Frustration with the powers that be continues as I think of ways to bypass bureaucracy in order to help the environment. Inaction on plastic by some governments and the habits that are now part of many humans life, just accept a plastic bag or straw without thinking of the consequences. Habituation, something that causes our brains to encode everyday things into habits. We can’t deal with everything we encounter everyday as if it were a new experience. So something that requires new brainpower one day, is eventually turned into habits and after doing them a hundred times or so, we don’t notice them anymore. Perhaps we have turned the words of our politicians into a habit; or do we just want to believe that they have our best interests at heart? Perhaps we need to stop listening to them altogether and find our own solutions? New inventions and creations come about because someone notices a problem and thinks of a way it could be done better.
Its our job to notice things, to see things that could be done better. Are we so used to something that it has become a habit? Getting in the car everyday to drive to work, driving past the park with no trees but not giving it a thought as to why or stepping over plastic litter everywhere because we are so used to seeing it, its almost become invisible? If you broaden your vision, step back and think of how things around you could be done better. Could a new way of seeing something so routine expose a far more practical solution or something incredibly revolutionary?
On the flip side. Habituation will reduce our brains response to fear, the fear of danger or the fear of change. We barely even recognise driving as dangerous anymore, it feels so natural to us. Now if we start to see things differently and our new vision can see changes for good. Does that mean everyone will see it your way? Probably not. There is a real fear of the change, Not everyone will share your vision, not everyone will get the picture your painting. However, habituation will ensure that society gets use to it. Just as you fear going out on a limb to do something your not use to, some in society will fear the change you are trying to create, but over time you will feel increasingly confident.
Thanks to habituation, those who feared the change, after a while will barely even remember how things were before you came along and decided to shake it up. Sometimes everyday seems like Groundhog Day, Sometimes everyday seems like Groundhog Day.
So think younger and ask questions like a child. Just because something has been done a certain way for so long, doesn’t mean it always has to be done that way. “We all saw the world a lot clearer when we saw it for the first time, before a lifetime of habits got in the way“. Tony Fadell
Paul Hellier.