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2 min read Psychology

The story box

Minds just don't know that they're not really that clever. 🤓

The story box
Original Photo by Ante Hamersmit on Unsplash | Annotated by Giles

I saw this image and it just about sums it up.

😂

It’s so important to see that when it’s predicting the future, the mind ONLY has the past to go on (i.e. what it’s already collected).

It’s a teeny-tiny repository of information, in the big scheme of things.

It’s completely innocent. It just doesn’t know anything of life. It can’t imagine what it doesn’t know and has never experienced.

Even if it tries to think ‘outside of the box’, it will still be using old data to try and do that.

It’s just not that clever.


A personal example: before I get on a call with a client.

It gets into rehearsing. It will sometimes start getting worried. It will start creating stories, like “I’ll have nothing to say” or “I’m just going to be repeating myself.”

Ditto written articles, when the mind’s projecting into the future.

Ditto these Daily Reminders!

It doesn’t know that it’s not involved in generating FRESH NEW content, there in the moment.

It’s only the fact that it thinks it does (’cos it’s got no idea) that’s freaking you out.


Does this mean you just ‘wing it’ and never prepare for anything?

Well, to a degree, we all are, all the time, really. We don’t know what’s going to happen, from one moment to the next.

But in terms of conversations—human interactions; especially with a client—I know that preparation & agendas is a complete no no.

Because I’m not there to share factual information or teach anything.

I’m there to be present and let life decide what’s best.


Of course we can’t be separate from the left brain story-box either, so whatever happens is always going to come through that repository—Etymology: re- ponere (Lat.) “to put back”—of experience and memory and conditioning, whether we like it or not.

But it’s helpful to see that new material isn’t coming from the story-box.

A subtle distinction for sure, but one that makes all the difference, allowing us to take the mind’s insecurities—as it worries about jobs it doesn’t even have to do!!—less seriously, and, in doing so, reconnect to the true source of fresh new ideas and solutions.

💟

Giles

Going fishing
A powerful visual metaphor for the mind’s relationship to past, present and future 🕰️