Thoughts and the Mind

Tom Kando 

I want to write something about the mind, about OUR mind, as humans. 

Our mind affects our body and it is affected by our body and by what happens to us and around us. It generates thoughts in reaction to what happens to us, for example a traffic accident, and also in reaction to things which we just notice even if they do not affect us, such as a distant hurricane or a war we see on TV. 

Most of the things that happen and which we notice are independent from us. Most of the news belongs in this category. The war in Ukraine or a victory by the Sacramento Kings does not change my life in any significant way. However, both can trigger thoughts in my mind and emotions in me, such as sadness or euphoria. 

When things happen and they affect us, they are no longer separate from us. For example, you drive to the airport and you get a flat tire. This causes you to miss your flight to Hawaii. This event becomes part of your experience. 

Now your mind has no choice but to kick in. It thinks about the event, its consequences, how to respond, and a myriad of other thoughts related to and about the event. 

Your mind also affects your body. It creates emotions, which are mental-physical states that may be unpleasant or pleasant. The experience triggers several different categories of thoughts and emotions: evaluating the situation, planning a solution to the problem, memories of the solutions available to you (find the jack in your trunk or the AAA phone number on your phone), and probably a degree of frustration, distress, maybe even anger about the mishap. 

You are now dealing with a multiple situation: The flat tire and the missed flight to Hawaii are now in the past, irretrievably. Your mind would like to change, erase, think those events out of existence. The impossibility of achieving this causes you pain. Your mind causes you to suffer in addition to having to deal with the flat tire and the missed flight. This pain is unnecessary. It does not solve the problem more readily.

Read more...

Losing Things

By Madeleine Kando

I lost my phone yesterday. I went out for a drink and wanted to call my husband, but there was no phone in my bag. Must have left it in the car, I thought, with a hint of anxiety. I hardly ever leave it in the car, except when I go swimming, for obvious reasons.

When I got home, I called myself on my husband’s phone, but the familiar ‘quack’  (that’s my ringtone) was nowhere to be heard.

After a sleepless night, I rushed back to the place where I used it last. The building was empty but open. I looked under every chair, on every table, and rummaged through a box with personal belongings. My heart sank. Bye-bye thousand-dollar phone.

With my tail between my legs, I passed a small table where people leave brochures. The corner of a familiar-looking object peeked out from under a typed sheet. My phone! It had secretly and wisely hidden itself under some brochures.

I was overjoyed. I walked out of the building unseen and unheard. Like the CIA after a successful covert operation, except I hadn’t killed anyone.

This seems to be a recurring theme in my life. A while ago, I lost my favorite pair of sunglasses, the ones I bought in Paris for a hundred euros during a bout of temporary insanity.

It happened while I was walking my diminutive dog in the forest. I was awake most of the night and kept hearing this little voice calling out to me: ‘I am here! I am here! Please find me’, like one of the shrunken kids in the movie ‘Honey, I Shrunk the Kids’.

I went back to the forest and suddenly remembered bending over to pick up my tiny dog before he disappeared in the underbrush. ‘That’s when it happened!’ I thought. I retraced my steps and saw a speck of shiny brown amongst the green. ‘Some idiot must have dropped their sunglasses…Wait.. those are mine!' The odds that I would find them were so small that I thought I was dreaming.

So here I was, happy as a pig in mud. I wore my sunglasses the rest of the day even though it was raining. We were bonding.

Some things I lost but never found again, like my mother. Still, I find her again regularly in my dreams. It is not an exact replica, but beggars cannot be choosers.

Read more...