Anon La Ply
Diamond Member
There's the rub, I believe. Many people can't seem to help taking them to heart, and can't separate the thought from their identity. You know - I had an evil thought, so I must be evil.
I'm not sure if that is a skill everyone can learn despite being difficult, or if some are simply incapable.
I imagine people's ability to control their response to their thoughts would follow a Bell Curve.
All I can say about the mind is that it, like land, sea and space, is a frontier, and like space and sea, it is mostly uncharted. You can see how much we've ventured into outer space. We don't know even half of what the government knows about outer space. I believe the same things are true about the human mind. we are just barely tapping into its regions (I guess that's the right word).
Yes, inner space.
While I love rationality and people like Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins, I'd like to see them talk more about the transformational potentials of the mind and the feats and blunders we can create with the placebo effect, psychosomatic illness, hypnosis and the trance states achieved by tribal people.
"...it's called flow. Our ability to control things and analyze things is in direct opposition to a mantra that I have: Thought is the enemy of flow.
People ask me, “What do you think about when you’re playing?” The answer is basically nothing. Thought happens in a completely different way out of flow. It’s contemplative and analytical and problem solving. In flow, it’s completely different. It’s like a real-time program running in the background that doesn't interfere with what’s going on.
The ability to adapt in a given moment is beyond the scope of another type of focused thought process.” -- Vinnie Colaiuta (from Modern Drummer, Jan 2012)
Great quote! Seems that Vinnie's "beyond the scope" = Hal Galper's "not fast enough".
... I think this is probably what we mean when we talk about "overthinking" something. That's the conscious mind f***ing up the subconscious mind. When the term "choking" is applied to someone botching up a performance in a pressure situation, I think it's the same thing. Learning NOT to let that happen is important to success, I think.
Yes - very much relates to the Vinnie quote.
The conscious mind is an amazing machine to have at our disposal but the bloody manufacturer hid the off switch (it's hard to find reliable Creators these days *sigh*). But we need to turn it off when we perform because real time activity like performance is a job for the unconscious mind / Self 2 / Shadow Self etc. The past and future belong to the conscious and the present belongs to the unconscious.
I would love to be able to switch off at will. To have the faith that I could just let go and it would all just happen thanks to my practice and "muscle memory", the pull of the music around me and my natural expression. But I feel compelled to steer - to get my greasy little hands into the works. Tinker tinker tinker. It's as though I think I'll go off the rails without supervision. So I screw myself up through trying to supervise myself to avoid screwing up. How screwed up is that? lol It's crazy! I'm starting to sound like Larry(ace)! kgveb eariv pHTB TTB b b igsru ghriuh