The Flashlight of Attention: Illuminating the Known and Unknown

Imagine being in a dark space with the flashlight in your hand. The only thing you can see is what is being illuminated with that light. You go around in this place flashing your light here and there. Over time you familiarize yourself with your surroundings by illuminating them. Your mind create this virtual map of your surroundings overtime; every time you lit up the new space it is stored in your mind map as part of your known world. No matter how far you seem to walk there is no end to this space. Sometimes you find things that amaze you and are great; other times there are things that are scary and you don't want to see them again.

You don't know what lies beyond the places that you have not yet illuminated. Over time you confine yourself at the area where things around you are pleasant and safe. You are scared to wander into spaces that are unexplored because you are scared to stumble upon things that may harm you.

Now there are mainly two worlds one that you know and another that you don't. Out of the world that you know you can only see some of it at a time because your flashlight can only lit up a small area.

You can explore the known or familiar world by exploring the map of it that you have in your mind without physically walking into places. But you cannot imagine what lies beyond this familiar known map of the world that you have.

There is a world that we know and there is a world that we don't. If something is outside our attention and virtual mind map, it is not part of our life.

Your current mind map which we can also call The Framework of Understanding determines not just the scale of your life but also the outcomes of it.