Attention Control

"Not carefully paying attention resulted to a huge attention debt that we must now all begin to seriously settle collectively as a specie." - Al Cal

As we live our lives, we learn and experience many many things over the years. Learning can be easy. But sometimes, some of us may find it difficult because we have trouble paying attention. Attention includes our ability to listen and our ability to focus. It also include abilities to fit new ideas with old ones kept in memory. Attention is also involved in our actions to solve problems and to accomplish complex tasks.

There is goodness in everyone even in the worse you have ever known. It is just that bad people try to shut down a part of the brain that cares. The most unkind and also the kindest people you know who makes mistakes do it in the same way. We all have the empathy neurons or mirror neurons in our brains that allow us to feel the pain and pleasure that others may be experiencing. But the attention of many are still voluntarily being trapped in materialism, consumerism, physical accomplishments, etc rather than intangible treasures that will stay with us for as long as we live. Simply speaking, it is just that we fail to pay attention to our surroundings such that we can not act accordingly.

Attention control is a job we should have completed during school age. This is a time when the brain is suppose to establish its executive attention controls mostly under higher brain functions. If fight and flight automatic responses are controlled by the brainstem, then the higher brain functions that include complex processes are handled by a different part of the brain-the supratentorial brain or upper brain.

Shifting our attention by first disengaging our focus from one stimulus, moving our focus and then engaging another stimulus are also handled by different parts of the brain.

Our attention may be greatly influenced by bias, perspective, focus and time allocation. Attention may also be influenced by foresight, problem-solution filter, scheduling/pacing, sequencing, resource enumeration, evaluation, and hindsight. The above mentioned attention control skills or creativity skills are themselves products of Values such as Love and others that include Hope, Prudence, Restraint, Justice and Order.

Poor attention control results to inaccurate perceptions, impulsivity, or consequent avoidant or antisocial behaviors that distract us from attending to our real Needs.