We use filters, sieves and screening devices in many facets of our lives. In cooking, sieves for flour, sugar and tea leaves. In photography, to enhance colour or change mood. Farming uses sieves and screens in processing and cleaning grains various, as do seedsmen to achieve an even sample. Filters, almost anything mechanical has some form of filter cleaning fluids or air. We have our own inbuilt filters in our noses, which also brings cold air up to a decent temperature before it hits our lungs.

The one common, and most useful aspect, of the filters manifold listed above is their ability, largely, to be cleaned, or changed. Indeed, our bodies, physically, are adept at filtering out the unnecessary or excessive items that we occasionally pour in ourselves, as well as gleaning the necessary life-giving ingredients.

Unfortunately, when it comes to filtering the phenomenal amount of information gathered by our sensory systems, the poor old amygdala and hippocampus have no physical means of stemming the flow of data. So if we cannot turn off, or turn away from, the data stream, or we haven't the skill set to manage the sorting, filing and shredding of the unwanted information, we then sometimes rely on self medication. These 'meds' of course being alcohol, tobacco, food, drugs - legal or otherwise - in fact anything that dulls, negates or postpones reality briefly.

However, if we can identify the sources of information, then we can perhaps set up our own filtration system, by avoiding the triggers wherever possible, making practical steps to prevent exposure to the things we know foment anxiety, fear and mental discomfort. Maybe we can picture these filters in our minds being brought into play, a sort of mind management, and practice their deployment on a regular basis - any 'scopers out there good at filtering, and if so how?

Farmer Charlie Ret’d

A Moodscope member