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June 13, 2006
1. Creating Your Life
he information that follows is partially influenced by material offered by The Pacific Institute in Seattle, Washington, and partially by other sources. If you like the stuff on How The Mind Works, please consider attending the Investment in Excellence training.
1. Creating Your Life - The Land of the Blind
First, before going any further, I want you to watch a short video. It requires Java active in your browser and its about 7 MB, so it will take some time to download. The video shows some students passing a basketball. Some students are dressed in white and the others are dressed in black. Here is the test. Watch the video one time and count the number of times the students in WHITE pass the ball. Simple enough, right? Okay. Watch the Basketball Video.
If you have trouble with the video, then try this test. Read the following sentence once, then follow the instructions EXACTLY that follow:
FINISHED FILES ARE THE RESULT
OF YEARS OF SCIENTIFIC STUDY
COMBINED WITH THE EXPERIENCE
OF MANY YEARS OF EXPERTS.
Now go back and read the sentence ONE time and count the letters "F."
Finished? Okay. First the video.
How many times was the basketball passed among the players in white? 16? 17?
Okay. Here's the question: Did you see the Gorilla? That's right, the Gorilla. Go back and watch the video again.
Meanwhile, how many "Fs" did you count? 2? 3? 4?
Did you count 5? 6? 7?
That's right. There are 7 "Fs." Go back and find them.
Still not seeing them? Isn't it strange, especially for those of you who count only 3 "Fs," that you can be told that there are 7 "Fs' in the sentence and yet you STILL can't see them.
If you don't believe me, then go back and count the "OFs" in the sentence. That's right. There are four of them, aside from the 3 others in the bigger words.
Here's one more test for you. Check out this picture of a woman.
Now, how would you describe her? Is she a young woman or old woman? Is she wearing a choker around her neck, or is she a hag with a big nose?
Of couse, the image holds both and old woman AND a young woman, depending on how you look at it. Go back and see if you can see the other woman. If you locked on to one image, you will likely find it terribly difficult to see the other woman. Here's a clue: The young woman is looking away from you and wearing a black choker around her neck. The old hag is in profile and her big nose is the young girl's chin. If you find it impossible to see it yourself, you can find the answers here.
Okay. So what? A few optical illusions, right? No big deal.
Well, my friend, it IS a big deal, especially if you are concerned about seeing TRUTH in the world and inside of yourself. It IS a big deal if you go around unaware that you have blindspots to the truth.
The Basketball/Gorilla video demonstrates that when you FOCUS on something, you become BLIND to everything else. This is good up to a point. Great high-performing people, in sports or business or anywhere else, demonstrate an ability to focus that blocks out distractions, that creates blindspots to everything irrelevant to what they are focusing on.
But there is a down side as well. When you lock on to what you believe the truth to be (or believe to be the "purpose," like the purpose I gave you in counting the number of passes between players in white) that missile lock can blind you to other important things that are going on as well.
This is how magicians work. AND it is how advertisers, media manipulators, politicians, and predatory people (forgers, con artists, men on dates) generally work. They get you to lock on to one thing so you are blind to something else.
The fact is, if you want to change, to grow, to get to the TRUTH, whatever it may be, you may want to consider a few things:
1) How are blindspots created?
2) Do I have blindspots that limit or control me?
3) How can I discover my blindspots?
4) How can I avoid creating blindspots that limit or control me?
5) How can I recognize blindspots in other people?
6) How can I recognize when others are intentionally or unintentionally trying to create blindspots in me?
7) How can I get past blindspots and into creating my life in a free-flowing manner with abundant energy? Because a lot of your blindspots are keeping you from having spontaneous and continuing energy to accomplish your goals.
This is the starting point for this series of posts. I want to point out to you some things about yourself, about your mind, and about your creative potential. The fact is, you are probably living only a small part of your potential. And that there are blindposts in you holding you back, blindposts in the form of PICTURES that you are holding about yourself, about others, and about REALITY that keep you from doing what you could do if you only knew that you had it within you to do it.
Until I'm able to move forward with this new series, you may want to move to How The Mind Works.
Posted by witnit at June 13, 2006 9:59 AM
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Comments
... ok.. my head is hurting now...
Posted by: Eric at June 13, 2006 2:58 PM
You can always go read Skippy! (Thanks for that recommendation!)
Posted by: WitNit at June 13, 2006 3:14 PM
Fascinating post!..... a lady from England left a comment on one of my early posts that continues to run through my head:
"though we struggle to become what we know we are...
We sometimes act to confirm what we believe we are.
Choose."
Posted by: Jean at June 14, 2006 6:03 PM
Interesting post with a good lesson.
Part of our ability to block out extraneous information, however, is biologic and REQUIRED for us to function. Try to tape record a short note to yourself while riding in the car. The microphone cannot ‘filter’ out the noise and, on playback, you will hear how noisy the inside of your car really is. Of course, since you’re a musician, you’re familiar with the problems of trying to capture only the sounds that you want to hear. :^)
Autism is often characterized as the biologic inability to screen out the 'noise' that surrounds us continually. The autistic person then has no choice but to withdraw into their own world because the outside world is too chaotic. I have often wondered if those labeled as autistic savants might simply be those who are able to take one small piece of that chaos and focus on it, producing a seemingly mystical talent.
Not being contrary, just expanding on the thought.
Posted by: VARepublicMan at June 15, 2006 12:24 PM
Yes, we need blindspots to focus. I will carry some of this a step further in upcoming posts. the problems arise when we fail to understand how we also create blindspots when we attach ourselves to what we believe the TRUTH is.
Posted by: WitNit at June 15, 2006 7:19 PM
Great post! I have never heard about blindspots. Thanks to your post, I found out that I have lots of blindspots inside me. It is time to get rid of them...
Posted by: Jess at December 19, 2007 5:17 AM
Quite an enthralling post, I must admit.
Posted by: Devesh at June 14, 2008 7:22 PM
