Friday, June 5, 2009

The Deficit of My Attention

In the trillions. Larger than my GDP.

Question habit. Question nature. If uniqueness is not an entitlement but rather an assumed in a free democracy, why are we so much the same.

At some point, in the brain, whether by habit or by observation or something else, whatever it may be that solidifies the proceeding behavior, a child's brain makes a decision about the legitimacy of focus. Take for an example an infant watching television. Television is certainly easy. Television brings everything to your brain that you don't need to go get. This, in and of itself, does not make you lazy, but what of those crucial decision moments. Do we truly decide things in a moment or do they develop over long periods of time? Is there a complexity in the development? Of course. So

Over time you develop a habit, but at some point is acceptance. As a metaphor take water in the freezer. It becomes a cube by "habit" (recurring exposure to environment over time). But it also freezes in an instant. Not all the water, but some of the water freezes in an instant and the rest of the process occurs around those pioneering molecules (affected by multiple conditions beyond my education to know). If the ice is removed from the freezer before these molecules freeze, the molecules do not freeze, but they were repeatedly exposed to this condition.

Now, armed with that metaphor, let's go into battle with this concept of creation of habit. At the formative moment of creation of habit, what are the enviromental factors affecting the decision.