“I THINK therefore I am.” Descartes’s classic quote should in fairness be seen in the context of his time and the maturation of his own thinking during that period of his life. In a modern context, however, it could be looked on as an advertising slogan, a strapline for the human race. It sounds like a statement of human self-obsession, from the blinkered idea that humans have the gift of deliberate thought, while other animals are just dumb instinctive, lesser beings. Whatever Descartes meant back in 1637 with the original words “je pense, donc je suis” it can be read today as a typical anthropocentric examination of life. Humans are supreme, and matter most.

It is extremely harsh on those people who through an accident or a genetic disorder seem incapable of thought. Think on it. If you are only you because you are capable of thought, because you can reason and explore ideas, create new concepts, then what about those who can’t?

Yet this view of us as a species that is defined as being capable of thinking independently, freely, without limitations is plain wrong, at least in part.

A Harvard study found that on average, our minds are distracted about 47 per cent of the time. By distraction they meant that the mind was not where we expected or wanted it to be. Imagine you’re reading this article when you start to think about the fact that your car is getting a bit old and unreliable and maybe you need a new one. You wanted to stay focused on reading this but your mind just took you away from it, without your consent, possibly even without your conscious awareness that you had started thinking about your car.

We could therefore rephrase Descartes. “I think therefore I get distracted half my life.” Or: “I think sometimes but half the time my mind does what it wants to do whether I like it or not.” Granted, neither of these are as pithy or profound-sounding as Descartes’s version but at least now we’re on real solid ground.

We are far more conditioned than we think we are. Ironically we don’t think we are conditioned precisely because we are conditioned not to think we are conditioned. This is the absence of mindfulness. We are being dragged continually by thoughts, moods and emotions rather than being in control of what our minds think, feel and choose. Think about it right now. Who gets angry when you get angry? Who chooses to feel depressed? Or anxious? Or hateful? Who decides they’ll carry a grudge around with them for 30 years or more? Who chooses to be a bigot, a racist, sexist, ageist?

It’s not you, or at least not the reasoning, intelligent, thoughtful you that Descartes suggests, because no reasoning intelligent, thoughtful person would allow these toxic moods or views anywhere near their precious mind.

Imagine we really could have total control over our thoughts, which include our feelings, moods, emotions, gut reactions. What would most of us choose to feel like? I’d imagine we’d love to feel fulfilled, happy, have a sense of joy of life, a sense of purpose and meaning. Most of us would also like everyone else to feel that way, including our leaders in government and business, so that a decent, secure, happy and purposeful society would develop.

The Buddha said: “With our thoughts we create the world.” That’s extraordinarily profound. It’s also scary, because if we’re not in control of our thoughts and where they take us, the world we create with those thoughts can become horrific. What we are witnessing in our world right now, with the resurrection of openly racist and in some cases literally neo-fascist views, can only have arisen as the result of people’s thoughts. So if you want just a happy life for yourself, free from worries, anxiety, depression, anger, resentment, bitterness and a score of other harmful and often self-destructive moods and emotions, you need to train your mind so it becomes less automatic, less distracted, and in its place, more under your direct control.

And if a good society or a sane, fruitful world is to become a reality this will require billions of people developing control over their minds so that they do not fall prey to the influence of hateful demagogues. It starts with you. I know dozens of people who are politically engaged and active in what we’d call progressive campaigns, know what they oppose, and what their idea of a good society is. But they’re not in charge even of their own minds, let alone able to convince others to change theirs. They display hatred and an absence of compassion for their political opponents, celebrate every mistake their “enemy” makes, and generally demonstrate the attitudes they believe we need to eradicate if society is to improve.

If you want a love of life, which is simply a state of mind, you have to develop it. If you want peace of mind then do the work that brings you closer to it.

If you want a good society then it really does start with you. Gandhi was another one who got it right. “Be the change you want to see in this world.” You could add, more obviously: “Train yourself so that you become the change you want to see in yourself.” Or in the words of another social radical: “First cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye.”