Empty your cache!

Attention is the most precious commodity of the human being - and probably of any conscious creature. It is the attention I give to a person, an object, a situation that gives it reality. I pay attention to you, I am interested in you: I charge this attention with appreciation, disdain, interest, love, judgement, expectation, desire, disgust, etc.

Attention is the most precious commodity of the human being - and probably of any conscious creature. It is the attention I give to a person, an object, a situation that gives it reality. I pay attention to you, I am interested in you: I charge this attention with appreciation, disdain, interest, love, judgement, expectation, desire, disgust, etc. The object of my attention becomes alive, infused with the attributes I have projected onto it. A beautiful person, an ugly picture, a poor dog, a sexy body.

Many spiritual practices suggest unloading the beam of attention, avoiding loading the beam with our projections, expectations and judgements. Keeping attention free of our own stories brings enormous inner freedom. Another word for uncluttered attention is love. The original. The one that sets you free.

In previous centuries, the geopolitical world has been shaped on the one hand by constant wars for resources such as oil, minerals and the soils that contain them, and on the other hand by holy wars to spread unhealthy ideas about god(s).

In our nascent third millennium, the most precious resource, the most coveted treasure, is our attention. Yours. Mine. Everyone's attention. The huge multinational groups, Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google and other behemoths are waging wars to capture our attention. Hungrier and thirstier than ever, predators and vampires are now hunting for our minds. Once our attention is captured, it becomes easy to follow the beam back to its source, then enslave our minds. One Facebook like after another.

This phenomenon is not innocent. Emotionally charged, attention creates reality. By capturing our attention, these giant groups (or those behind them) use our minds as a source of energy to give substance to their alienating worldview. Let's be clear: this global predator is a facet of you and me. It will vanish the moment we regain our attention.

And right now, our attention is being held hostage by the global crisis of COVID 19.

My point is not to validate or invalidate the reality of the health crisis, that is for others to do, but to observe the parallel spread of another infinitely more dangerous and pernicious pandemic: fear.

Fear anaesthetises the mind, it puts us into survival mode. It contracts consciousness, clumping it around real or perceived dangers. Questions of meaning are evacuated, replaced by immediate necessities.

The crux of the problem is that in all its aspects, the current crisis is the logical outcome of a worldview. It is our global psychic software that produces these woes, and using that same software to solve this crisis will produce more of the same.

It's the cat that bites it's tail.

Our collective reality is the sum of our individual ideas about the world. As our individual ideas are rotten by the media and authorities who force-feed us contradictory, confusing, anxiety-provoking information produced by a debilitating system, the collective reality becomes ever more absurd, confused and alienating. So much so that those who try to bring back some sense are considered traitors to the cause - there's even a term for it, covidiots.

For decades, our health systems have been captive to medical-scientific fundamentalism, big pharma and big money. These organisations, which bear a major share of responsibility for the current debacle, claim to be solving the crisis in their own way - to the exclusion of all others. To break out of this vicious circle, we do not need sorcerers' apprentices in white coats or three-piece suits, but individuals brave enough to learn to think for themselves and act responsibly.

The media, the authorities and politicians of all stripes shamelessly mix the notions of climate emergency, ecology and economic recovery in the same discourse, increasing the degree of collective confusion day after day. This schizophrenic attitude illustrates our inability to admit the bankruptcy of our current worldview. But the social pressure is such that no one dares to say that the king is naked.

And so on. I could fill pages with other examples, but the point is there.

In short, I refuse to allow insanity and organised idiocy to be poured into my living room and into my consciousness. I try to keep my attention as clean as possible.

Let's wake up! Life is not about barrier gestures, masks, the hope of recovery and a return to soporific normality.

Life is a gift, an opportunity to grow, to evolve, an adventure, a journey of fulfilment. Life is meaningful when essential qualities can flourish: love, freedom, respect, beauty, creativity, friendship, generosity, laughter, genuine and unprogrammed emotions. These qualities should be the indicators of our integrity and health.

Back to attention

It only takes a little honesty to admit it: the current planetary crisis is above all spiritual, because it questions our ways of being in the world and our reasons for being. The collective software that produces our vision of reality has become dangerous. Our blind obedience to absurd and unhealthy concepts (materialism, separation, growth...) is leading us straight to the precipice. Our systems of understanding are outdated, but we are not our systems of understanding - we use them to navigate reality. 

Hence the importance of taking care of our attention. 

The current situation is what it is. How do we experience it? Everything depends on attention, the attention we give to information received, to another person, to a feeling. First, there is the raw information brought to our attention: for example, XXX new cases of contamination in the last 24 hours. The information is received, and it could stop there out of sheer common sense, because we can't do anything with this data. But we let the software and its habits charge the attention, according to our belief systems: a rush of worry for my family and me, dismay at these upheavals in my daily life, a surge of anger against this Machiavellian plot, denial...

Each of these reactions adds a layer of reality to the information, consolidating this version of reality. Implicit assent after implicit assent, we cement the new normal. 

When surfing the internet, it is recommended to regularly clear the browser's cache, i.e. to delete the history of your consultations and visits - especially after banking transactions.  

I recommend that you do the same with your attention. Empty your cache. Delete the history of your worries, inner conflicts, useless information, cumbersome opinions, suffocating certainties, constructed guilt, resentments towards others and the world on a daily basis.

You will not become stupid, on the contrary. Relieved of the weight of conformity, freed from the handicap of obedience, you will have a clearer focus to approach each new situation. You will cease to adhere to the cause and effect conditioning of artificial intelligence. Naturally, from deep within yourself, a true and intuitive intelligence will blossom.

Empty the cache of your attention as often as possible: it is the greatest gift you can give yourself and the world. 

And of course, remember that your mind is not a bin.