Bill McKibben

Describe your mental environment.What is the landscape like? What pollutes it? How polluted is it? What do you think of this analogy? What might practicing "mental environmentalism" look like?


I like this analogy, it's an interesting way/interpretation/representation of the human mind. I think that everyone is born with a "pure" mind, however, even as the first few minutes pass - it is already polluted. I think that everyone's mind is polluted. Sometimes when I work too long, non-stop, I feel as though a giant tornado is jumbling all my thoughts - the ones that I just managed to put together are torn apart, the wrong pieces are put together, everything is going crisscross. But, I usually get into these situations when I have a lot of work to do and this tornado comes. This means that I still have some work left. When this happens, I put my pencil down and just try to organize my thoughts. However, sometimes this just takes too long and my thoughts get polluted with "okay, concentrate, focus....no....stop" and never actually get to the working part. I also think that when talking about a "polluted mental environment" we have to be careful not to mix this with things such as procrastination.

Practicing environmentalism, in my opinion - for clear thoughts, has several different looks. I think you need to have a clean physical outside environment. One needs to take a moment, relax and try to focus. One needs time. When one needs to think, one needs to get rid or disturbances and distractions. - however, I think it is impossible. The mere concept of "opinion" is great pollution to everyone's mind.

Even though I believe that everyone's mind is polluted, I don't really like this word. "Pollution" has a negative connotation to it. But, I think that 'pollution' in one's mind is a natural thing that cannot be changed. Shouldn't it be seen as a positive thing that we are so advanced that we have too many thoughts in our mind? Isn't it fascinating? And having this overflow ideas has caused the world to be as advanced as it is today, it has lead to great things. The mind and the knowledge, ideas and thoughts it contains is the ultimate power.