Seeing the World as New

“My experience is what I agree to attend to.”
— William James[1]

“Life can be found only in the present moment.”
— Thich Nhat Hanh

 Text and Photos by Norris Frederick

 As I awake one morning, I lie in bed thinking about the classes I must teach this day.  I need coffee.  I stumble out of bed, and as I walk toward the stairs that will lead me down to the coffee-pot, I glance into the bedroom of my 6-year-old son Chris.  He sees me, sits up in bed, and says, “Dad, is it time to get up?”

“Yes, son, it is,” I reply.

Both his arms shoot into the air and Chris shouts “HOORAY!” 

 That happened many years ago.  The morning that seemed routine and wearisome to me seemed to Chris to be a grand adventure about to begin.  Chris tells me that he doesn’t always awake that way now, and I don’t know that I know any adult who does, but his awakening that morning is worth thinking about.

Without habits, our experience and lives are chaotic and shapeless.

Without seeing things anew, we miss out on the zest of living.

HABIT

The American philosopher and psychologist William James is an excellent guide to the power of habit.  James writes,

“The great thing…is to make our nervous system our ally instead of our enemy….For this we must make automatic and habitual, as early as possible, as many useful actions as we can, and guard against the growing into ways that are likely to be disadvantageous to us … The more of the details of our daily life we can hand over to the effortless custody of [habit], the more our higher powers of mind will be set free for their own proper work.”[2] – William James

Our habits enable us to accomplish goals well and efficiently, such as walking, or typing this sentence without looking at the keys.  Walking, which for most of us is now so routine we rarely think about it – at least until we are injured or grow frail — first began as moving by crawling, and then came those first precarious steps, followed by falling down on our bottoms, followed by a few steps to a safe handhold on the nearest chair.  Only after many, many attempts and the encouragement of others did we walk steadily, a result of so much practice that our walking became a habit at which we became skilled.

Without habits, we would be unable to do much of anything.

More complex habits lead us to the deep satisfactions of playing a sport well, or solving problems at home or work.  New habits must be developed at first by a conscious effort, and then after enough practice we begin to do it unconsciously.

Habits also enable us to develop our character traits, so that we might be said to be reliable, honest, and brave, instead of unreliable, dishonest, and cowardly.  There is much good that can be said about habits and about developing good habits instead of harmful ones.

And yet…those habits that provide us efficiency and effectiveness can also get us into ruts that mirror those neural pathways formed by habits.  Think of the mind as a slope of snow down which you can walk or sled. 

As habits form those pathways deeper and deeper, it makes it much harder to go down that slope in any other way.  And those ruts can lead to dullness and even despair.

SEEING THE WORLD ANEW

Contrast our control over habits to James’ description of a baby’s experience :  “The baby, assailed by eyes, ears, nose, skin, and entrails at once, feels it all as one great blooming, buzzing confusion….”[3]

That sounds terrifying to us adults, doesn’t it? We have learned to see a world composed of clear and distinct objects, most which we can name and with whom we’ve developed a habit of interacting.

 On the other hand, if life is nothing but uninterrupted habits our world will be very stale.  In between the “blooming, buzzing confusion” world of the baby and the world of endless habits there is an alternative:  the art of seeing the world anew.

There’s a lot to be said for seeing things anew, as if we were seeing them for the first time.  A moment of novelty, consciously maintained, can crack open the shell of habits we have formed which blinds us to other ways of perceiving and thinking.

It’s helpful to remember, as James points out, that what is in our consciousness at any moment is but a fraction of what is present to our senses.

“Millions of items of the outward order are present to my senses which never properly enter into my experience. Why? Because they have no interest for me. My experience is what I agree to attend to. Only those items which I notice shape my mind – without selective interest, experience is an utter chaos. Interest alone gives accent and emphasis, light and shade, background and foreground – intelligible perspective, in a word.” [4]

It’s important to form a habit of consciously interrupting all those other habits. 

LEARNING TO SEE THE WORLD AS NEW

Start with perceptions.  Instead of just walking down the steps to get to a destination, breathe in deeply and look around you.  Yesterday morning when I stood on the back-porch steps, I saw this:

I am struck by several things about the spider’s web: the way the morning sun gleams on it; how it’s a combination of symmetry and irregularity; and when viewed closely, how strong it is.  All these traits, along with its rarity, lead me to see it as beautiful.

The habitual me would not have noticed this spider web, as I might have been mentally planning my morning or — I confess — looking at my phone.

If I look for some external validation that my seeing this spider web is important, I become lost in a maze of argument and counterargument.  But if I follow my sense of excitement, I feel a zest for life I would not have sensed in my morning routine. 

As James says, “My experience is what I agree to attend to.”  I “agreed” to stop on the step and look around me, and then I “agreed” to fix my attention on the spider web. This “agreeing to” involves both to we turn what our body and senses, and also the habits of mind that we “agree to.”

What are some things you and I can do to develop that sense of seeing the world anew?  Here are a few ideas.

– Look for something new in your spouse, friend, adult child, or parent who you have known for many years. We think we know that person so well, but our viewpoint derives not only from the person’s habits but also from our habitual way of seeing them. What do you see anew?

– Do something that’s unusual for you. Awake early and go walk in your neighborhood or a park where you can walk very slowly and see – attend to – plants and trees and whatever there is to see.

– Do something a bit uncomfortable that connects you to something larger than yourself. Write a letter to the editor or to an elected official.  Join a group that’s working for a good cause.

– Challenge your habit of being busy every moment. No one had to teach 6-year-old Chris the joy of a whole new day, but we adults need to learn that all over again. Develop a habit of meditating/being aware/praying where you focus on the present.  James’ words well describe this function of habit so that the “higher powers of mind will be set free for their own proper work.”

Here’s one way to do that.

Meditate, sitting on the floor or in a chair.  Focus on your breath as you breathe deeply, thinking “in-breath, out-breath,” or just “in, out.”  Pay attention to what’s in your mind. Calm your mind.  Start your day by saying to yourself what  the Zen Buddhist Thich Nhat Hanh reminds  us:  “I have a whole new 24 hours!”[5]

You can click here to listen to an audio recording of Nhat Hanh’s teaching about mindful breathing  and being in the present.  I find his words provide an excellent guided meditation, listening to just whatever length is working for you.  Make this a practice and you find that time getting longer.

He says, “When you are not there, not clearly there, you cannot see things clearly…. Therefore, to make ourselves available to our beloved ones, we should be there.  And that is done by [mindfully] breathing in and breathing out.  That is the practice of mindfulness, mindfulness means to be aware, to be aware of what is going on.  Your child is coming, and she wants some attention, some affection, and the basic condition is that you are there….  Life can be found only in the present moment.”

When you are in the present, you are  opening yourself to something broader and deeper and infinitely more satisfying than anything you could possibly purchase: the awareness of being, the astonishing fact of being alive when you might not exist at all.

Like everything else in the universe, you might never have existed, and you might not tomorrow, but you do now!  It’s astonishing to be here, in this place, right now.

Click here to post a comment or share a practice you use to see the world anew.

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[1] James, The Principles of Psychology (1890), Chapter XI, https://psychclassics.yorku.ca/James/Principles/prin11.htm

[2]James, chapter IV,  http://www.yorku.ca/pclassic/James/Principles/prin4.htm

[3] James, chapter XIII, http://www.yorku.ca/pclassic/James/Principles/prin13.htm

[4] James, Chapter XI, http://www.yorku.ca/pclassic/James/Principles/prin11.htm

[5] Thich Nhat Hanh, Peace Is Every Step (New York: Bantam Books, 1991), p. 5.