A Mindful Way-of-Being

Sigmund Freud once said: "We know that the first step towards the intellectual mastery of the world in which we live is the discovery of general principles, rules and laws which bring order into chaos.  By such mental operations we simplify the world of phenomena, but we cannot avoid falsifying it in doing so, especially when we are dealing with processes of development and change."  Whenever we become lazy or trapped by our simplifications and convenience-based way of thinking we are in danger of operating on the basis of premature cognitive commitments in which our frames of reference and preference dominate our mental processing and exclude new, more accurate, and more useful information—we begin to operate mindlessly.

Mindlessness is perpetuated by:

1.  Unconscious, motivated-not-knowing

2 . Using restrictive categories for approved knowledge                                                       

3.  A sense of limited scope or resources

4.  A refusal to consider the influence of context

5.  The influence of pre-established values and perceptions

6.  A strong preference for linear, cause and effect thinking

7.  A lack of education, emotional development, and/or experience

8.  Excessive trust in "experts" with little real basis for their views. 

Upon reflection, it might be that most of humankind lives within social, ethnic, religious, cultural, political, and economic circumstances that perpetuate this mindlessness.  Maybe the time has come the raise the bar of our expectations, and declare that given the hundred thousand years or so of our homo sapiens ancestors roaming around the earth we should have accomplished more.  Maybe we can learn to become more mindful in our reasoning and behavior as we progress into our respective futures.