustrated with ourselves. If we bring our attention back to the game landscape, and become curious about what’s there, we’ll get swept up again in a flow of action soon enough.

Sustaining attention quickly becomes a habit, as all fields of play become interesting when we start making out what’s going on in them. The more we see, the more interesting things get, and the more interested we become, the more there is to see.