Do you have a non-digital timepiece in the house, that ticks?
We do. It's this one, pictured. It's pretty loud and it lives in the lounge.
Tick. Tick. Tick, it goes. 60 times, every single minute that me and it are sharing the space.
And you know what?
I never hear it.
🙉
Reading this, you're not surprised, because you've had the same experience.
These things we take for granted, but there's so much to be learned from that – so much to be seen. So much potential for change!
There, but no experience of it
So the ticking's definitely there, because when I listen for it, I find it.
(I lied when I said I ‘never’ hear it, obviously – minds love to work in black & white, and mine was exaggerating, for effect.)
But I'd say 95%, maybe even more of the time I'm in the lounge, it's just not a thing. In spite of the fact that it's there all the time.
You can say ‘I've tuned it out’, but I haven't done anything. This is not a conscious process!
What I think is closer to the truth is that while my senses are quite obviously picking it up—as I said, it never stops*—the mind is not bringing it into consciousness for me. Which means it doesn't exist.
There's no experience of it. (And experience is all we get.)
Until you say, “Much clock noise?” or something, and I hear it immediately.
Thought, too
I think thought is like this too. The more I learn about this crazy thing we call life, getting my own evidence (just like I'm always encouraging you guys to do) the more I'm convinced that the mind is a receiver, not a transmitter.
So just like the tick of the clock is always there, waiting to be experienced, it's as if all thoughts are already there, too, waiting to be plucked out of that formless mass of energy we can't even measure with instruments.
And when they're plucked out, they're thought.
(Syd Banks always used to talk about The Principle of Thought being the bridge between the formless and the form, and I get a little tickle of recognition when I hear him say that, these days.)
What this means for you
Look, we all have crazy and/or repetitive thoughts. They get plucked out of the ether by these receiver-minds of ours and they might be pretty bad. (Michael Neill's was ‘The Suicide Thought’, before he decided to ignore it.)
And because minds are a bit lazy and those neural pathways get worn in (maybe the dial gets a bit rusted on the old ‘wireless receiver’), we often find ourselves experiencing the same thought, over and again. It might be:
- 📡 I can't do this
- 📡 Why am I like this?
- 📡 I think there might be something wrong with me
- 📡 The ‘others’ are my main problem
- 📡 I can't change
- 📡 This will never change
…or any other of a kajillion insecure thoughts that minds like to pluck out of the ether. (Because they're all already there, in the potential – infinite thoughts! Thoughts for everyone!)
But if you can start to see them in the same sort of league as the ticking clock—sometimes it's in consciousness, most of the time it's not—and remember that there are a kajillion other thoughts up for grabs, all the time, then I think your life could get a whole lot easier, pretty damn quickly!
And the super-annoying ones?
Well, it's almost like taking the batteries out of those.
🪫
Giles
*p.s. Of course it stops! (Black & white minds again 🙄) Once in a blue moon its battery does indeed run out and it can be days until I notice… because I don't hear the clock!! lol.
p.p.s. one of you most excellent boffins who's into your neuroscience will no doubt be along shortly to let us all know in the comments how they've already proved all this! 🤓
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Giles P Croft
Giles P Croft