THE old saying goes “familiarity breeds contempt” which I feel is a bit harsh. However familiarity does mean we often stop appreciating things. In fact we often stop noticing them at all at a clear conscious level. It’s when other people, unfamiliar with the things we take for granted, comment on how special or wonderful something is, that we are reminded of an object’s unique qualities. This is most commonly seen when people travel overseas to a completely new country or culture.

Those of us who live in Scotland and have done so most of our lives will acknowledge all the usual positive truths about our country. It is beautiful. We have several cities, towns and villages that are notably for their history, architecture, or vibrant contemporary regeneration areas. But the truth is, most of us see these things with a kind of acceptance rather than with the wow factor that someone new to the country sees it.

Some countries are predominantly arid. People from those countries who visit Scotland are amazed at how green our grass is. To which we think “it’s just grass”.

The same is true for our historic buildings, the contents of our museums and art galleries. If we are regular visitors it’s always a pleasure to see the familiar exhibits. The dinosaurs, the Lewis chess pieces, Raeburn’s skating minister, Dali’s Christ of St John of the Cross, and anything and everything by Charles Rennie - and his wife, belatedly credited and still under-recognised Margaret Macdonald - Mackintosh. We still see them. We still think they’re really special. But do we see them afresh or is it with a bit of the “it’s just grass” mentality.

I have the privilege of guiding people round the Scotland Street Museum on Saturday 2 June. I’ll be doing it from a mindfulness perspective. Yet for me this means a strange, paradoxical cycle. I have to visit it beforehand to prepare how I’ll approach this. This means I’m becoming familiar with each aspect. But my aim in doing so is – and here’s the paradox – to clear my mind of its tendency to take things for granted through over-familiarity. So I’m re-familiarising myself with the museum in order to see precisely where and how I take it all for granted, so that I can, if you like, reboot my brain so it is capable of seeing things afresh, as if for the first time.

That’s not as easy thing to do. We are automatically programmed, moment by moment, a process that continues through life, with many of our views becoming increasingly fixed and narrow over the years. This plays out in our mind in the world of the arts, history and culture. Rather than having an open, flexible, supple perspective on these matters, time and familiarity tend to fossilise us into predictable views, likes and dislikes.

Part of what I love most about the effects of practising mindfulness is that it slowly dissolves or chips away at these stuck ways of seeing. This helps to liberate me from the conditioning and programming that has built up inside us all of my life. In its place is a wide open warm-hearted curiosity about things. Sure, my age-old prejudices do surface still, such as my liking for Joan Miro and Jean Arp but my dislike for Lucian Freud and Francis Bacon, but being aware of their presence in me, I can to a large extent let them drop away from my mind and see the works of these artists more freely.

The arts are the ultimate place where they eye of the beholder rules supreme. A critic can give a million reasons why this painting is a gem but that one is rubbish, but no one can tell you what to like and what you can’t like.

The Scotland Street Museum is a classic case in point. A revered work of architecture, now a museum of the history of education, it combines artistry and social perspectives. The contrast between the then avant garde design of the building, its windows, it’s stairs, with the reconstruction of classrooms from different eras of the twentieth century, can help pull us out of our pre-conceived notions of what life was like in those times.

Our views of the past are very often clouded in prejudices. Whether that’s skewed memories of your own life, or how you view significant events in history such as, from a global point of view, the bombing of Hiroshima, or the American Civil War, or in Scotland, the Battle of Bannockburn, the Red Clydesiders, we tend to create our own narrative. Moreover when it comes to history, unless it was fairly recent we can only take historians words for it, and historians often disagree about the significance of events, and sometime even what actually happened.

When we practice mindfulness what seemed fixed and certain slowly gives way to an ability to not only accept but feel free in uncertainty. Somehow this feels lighter that the weightiness of deeply held opinions and stances. The only time we are able to live is right here, right now. We should be able to live with it free from constrained views of the past, but we can also reframe the past in a looser, more constructive way so that the past helps us be more fully present in the moment.