Heroes Not Zombies

Rick Rubin writes…..

Analysis is a secondary function. The awareness happens first as a pure connection with the object of your attention. If something strikes me as interesting or beautiful, first I live that experience. Only afterward might I attempt to understand it.

This strikes me as totally consistent with Iain McGilchrist’s insights into the functions of our two cerebral hemispheres. He says that each engages with the world in a different way, the right with a broad focussed attention, and the left with a narrow one. The right is where all the signals acquired by our senses travel to first. We engage with the world primarily through direct experience. It evokes our sensations of awe and beauty. Some of that information then passes to the left which zeroes in on elements, naming, labelling and classifying. This is our analytic function.

I take a lot of photographs. For many years I’d carry a camera with me everywhere. Since smartphones improved their cameras, I take most photos with one of those. However, I do deliberately take a small camera with me when I go out for a walk, take a day trip, or go and visit somewhere. I photograph whatever catches my eye, and I’ve written before about how going out with an intention to photograph heightens my awareness, enhances my ability to be present. The iPhone has an “I” button for information when you view a photo later. I use that to identify a plant, or an insect, or whatever, and then look up more about it on wikipedia, or whatever…..a clear pathway of experience first, enabling joy, awe and wonder, then analysing next, to better understand it.