It took me a long time and most of the world to learn what I know about love and fate and the choices we make, but the heart of it came to me in an instant, while I was chained to a wall and being tortured. I realised, somehow, through the screaming of my mind, that even in that shackled, bloody helplessness, I was still free: free to hate the men who were torturing me, or to forgive them. It doesn’t sound like much, I know. But in the flinch and bite of the chain, when it’s all you’ve got, that freedom is a universe of possibility. And the choice you make between hating and forgiving, can become the story of your life. — Gregory David Roberts, Shantaram
Even digestive sensations have their own replica in the brain, thus enabling strange illnesses like that of a woman who, after a stroke, felt the food she swallowed travel down her throat and descend into a nonexistent cavity in her left arm, a disquieting disruption in visceral virtuality. The limbic brain, too, models the world making our emotional realities a set of neurally generated phantoms loose in the mind. Reality is thus more personal than daily life suggests. Nobody inhabits the same emotional realm. Many people live in a world so singular that what they see when they open their eyes in the morning may be unfathomable to the rest of humanity. When one woman looks at an attractive man, she sees someone who wants to possess her and stifle her creativity. Another sees a lonely soul who needs mothering and is crying out for her to do it. A third sees a playboy who must be seduced away from his desirable and unworthy mistress. Every one of them knows what she sees and never doubts the identity of the man in front of her faithful retinas, her fanciful brain. Because people trust their senses, each believes in her own virtuality with a sectarian’s furvor. It’s the rare person who glimpses the expanse of his own subjectivity, who knows that everything before his mind’s eye is the Hindu’s Maya: an elaborate dream… — A General Theory of Love
If I gave myself the task of counting red cars today, I’d see a lot more red cars than I would otherwise. This silly example points to a deep truth: we always have the power to choose which aspect of reality to focus on.
“Mental lenses” like physical lenses, are tools. Even if we are too sick to leave our bed, even if we are thrown into prison, we still have the power to choose how we see reality.
Here are some mental lenses I’m playing with:
- Learning lens. Approach this problem from a space of curiosity. Realize that I’m not a static being, I can change and grow. Ask: what can I learn from this?
- Overlap lens. Ask: what do I have in common with this person?
- Empathy lens. Ask: what is this person feeling and in what ways does that make sense?
- Grounded optimism lens. In an ambiguous situation, which interpretation brings hope and opportunity? For example, our cat Sticky Rice died and we never found out the cause. I can choose to believe he was poisoned by neighbors, or that it was some kind of accident or health problem. The first interpretation erodes my faith in humanity, so I choose to let it go.
- Long lens. Ask: Will this matter in 10 years?
- Helping lens. Ask: Who did I help today? Who helped me? Who is helping others? Credit: New Happy by Stephanie Harrison.
- Universality of suffering and impermanence lens. See that people are affected by similar flavors of suffering: accidents, disease, old age, death. Nothing is permanent.
- Appreciation lens. When looking in the mirror, say to myself: I accept my body as it is and I appreciate what it does for me. When working, say to myself: I get to have a job where I can help people. When eating, bring to mind all that was needed to bring me this food.
- Responsibility lens. Ask: How did I contribute to the present situation? What can I do to take care of my side of the street?
- Self-compassion lens. Realize that, just like all humans, I’m an imperfect being who makes mistakes, has limited time, wisdom, and energy. Many of us are hard on ourselves for our mistakes. We all make mistakes.
- Miracle lens. Every person is a miracle. A being that can see, hear, think, feel, experience. A unique and precious jewel.
Credit to Alex and Ethan for stimulating my thinking about lenses, and to Alex for the red car example.
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