We are free to think, or not to bother…

Page 48. We are free to think, or not to bother, or to actively avoid thinking. The choice to think it’s a choice to rise from the Sensory perceptual level and the awareness of mood, feelings, or floating mantle images to the active, conceptual level of consciousness. The choice not to bother, or to actively avoid thinking, is a choice to remain stuck at the level of sensory awareness and passive feelings in a room in relation to whatever it is we are not dealing with.

— from The Instruments (Awareness/Perception/Expectations)

In the book

If you are not actively paying attention — not specifically looking for a thing — that thing is astonishingly easy to miss entirely; whole planes slide through a sky you are staring straight into. So the first discipline is simply the choice to be aware at all, because in every moment you are free to think, or to not bother, or to actively avoid thinking, and that choice is far more yours than you let yourself believe. To fly well you must learn what deserves your attention and, just as crucially, what to leave alone. […] The mindset first: trust the panel over the feeling, and remember always that you are seeing a reading, not reality. Scan wider than feels necessary. What you are not actively looking for, you will simply miss; so deliberately look where you do not naturally look, assume there is a plane in the blind spot until you have checked, and keep choosing attention over drift, because that choice is always yours. Learn, too, what to stop attending to — awareness is as much about what you ignore as what you watch. — The Instruments (Awareness/Perception/Expectations)

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