When we seriously think about the long journey of the human species I think that we can find that in many ways life is becoming easier for some and more difficult for others. In many cases when we look around it appears that regardless of our economic status or the ease in which we can accumulate wealth and goods we find that there is a great deal of dissatisfaction with the way in which our individual life paths are leading. Illness and trouble come immediately to mind as causes of dissatisfaction though there are also numerous more subtle causes for just being “down” about the way that your life is going. Considering the level of dissatisfaction that is apparent in the world it is not unjustified to say that a significant segment of the human population is, with good cause, depressed, living a life out of which the joy has been drained or is draining.
Early in the human experience we had little or no sense of the importance of bodily hygiene. Even so our species is robust and is naturally fitted out with both a powerful sensory suite for engaging with our environment as well as a constantly improving immune system to allow us to maintain a separate physical autonomy and not be quickly reabsorbed into the biological and mineral mix that we are temporarily assembled from. Though there were ups and downs and there are no guarantees in the success of a species, in fact most of what can be considered as early prototypes have perished, still we thrived. Eventually spreading out and adapting to every terrestrial habitat on this planet.
Take a little breather here and think. If you are entertaining the thought that the world would be better off without the human species, either including or excluding yourself, that is an example of the depressed thinking that I am talking about.
Early on our species put up with bad hair, bad teeth, bad eyesight, infections and diseases, mostly short lives and some pretty tough going that as some of our human imaginations expanded we as a species eventually got down to the long, tedious and difficult task of sorting out solutions.
Though now in the twenty-first century we are enjoying many of those solutions there are still lots of old not very helpful or useful truths piled up in many human imaginations that are causing unneeded and unwanted consequences. Mental hygiene, sweeping the mind, allows us to begin to once again see clearly the wonder and beauty of this life and the world that we inhabit.
Why should I “sweep” my mind? It sounds a bit scary. If we find that we are not getting the kind of joy out of our experience of life that is promised then the problem is caused by the accumulated thoughts and truths that occupy our mind, and the way in which those thoughts and truths filter, color and determine the way in which we respond to our experiences.