I have to admit, I am a huge fan of Michael Pollan. His latest book, A World Appears: A Journey into Consciousness, brings together scientific, philosophical, literary, and psychedelic perspectives to ask what consciousness is, who has it, and why. Pollan argues that consciousness is under siege — and ends with the idea that learning to practice it in our everyday lives may matter more than explaining it.
Which is essentially what this field note is about.
When You See
In Janwaar, it became very visible to me.
A boy refuses to let a girl step onto the skateboard. It happens in an instant — automatic, unquestioned. What he knows. What is normal to him. Caste, gender, hierarchy — playing out in a single moment.
My first instinct is to intervene. To correct. To impose a different rule.
But I stay with it a little longer.
The boy is not choosing this consciously. He is repeating what he knows. If I react too fast, the pattern stays. So I pause. I hold the moment — long enough for what is happening to fully show itself.
Then I bring attention to it. Not by lecturing. Sometimes by asking a simple question: What would happen if she stepped on the board? Or by quietly handing her the board, while staying with him — so he remains part of what is happening.
They begin to notice what they are doing. And in that moment, a different response becomes possible.
Not always. But sometimes.
This is what I understand as becoming aware.
There are moments when you begin to see more clearly. You see your reactions as they happen. The irritation. The need to be right. The impulse to control, to fix, to withdraw.
You begin to see that much of what you call “yourself” is made up of patterns. Shaped by what you learned. By what was expected — by family, friends, society. By what once kept you safe, helped you belong, gave you a sense of control.
Repeated often enough, they become automatic. And what is automatic starts to feel like who you are.
Until you see the pattern as it is happening. Not afterwards. Not as reflection. But in real time.
It doesn’t happen all the time. And it doesn’t happen for everyone. It can come suddenly — when the usual grip of thoughts and reactions loosens. Or slowly — by sitting long enough to watch what keeps repeating.
Either way, something shifts.
You are no longer fully identified with what is happening in your mind. There is a small space — between the impulse to react and the action that follows. A fraction of a second where you are not yet moving.
And in that space, something becomes possible. Not to react immediately. Not to follow every thought. Not to be pulled so easily.
But these moments don’t last. They come and go.
Again, you find yourself reacting. Judging. Defending. Controlling. Wanting things to be different.
So the question becomes: what does it take to stay with it? Not all the time. But long enough not to fall back into the same patterns.
There is no method that guarantees it. What seems to help is simply returning — to the body, to the breath, to the moment just before the reaction takes hold. Not once, but repeatedly. Each time you notice you have been pulled away, you come back. You were reacting — and now you see that you were reacting. That moment of recognition is not a failure. It is the practice. The pattern loosens not because you defeated it, but because you kept seeing it.
The same thing happens in smaller, everyday ways. A conversation where I feel misunderstood. The urge to interrupt, to correct, to push my point through. If I am aware, I see the impulse before I act on it. Not to suppress it — but to decide whether to follow it.
I might still speak. Still act. Still take a position. But it comes from having seen what is driving me — not from being driven by it.
This is subtle. But it changes the quality of what you bring into the world. A situation doesn’t escalate. A pattern doesn’t repeat in the same way. A decision is made with more clarity. Nothing dramatic. But different.
And this — this small internal shift — is not separate from what is happening around us.
We live in a time designed to pull us in. War. Political erosion. Technological acceleration. Speed replaces reflection. Reaction replaces attention. Without awareness, we easily become part of that movement — amplifying it, feeding it, without even noticing.
The gap between impulse and action is not just a personal matter. It is also a political one. A social one. Every time someone pauses before reacting — in a conversation, in a conflict, in a moment of injustice — something different becomes possible.
So where does this lead?
Not to certainty. Not to control.
But to seeing. Seeing the pattern as it unfolds — in me, and in the situation. And choosing, however briefly, not to follow it automatically.
What comes next is less driven. More grounded. And that — quietly, without drama — can change what happens in the world.
Here is the interview with Michael Pollan I mentioned above: