dilution
It’s interesting, the things you think about when you don’t have a stream of constant input mainlined directly your brain like television. It is to me, anyway. For instance, I’ve discovered that I crave food that really isn’t that good for me, at least part of the time. Actually, I knew that already, but without the distraction of tv I’m more acutely aware of it. That’s partly what prompted me to start my 28 challenge. That discovery is actually a smaller one compared to the one I’m going to tell you about right now.
First, here’s a little background. I’m inputting some information into my brain on a regular basis - I’m always doing that, obviously, but in this case I’m referring to the repeated viewing of the same information, which I’ll talk about in another post. Anyway, the idea is pretty simple - expose myself to the information enough times, over a long enough time, and that vibrational pattern will become set and eventually manifest in my life. Basically I’m talking about a visual affirmation. Affirmations typically take a while to cause a shift in consciousness, before people start to act on them consistently, without thinking, much like a habit.
The other vein of thought you need to know about is about television. Let’s face it, a lot of television is basically a stream of garbage that wastes our time and makes us forget the real world, even the so-called reality tv shows. So, I’m thinking that by watching less television, there’s less junk going into my brain. Since our brains are basically computers, it brings to mind a well known computer acronym, GIGO - Garbage In, Garbage Out. Our brains are the same way - garbage in, garbage out. And this is where it starts to get really interesting.
Watching less tv is not just going to reduce the amount of garbage being fed to my brain, it’s going to make my affirmations more effective. Let’s change the metaphor - instead of garbage and desirable input, I’ll use rivers, so everything coming into my brain is fed by a tributary of some sort. The information coming in from tv is one source, and for many Americans, a large source, almost larger than anything else. If that source is suddenly interrupted, or the flow severely diminished, the other tributaries become more influential, and their waters become more concentrated.
It seems like the more I try to explain this, the less clear it becomes, so I’ll just say it like this - without the input of tv, my other thoughts become predominant, the affirmations become stronger because they aren’t being diluted into a stream full of polluted thoughts. But even more fundamental than that, is that I won’t be so diluted. All the sources of input, I deluged sometimes - waterlogged, if you will. By shutting off some of these sources, I can start to let them go, to focus on the essential and let the unnecessary go.
The Chinese writer Lin Yutang once wrote, “Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is the noble art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of non-essentials.” When we do those things that are not essential, we are diluting ourselves, opening ourselves to influences to which we need not be open, diluting the very essence of our lives.
Even if you believe in reincarnation, we only get so many years before our trip ends here. Seems like it would be a shame to not achieve what we want because we allowed something else to dilute the purity of our desire.
September 10th, 2008 at 11:27 am
Interesting to read about your TV experiment. For several years in my twenties I lived without a TV, and it was a fascinating experiment and life-enriching experience. You have reminded me of how much I neglect because of TV. I have gotten into the habit of believing I am too tired to do anything but watch TV when TV itself is really what tires me.