Entry Note To Self...in this our life

Nov-el a noun...a fictitious prose narrative of book length, typically representing character and action with some degree of realism.

So you see our lives really are a novel...a fictitious prose of some length, representing character and action with some degree of realism...

In This Our Life,

Every person's life is worthy of a novel. One's life is a true novel, and one they can believe in. Philosopher Jonathan Glover, pondering the notion of what he calls "self creation", argues that self creation tends to make life like a novel, penned by a single author. This process begins early. Children themselves are emerging novelist, assembling their life stories from the numerous emotional incidents in their daily lives. They are the tellers of the stories they are, busy assembling it into coherent life histories.

In our daily lives we are ad hoc novelist. We are both the hero of our own plot and it's creator. So in a very real sense, we are the author of our lives. Do we not sense the drama in people's lives, the plots they live through, the suspense they create, the discovery of unique characteristics and the microcosmic commentary each life offers? And what about their inevitable creative passage through problematic experiences?...a novel indeed...What will you name your novel?...Doc

Discovering Ourselves...Focus

Field of llusion...can you find it?

To use the metaphor inspired by the brilliantly forward-thinking 19th Century American psychologist, William James, our visual attention system works a lot like a spotlight that scans the world around us. This ‘attentional spotlight’ represents the finite region of space that is occupied by our focus of attention at any given moment. What falls inside the spotlight is consciously processed while that which is outside is not. By moving our eyes around a visual scene, we can shine our spotlight on any area of the environment we want to inspect in detail. In fact, in-depth processing of an object, a string of text, or a location can’t be carried out unless it is first brought inside the spotlight of attention. Our conscious awareness operates like a spotlight, bringing the details that matter into sharp relief.

We have a localized spotlight of attention because taking in all the visual information from the environment at once would overwhelm the brain, which is a system with limited resources, much like a computer. The spotlight allows your mind to focus only on what's important while ignoring the irrelevant. This makes reality comprehensible.

Now imagine that this attentional behavior is going on all the time. As the threat bias filters out the positive and lets in only the negative, worry and fear flow through the cognitive system. The result is an overly threat-conscious appraisal of the environment. Essentially, to the anxious, the world literally looks like a much scarier, unhappier place.
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