Two ways of being in the world

Iain McGilchrist on attention

In his book The Master and His Emissary, Iain McGilchrist writes:

[There are] two ways of being in the world, both of which were essential. One is to allow things to be present to us in all their embodied particularity, with all their changeability and impermanence, and their interconnectedness, as part of a whole which is forever in flux.

This embodied perspective is governed by the right hemisphere of our brain, and focuses on the relationships between things. The world is a network of interrelated processes, in which we are embedded.

The other is to step outside the flow of experience and experience our experience in a special way: to re-present the world in a form that is less truthful, but apparently clearer, and therefore cast in a form which is more useful for manipulation of the world and one another. This world is explicit, abstracted, compartmentalised, fragmented, static, essentially lifeless.

This detached perspective belongs to the left hemisphere, and focuses on the things themselves i.e. myself as a distinct individual frozen in time, rather than myself as something in flux and in constant conversation with the world around me.

While the detached perspective may seem grim (“essentially lifeless”), it is also necessary:

From this world we feel detached, but in relation to it we are powerful.

By viewing an object as a separate thing, as a snapshot in time, I can then manipulate it.

For example, I can see a tree as a living organism, embedded in the forest ecosystem, interrelating with the organisms around it… but if I want firewood, it’s better to just view the tree as a target for my axe.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with the detached perspective. But it’s easy to spend too much time there, especially in our technological society. And if trees are always just firewood, something is lost.