The compass we rely on: Consciousness

We know what a compass does, it indicates direction. If the compass is not working properly, the probability is that you will end up in the wrong direction. Before the digital world of the internet and GPS, the compass was an extremely useful tool.

As the compass guides you in the desired directions, it is the same way your consciousness guides you in the daily making of choices or the so-called life.

Evaluate this personally ‘Most of the evil happened in your small circle of life up to now: is delivered from how hopeless you were unconsciously”.

In layman's terms, consider consciousness as the light you hold in your hand to be able to see on the road. The brighter it is, the clearer you can see.

You have probably asked yourself some similar questions how does it come? are we born with it? If you have it, can it go away? how do we rely on it?

Well, let’s chew this “consciousness thing” into small pieces we can swallow.

Consciousness is something every human being has and animals. Exceptionally, humans are more conscious than other animals. Consciousness is like a tree, it grows; expect that this metaphorical tree doesn’t have a limit in size and source. And the supply is infinite.

Consciousness is the ability of one to be aware of their surroundings, to make good choices, to know when you are wrong, to make good judgments, etc. It is consciousness that helps us to sail in the chaotic ocean of thoughts.

For how it sounds, it’s like there should be some limits one can reach and could tell themselves that they are conscious enough not to make mistakes. Happy to break it to you that there’s no such limit because we are simply people. We can’t be fully conscious, there’s always something to improve.

We get conscious as we age up. We inherit a great deal of how to judge right from wrong by learning from our parents, brothers & sisters, friends, church, government, and environment in general.

By saying that, it implies that we may age up copying not probably the best of what’s good.

To mean that your environment, in general, maybe pretty wrong about some things. Yet, our environment serves as the core foundation of our judgments to anything in our circle of perception.

This gives us a good picture of how the psychological compass can take us in the wrong directions because we entirely rely on our thoughts which most of the time are induced by our environment.

Don’t worry if by now, you are visualizing yourself in messed up places not as originally planned to be; like a person ended up in the wrong destinations. you can always get your compass ready by making good choices, re-defining your new destinations, and making goals to achieve them. There’s nothing wrong with you if you do wonder about that, you just have to tilt your psychological compass, give yourself reasons to believe in yourself again.

A child needs to be fed to grow up, a black hole needs to feed on nearby space objects to grow as well, a plant needs to feed on nutrients to grow. Consciousness is not left out in the feeding system. Your personal consciousness should feed on things too.

Speaking of feeding the consciousness, that would mean that it’s something that needs your attention.

Consciousness feeds on your past mistakes, your readings, your conversations, your friends’ minds, your ambitions, desires, things you pay attention to, your reflections, your culture, your environment, etc.

When feeding your consciousness consider it as to clean a carpet. You wouldn’t let some dirty feet just walk on it like that. Or consider it as a water container like a bottle you are cleaning, you wouldn’t let someone just show up and pour some dirty water in your container.

Truth be told though, sometimes someone pours their dirty water in your container and may take a time to clean it back, and that’s at least when you realize.

Metaphorically, Say someone is just pouring some wrong wisdom he/she got from his/her current bad marriage and you are just a young guy or lady looking forward to building your own family.

This can be a typical example if you just take advice without further evaluation.

How conscious you are, goes hand in hand with thirst you have to learn more from anything/anyone around you, simply, because deep inside you know that consciousness relies on continuous learning, and that’s why the supply is infinite.

Keep this that “a mind that is stretched by a new experiment can never go back to its old dimensions”. There’s no little learning.

Awareness drives out the ego, consciousness drives out one’s own darkness. Consciousness and ego can’t coexist. Let’s keep the window of curiosity open, see things in the third person sometimes or in other people’s shoes, and develop some empathy.

Quoting Carl Jung “One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious”.

Writen by Fred Mugisha.