Being in the moment...

I've heard a lot of students say that what they love the most about Israel is some indescribable feeling of "just being" when they're there. It gives them a connection they long for... it never comes for ome students though...

I've heard analysts tell me that military leaders and traders on Wall Street are soulmates, because they live in that zone of the mind wherein the split-second and quick decision comes --in a blinking moment of momentary cognition. (Yes, yes, I'll admit readily, I've been reading that book _Blink_ by Malcolm Gladwell. It IS really really interesting! ...and a fast read.)

thoreau urged people to be in touch with themselves and with nature by being present in the moment...
what if both of these phenomena were related? I suspect that they are.

Many people stop thinking about the future in such looming "me, me, me" and fearful terms of personal success or failure when they're in Israel... that movement/shift in thinking provides a background for a unique moment of unity and --say mindfulness. A person stands in that moment and is acutely aware of the world around them.. the flowers, the sky's blueness and the promise contained in that day... I seriously think there's something to it. If we could find a way to extend that feeling or recreate it ...transfer those conditions.. mimic them into a program to give people a shot at connecting with the world on a really deep level.. we could connect people to one another in a really powerful and strong way. Tapping into the reactionary cognition moment which has the ablity to teach a person deeply about what to be aware of within their minds and how to use that awareness could really be a valuable thing to train into young people today.

For so many people, introspection ruins what they really "know" intuitively. Breaking down one's intutive thoughts, because one's intuition is locked beneath the layers of subconscious thinking, tends to make us second guess and doubt what's really there... either you teach people to trust and go "with their gut" or you teach people the skills necessary to unlock that door and see what is running on the background computer in their subconscious mind. The former is how more eperts do it, the latter is how trained meditative practioners do it. so I seriously think that if one primed kids at the teenage level to become aware of themselves in a really deep way that these kids would have a leg up on the world... and it could honestly be one way to lift certain groups of kids to a new level of performance and give them an opportunity to do well. Could we teach inner city kids to meditate? Heck, I can't get teenage ashkenaz Jews to meditate... and they're more culturally and socially predisposed to it. Still if I could find a way to give the idea some polish so they don't think that that is what they're doing... it could really make a huge difference to their quality of life.

If you can make people aware of the great volume of negative self-talk they give themselves... and quiet it down, I bet you would find people responding to each other in a different way... and resopnding t themselves in a different way. People might just become more confident... and in that security would they be more likely to think deeply and creatively? No guarantees, but it mayb be worth a shot in certain groups to try.