Your Attention Shapes Your Reality

We usually tend to blame our distractibility on social media & streaming channels  — but these are all just proximate causes of distraction. We blame them, while the root causes stay hidden as explained by Nir Eyal in his book Indistractable.

For the past ten to fifteen years, there has been a huge increase in the degree to which that human vulnerability has been exploited for profit. Huge enterprises, and entire economic sectors, are dedicated to preying on our attention and focus.

They have merged the sciences of Psychology, algorithms & information technologies to create habit-forming products that hook us onto their infinite pool of content.

They don’t call it “surfing the web for nothing”. In reality, this is what’s happening. Nothingness! Just think about the idea of a Web! What do you do with a web? A spider knows what it does with a web. He captures flies, liquidates their innards, then suck the life out of them, and then there’s just a shell lying there on the web.

This is exactly what surfing the web does to you. Also, the interesting thing about the sport of surfing is that you’re just trying to stay on the wave. The wave has you. You’re not controlling the wave, the wave is controlling you. You’re just trying to stay afloat.

The first step in combating this is to be conscious of the fact that our desire for comfort may easily bleed into general apathy and the potential to be manipulated leading to our attention being bought and sold in destructive ways.

The first step in combating this is to be conscious of the fact that our desire for comfort may easily bleed into general apathy and the potential to be manipulated leading to our attention being bought and sold in destructive ways.

Hence it is important to be mindful of our attention.

Let’s get into the Etymology of some of these words.

Advertisement:  The word “advert ” means to turn towards, so an advertisement means to divert your attention to something the ad campaign (a military term) wants you to be mindful of.

Distraction : What exactly do you mean by “distraction”? One of the definitions we find in the dictionary is “mental distress or derangement”. Isn’t it interesting that we also live in one of the most mentally deranged periods in human history, with people unsure of what the ultimate purpose of life is?

Another meaning in the dictionary for distraction is “that which divides attention ”. The word “ Decide ” in English comes from a word “decidere ” which means to cutoff. Why would “decide” mean “to cut off”? because what you decide cuts off everything else. Once you’ve made your decision you’re actually cutting off other things. So make conscious decisions on where you spend your time.

The Arabic word for distraction is ‘ilha ‘, which means to pull someone into entertainment. Therefore, whatever receives our attention influences the reality we experience.

Entertainment , according to the dictionary, means “agreeable occupation of the mind, diversion, amusement.”

Who or what is occupying your mind? Our Prophet ﷺ occupied his own mind with the remembrance of God. He said, “Whoever makes his concerns (what he or she is mindful of) one concern (God), God will take care of all his other concerns.”

Who or what is occupying your mind? Our Prophet ﷺ occupied his own mind with the remembrance of God. He said, “Whoever makes his concerns (what he or she is mindful of) one concern (God), God will take care of all his other concerns.”

One of the Arabic words for mindfulness  is “muhtamm “, which means “what one is concerned with.”

The Arabic word for attention is ‘tiba ‘, which means to be awake and aware. It also means to devote. So We should try to be mindful and present in order to direct our attention & devotion to God.
Source:  The Mindful Messenger  ﷺ, Hamza Yusuf, Zaytuna College

Podcast Episode: How to Train Your Thoughts & Tame the Hidden Dragons With Dr. Daniel Amen & Kwik Brain with Jim Kwik.

Blog: Devil’s Tricks. An excellent take on “Distraction” from a Psycho Spiritual perspective on how human’s are lured to distraction by the devil.

Book Summary: Dopamine Detox by Thibaut Mueriss. This book explains the role of the Neurotransmitter “Dopamine” in our behavior & how its functioning has been hijacked in modern world.

Article: Pavlov’s Experiment: The Reason Why You Are Distracted . In this article Omer Mohammed revisits the Pavlov’s Experiment & explains how environments trigger our behaviors.

Video : I Left Social Media For 14 Days : Afterbreaking his phone accidentally, Omer was forced to undergo a social detox. In this video he shares his experience on dopamine detox after quitting social media.

Or were they created without there being anything, or are they themselves the creators?
―Quran 52:35

Book Lady of Dubai: This article tells the story of a voracious reader and book enthusiast who went on to become a successful entrepreneur in Dubai.

Readwise : Do you want to remember everything you read ? Then check out this app named Readwise   to grow wiser and retain books better.

Readwise  helps you get the most out of what you read by making it fun & easy to revisit your highlights from all your favorite reading platforms in one place

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