Outer vs. Inner Exploration

The Starbucks that I like to frequent has a set of four framed pictures on the wall. The pictures are made to look like pages from an explorer's notebook, complete with hand-drawn maps, photographs, sketches and measurements. The overall theme is one of an exotic locale - a jungle with strange musical instruments, pottery, palm trees and coffee beans.

I was looking at the photographs this morning and imagining what it must have been like to be an explorer in the 1700s seeing a new continent or a new island for the first time. The new vegetation and animals, the thrill of discovery and exploration. Two hundred years ago there were vast tracts of unexplored territory in the New World, in Africa, in Asia. Today, however, most of the world has been mapped and charted, with perhaps the exception of the deep sea. We can still lose things down there with little hope of finding them.

We, and by that I mean Western Society, have become very adept at exploring the outer world. We have documented new species, disappearing species. We have explored the earth and figured out plate tectonics. We look out to the stars as the next frontier for exploration - or at least the Moon and Mars. But how many of us will have the chance of embarking on some great exploration to the planets and the stars? Very few.

In the meantime, while we have been exploring the outer world, we have been neglecting the inner world. We might know what makes the earth tick, and how the Sun works... but we still don't really know what thoughts are. Where do they come from? Where do they go? We shy away from our subconscious like it is the deepest, darkest, most dangerous jungle on the earth. There is a lot of uncharted territory within us. What makes us tick? What makes us think the thoughts that we do? Do they actually mean anything - our thoughts? Or are they just fleeting things that blow in on the breeze? Innocuous and meaningless until we notice them, pick them out of the air and nurture them? Would these thoughts simply blow away again if we didn't pay them any mind?

There always seems to be a constant stream of thoughts flowing through my mind - strange ones, familiar ones - friendly ones, scary ones. When I am feeling blue, it usually means that I have plucked a few negative thoughts out of the air and started to take them seriously. The more I fixate on them, the bluer I get, the more anxious, the more upset. I start to believe that the thoughts mean something - after all, I thought them, didn't I? Or did I?

Perhaps some thoughts are like dandelion seeds in the wind. They are just there and we see them blow by us and think that that they are ours. Maybe they aren't. Maybe they are from someone else. After all, we really don't know much about thoughts. But one thing is certain, it was our choice to pull them out of the clouds and take them to heart. In that respect, we do have a choice as to what we think. We get to choose what thoughts receive our attention. Our attention is like fertilizer to the thoughts - whichever ones we choose to focus on. Fertilize the negative thoughts, the unhappy thoughts, the "life is going to heck in a handbasket" thoughts, and they will happily grow larger and more imposing.

But we can also turn our attention elsewhere. In fact, our emotional state is a good indicator of what sort of thoughts currently have the benefit of our attention. If we are feeling anxious and gloomy... stressed and overwhelmed... it is pretty much a sure thing that we have focused on thoughts that tell us "there is too much to do", "people are taking advantage of you", "you are such a sucker - you can never say no".

Usually those thoughts focus on what is wrong with the world around us - how the people around us, the circumstances around us - are all conspiring to ruin our lives. We bob along on these thoughts, twisting and turning in the current, trying to figure out how to better survive what the world is throwing at us. The more we focus how we can fix the situation - the world, the people, the circumstances - the deeper we are sucked into the thought vortex that has us firmly in its grasp. It's a messy thing.

And it all started with a drifting thought which we grabbed out of thin air. We can catch it early, when it's still small - be mindful of our state of mind, our state of emotion, and recognize that the thought we have grabbed is not a helpful one. In fact, if we pick that one out of the air, we'll soon find that there are myriad of other ones of a similar ilk that come flocking to us, eager for a handout of attention. Sort of like pigeons in the park. Feed one pigeon and pretty soon you'll have a whole horde of them around you.

So what do we do when we're in the throes of a thought vortex? Walk away from the pigeons. Turn your attention elsewhere. Anywhere else. Turn your focus and your attention to something for which you are grateful. It takes practice. And we're not very good at it. We have well-worn ruts that takes us through the dark forest of our inner world. But that's what inner exploration is all about. What would happen if we did things differently, if we chose a different path? A good question - one worth exploring.