Cast All your Votes for Dancing

One of my favorite TV characters, Bobby Axelrod from the show Billions, has a few recurring catchphrases.

Perhaps my favorite is:

Nowhere is this more apparent than in our political process, where I’m proud to say Vlad––since he’s still only three––is once again fully recognized by the local Board of Elections staff as a Future Voter.

As I was considering a theme for November, I wanted to extend this idea of freedom to choose into the spiritual.

More specifically, the new meditation—Choose Your Focus HERE—is about realizing that ultimately we alone have the power to control what we think.

That is not to say, however, that this is in any way easy or obvious, particularly given all the endless stimuli constantly competing for our attention.

The human brain receives approximately 11 million bits of information per second from our senses but it can only consciously process about 40 to 50 bits of that.

Our brains use mechanisms like selective attention to filter out less relevant information, allowing us to focus on what is most pertinent to us at any given moment, though that process is often unconscious.

Rather than lingering in old habits and default settings, we can only create the life we want by choosing our focus.

As someone who’s particularly sensitive to sound, I’ve always been fascinated by the Cocktail Party Effect.

The cocktail party effect is a phenomenon we’ve all experienced that demonstrates the brain’s ability to focus on a single sound while filtering out other distracting noises.

Examples include when your ears perk up as you hear your name across a crowded room or when you tune into a specific conversation in a noisy restaurant.

More than just eavesdropping on interesting chitchat, this psychoacoustic phenomenon illustrates our brain’s ability to selectively focus on certain stimuli while ignoring others.

It demonstrates our ability to sift through the clatter and zero in on anything that captures our attention or curiosity.

The visual parallel to this is filtering by the Reticular Activating System (RAS).

The RAS is a bundle of nerves at the brainstem that acts as a filter, helping us focus on information that we consider important or relevant.

When something like red cars is brought to your attention, your RAS flags that information as significant.

As a result, your brain is more likely to notice them in your environment.

Suddenly, the world seems awash with crimson vehicles.

They’re everywhere, it seems, as if they’d multiplied overnight, when in reality, you’ve simply directed your brain to focus on them.

I also find it fascinating that an opposite visual phenomenon can occur based on our focusing abilities.

Inattentional Blindness occurs when individuals fail to perceive unexpected stimuli in their visual field while focusing on something else.

The classic example of this is the famous “gorilla experiment,” in which people watching a basketball game often fail to notice a person in a gorilla suit walking through the scene.

In a recent scientific study, 24 radiologists were asked to perform a standard lung nodule detection task.

Building on the other experiment, researchers inserted a gorilla into the last case presented, 48 times larger than the average nodule.

Astonishingly, even though eye-tracking scans showed the majority of radiologists looking directly at its location, 83% did not see the gorilla.

The study concludes that

“Even expert searchers,
operating in their domain of expertise,
are vulnerable to inattentional blindness.”

Back for the moment to elections…

Although I definitely have a surplus of opinions, I’ve never really written directly about politics.

Right now, I’m reminded of something I said once while teaching a yoga class off-the-cuff.

It got a laugh, so occasionally I’ve repeated the remark.

An exceedingly well-mannered student asked me a simple question, something like whether they could substitute a pose or use a prop, and I responded:

This is America;
You can do what you want.

In a period when so many of our liberties are threatened, I’d encourage you to vote with your eyes open.

I was looking for the right image to put with this section, one that shared my personal leanings without preaching, and then I remembered this one from an event a while ago.

Moving forward, I still believe in hope.

The Sufi mystical poet Hafiz wrote around 700 years ago, so even if he’d had any political comments, they’d be quite dated.

Nonetheless, his work (although wildly translated) resonates at times like these.

A favorite poem begins:

I know the voice of depression
Still calls to you.
I know those habits that can ruin your life
Still send their invitations.

He goes on to describe how, by Choosing our Focus—Meditation HERE—and reorienting ourself toward the divine, we can

Learn to recognize the counterfeit coins
That may buy you just a moment of pleasure,
But then drag you for days
Like a broken man
Behind a farting camel.

Hafiz ends by encouraging us to:

Keep squeezing drops of the Sun
From your prayers and work and music
And from your companions’ beautiful laughter
And from the most insignificant movements
Of your own holy body.
Now, sweet one,
Be wise.
Cast all your votes for Dancing!

Science has shown that we can be blinded not just by the media or peer pressure, but through the over-stimulation of our own brains.

However, at the same time, we have the incredible ability to focus when we want to—to hear our name ring true across a crowded, noisy room or to zero in on the subject of our curiosity.

When we direct our attention toward anything—positive, negative, or as neutral as a red car—we soon witness an abundance of it.

And again, as Bobby Axelrod reminds us, “There’s always a choice.”

Whatever lies ahead, this month and beyond, Iet’s explore the power of Choosing a Focus to create a reality that empowers and inspires us all.

Namaste for Now