Cleaning The Stream of Consciousness

“What wild desires, what restless torments seize, the hapless man, who feels the book-disease”

— John Ferriar

“Cast your books from you; distract yourself no more; for you have not the right to do so.”

— Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book II, No. 2

These statements were made prior to the smartphone, the internet, and even the television. I think they are even more important today. As a society, we continue to dump loads of garbage into our landfills and oceans. It should come as no surprise that we do the same to our minds. We stream multiple sources of content directly into our consciousness, dumping large amounts of trash into our minds.

This is important because the stream of consciousness can be turbulent or calm. When it is turbulent, lots of mental energy is needed to organize as the mind bounces between disconnected ideas, struggling to connect meaningful dots. Although exhausted, we keep adding more to the queue.

A turbulent mind does not relax like a calm stream. In a calm stream, thoughts come mostly one after another in a sequential nature that allows for efficient processing. It’s a calm environment where we can give every idea the appropriate attention. Ideas that not worth our attention are more quickly filtered and so we can keep up on clearing the clutter.

There are some things we can do to help maintain a calm stream of consciousness. Meditation is the most popular method. But we can also help calm our minds by intentionally discarding ideas that are not worth our attention.

Just having a thought doesn’t qualify it for sharing. Discerning which ideas are worth our attention or worth sharing with others is like picking our battles. We sometimes act as if we need to fight every battle, and we sometimes grasp at every thought that crosses our mind. When we do this, we stretch ourselves too thin to concentrate and stall on our more important thoughts. Our conversations end up reflecting our cluttered mind, creating a chaotic space where others sense anxiety and cannot relax.

Here are a few questions that can help determine what ideas to keep and what to discard:

Am I spending too much time on thoughts that lead nowhere?

What more important ideas could I be thinking about?

What is the likely benefit of sharing a particular thought?

We are the first line of defense. It is our job to filter our ideas. We cannot share everything we think. Our ability to discern and manage the inputs will determine how well our minds work.