The Great Divide
By Jason Henkel, Chief Balance Engineer
There's a lot of talk about the ever-growing gap between the wealthy and the poor, the haves and the have nots. The massive global economy, they tell us, is adding fuel to the fire.
I look at this situation quite differently. The gap has been mislabeled. I feel that the gap is between those who learn the meta-skill of not being distracted and those who do not learn that skill. Congratulations to Facebook, Google, and all other companies who caught on to the fact that yanking the attention and focus from all humans is worth big money. UNIMAGINABLE MONEY.
I've had the privilege to befriend big data analysts from Disney, MIT, and other deep underground analytics companies who have vested interest in perfecting the craft of how to pull the attention from people's lives and redirect that attention to the interests (direct or indirect) of for-profit companies' growth and profit. Believe me when I tell you, Mickey Mouse ain't the innocent little mouse he used to be. That boy likes to make MONEY by manipulating your brain chemistry through what you see on that little phone you have attached to your psyche (yes, you did that - it's a choice). And it's not just Mickey. It's every single manufacturer of consumer goods and services that you have ever heard of. Especially the publicly held ones where the soul and purpose of the company is literally high returns for the investors.
I don't want to demonize big companies who are pulling those levers. They're just doing what they do, and they are the bringers of amazing conveniences to our lives. I also don't want this to be a knock on the humans who work in those companies; they're just feeding their families. Absolutely no blame there. In fact, I wish to thank the humans in those companies! I mean come on, how awesome is it to live in a time where companies give me a magical phone that grants me all the world's information with two clicks and a search. I push "repeat order" on my groceries for the week and 45 minutes later they are literally sitting on my front door, seemingly manifested out of thin air! I am drinking a coffee from Italy as I type this…in Cleveland, Ohio! I'm living so soo sooo much better than any king in our species' history. So, thank you to the big money chase for all of this amazing innovation (seriously - THANK YOU).
The onus is on each of us: you, me, all of us as individuals. The purpose of businesses/companies is to make money by awesome innovation. My ask to you with this writing is to simply become aware that our job is to deliberately manage the incoming influences. Have awareness that your attention is being hunted. It is the new goldrush.
How does one protect against their direct tie into your brain and avoid the consumerism rat race perfected by manipulating brain chemistry of consumers (me and you)? Here's a quick start: before turning on your device (any of your devices), before opening your apps (any app, especially the social or search apps), simply close your eyes and take one deep slow breath and say "my attention is being hunted for profit of all companies." That's it. Now from that point when you see the ads and the recommendations based on your digital avatar that the companies have made for you, you will have the option to choose if that's the clickbait you wish to consciously participate in.
By the way, I go down the rabbit hole of YouTube's suggestions all the time. They've REALLY got me nailed. But I do take advantage of the gap between the stimulus (suggested next video or product ad) and response (me clicking) by asking myself, "It looks amazing, but is that the content/learning/growth/progress that I choose to have today?" Sometimes my answer is yes, but sometimes it's no thanks, and I conduct my next deliberate search on my terms. I know the algorithms that YouTube/Google have on me are profoundly confused when I go from watching Kundalini breathwork videos to then searching most amazing knockouts in MMA history and then over to loving kindness meditations and then Ido Portal to learn the importance of playing on the ground with full body movement with a quick pit stop on quantum optionality all tipped off with a touch of Tron Legacy soundtrack followed by Rob Zombie and then Trevor Hall. I mean, my curiosities are ALL OVER THE PLACE, a real train wreck that I'm very proud of. I'm leading my learning and building my connectome. I've still got my hands on the wheel, and I hope you do too. I'd like to see the analyst who gets my ticket and tries to program what the next ad should be to make them money. It doesn't help that my daughter occasionally hops on and searches for unicorn kid games. Ha.
The good news for them is that they are now measuring pupil dilation (from your device camera) to measure physiological/biological interest in what you are watching. There's no fibbing on that one - you are giving live and dead honest input with this in place; like it or not. Well done attention hunters! They also measure face structure (biometric identification) to know when it's me and when it's my son or daughter. So I think they still have good ideas and suggestions regardless of crazy random and deliberate searching.
To get to your season of deliberate learning, building, and living, you must be organized. You must hear the whisper of silence to actually know what you want to learn next (in the context of search or social media). Clicking the next thing you see or blindly swiping up or over without any intention nor pre-check filter is donating minutes of your life that will not return to you.
Learning to be the proverbial architect and not the contractor is unimaginably important. In my opinion, the great and growing divide is not about rich and poor; it's about those who choose to be the deliberate architects of their minutes ahead and those who let other architects have their way with our minutes and attention and therefore beliefs and actions.
Focus to Evolve gets very nerdy with this subject. If something in this rings true to you, if something is keeping you at "average" and you'd like to integrate this modality of being the architect of your work and life, please click here and say hello!
Deliberately Yours,
Focus to Evolve Team