Warning writer on autopilot ....

Have you ever been on autopilot. We all have. Doing something you have done everyday for years, as an example think about yesterday, you should remember it all. It just happened didn't it. So.. what did you have for breakfast, how many cups of coffee, do you remember fastening your shoes. (We at the crazy are currently wearing winter boots which have velcro fasteners.) Memory is very selective, studies have shown that memories tied to negative or painful events are easier to access. That the emotional centers of the brain are tied directly to the amygdala which is connected closely to the memory centers in the hippocampus. So not only do we remember bad or painful things we are more likely to learn from them. Lisa recently mentioned on her facebook page "Much of pain and fear should be veiwed as a threshold not a barrier." And that pain and fear are part of every life, from birth till death and we learn and grow with each painful event, we at the crazy don't suggest you beat your children while trying to teach them math. But make them understand that pain and loss are an important part of what makes us human. So getting back to the point. Do doctors or nurses or mechanics have autopilot days. What about lawyers. In some jobs we are sure that autopilot is a necessity, Store clerk, underwear model, (We at the Crazy are not saying that underwear models or store clerks are stupid. But Einstein was never an underwear model... he was a patent clerk however so maybe he had autopilot days too. Please try to keep the image of Einstein in his tighty whities out of your head.) Here is a little experiment for you that involves memory, try picking an object, place it in front of you, focus on it for as long as you can.
After you have looked at it for a while, close your eyes, did you still see it.? Could you describe it to someone effectively. Notice that when you close your eyes and turn your head your brain still thinks of the object where you left it, it doesn't move with your head. Take the experiment a little farther, before you open your eyes remove the object. Then open your eyes and look where the object was. The brain actually still sees the object in it's place, your eyes however quickly put the space back where the object was. If someone removes the object without your knowledge when your eyes are closed the effect is much stronger. This is what we at the crazy think our autopilot is, our brain is trained to do the repetitive tasks without consulting our memory, and BOOM you have just driven fourteen miles, stopping and starting at stopsigns, Waiting for lights, but you remember very little of it, because you don't need to. (This is an extreme example, but it happens every day. watch the other drivers faces as you travel, many of them will be on autopilot.)
Some philosophers have put forth ideas about "living in the moment" or as the children of the sixties put it, "live for today." But some of us at the crazy think that if you spent every moment of every day in full focus you would go insane. Maybe a little autopilot now and then is a good thing, just remember to stop and smell the roses once in a while. Ciao for now.