The Consciousness
It’s difficult to even begin to piece together something we don’t fully understand. But through writing, we can begin to work together to create a jigsaw.
What is consciousness? Is it that little voice in our head that we don’t know how it got there? Or our moral sense of right and wrong, which we also possess when other animals who roam the Earth don’t? How did it get here? How does it enable us to perceive the world around us, think, and solve problems based on these received senses? Even forming habits is an element of life deeply engrained in your subconscious over time. Do most of us have to actively focus our minds when we brush our teeth? Of course not! Our minds wander freely while we do it.
In our modern society, certain aspects have arisen, whether accidentally or purposefully, and we find ourselves under the influence of these aspects. Social media, pressures of society, relationships, staying in your lane and completing life’s tick sheet, moving from one problem to the next.
Social media pressures us to beat whoever we compare ourselves to. It's all a big unhealthy competition. This competition doesn’t bring us peace. Sure, you’ll “beat” the one person you always wanted to, and you’ll receive that ego hit. But that quickly dies off, and you’re left alone with your consciousness once again.
Quickly, find the next distraction so I don’t have to face myself!
I think to live a meaningful, happy life, we all have to face ourselves and work to understand ourselves. Over time, we might even come to love ourselves. This involves working in sync with our conscious selves. So how can we do that? And what’s working against us?
How Our Conscious Works Against Us
As I’ve discussed many times, we’re all susceptible to bias. We should work to understand ourselves deeper to better manage our biases and make more objective decisions. Our consciousness can also lead to impulsive decisions. We should naturally pause before any decision. Over time, through practice, the little voice in the back of our minds will clock these situations more frequently.
Sometimes, we can overcrowd our cognition with too much information. We rush around believing being “busy” is productive. However, multitasking is the enemy of productivity. We’ll end up half completing tasks, or not doing them to the best of our abilities. The best piece of advice I’ve found to combat this is from Ryan Holiday. Only have one key task of the day, a non-negotiable of sorts, and complete it first.
I experience a drop off in energy after lunchtime. Over time, I’ve implemented changes in my life to stay as productive as possible for as long as possible. I don’t set an alarm to beat early morning drowsiness. I get a cold shower. I have two cups of coffee a day, never more. My first meal of the day is lunchtime. This takes experimenting, but it works great for me. Find your own version of a daily structure that maximises your productivity.
To counter how this large focus on productivity could cloud your conscious from thinking clearly, I’d recommend everyone has one day completely blocked off to do whatever they so wish. A day where you don’t have to use your mind, but you can if you so want to. Perhaps this is a day we spend with our consciousness, reflecting and resting. Even if you do feel like doing something usually considered productive, like I find myself writing this piece on my usual day off of Saturday, as long as the task feels restful, it’s not particularly a task at all.
Societal pressures also encourage us to stay in our lane. In crowded rooms, you can’t often hear the sound of individuality over the baas of the crowd of sheep. The group consciousness encourages you to remain in the crowd. We’re fed information to keep us all aligned with our group of like-minded individuals. To resist change. Discomfort and change are seen as negative aspects of life. But the opposite is the truth. Those who become comfortable and reject change never grow. Those who seek opposing opinions and thoughts to their own better understand the entire topic and can forge stronger opinions. If we resist change and discomfort, one distraction will transition into another, and the voice of the conscious being beneath the outer layer fades ever quieter.
Concluding Remarks
How far can our conscious stretch? Are there dimensions that exist that we know nothing about? How is our consciousness altered by sleep, or meditation, or alcohol? Dubbed the hard problem of consciousness, “How can subjective experiences arise from physical processes in the brain”?
It’s a wonderfully complex concept that we may never truly understand. Is it a fundamental part of the universe? A consequence of some quantum process? It’s very easy to spiral into deep thought about consciousness, so let’s bring it back to Earth.
It comes back to the fact we have to live with ourselves, forever. Part of that is living in tango with your conscious, working together, not against each other.
We can do this through meditation and reflection. We then better understand ourselves and develop greater emotional intelligence. We then improve our relationships, the most important one of which is with ourselves. Don’t seek constant distraction. Lock your phone in a box. Sit with yourself and your thoughts and seek to understand yourself. Genuinely stare at the wall and consider what pops into your mind. What do you really want from life? Hell, what do you really want from today and would you change your schedule if you knew it was your last day alive? What problems do you currently have? Can you effectively solve these problems? Well, go do it then.
Consider life as a train ride that you hopped on at birth. It moves forward always. Certain things fly past us outside the train at what seems like supersonic speeds. Other things may board the train and you’ll interact with them for a period of time. But in the end, everyone and everything gets off. Now it's just you and your consciousness. You have wonderful memories of the past on the train, even the elements that flashed past. With a deep, meaningful relationship with your conscious cultivated over your entire train journey, you can sit and smile together.