Relative Something

Our incredible brain machine is on my mind. Thinking about our thinking can get pretty tricky and sort of convoluted. It’s like getting in an argument with someone you live with and instead of arguing about the original point that triggered the debate, you find yourself fighting over the mechanics of the argument. Or like trying to make up a game in the neighborhood and spending the whole time arguing over what the rules will be and never getting around to actually playing the game.

There is an article from June of 2008 in The New Yorker that I was pointed to online. Fascinating. It is 8 pages long, so if you are interested in reading it, and I highly recommend it, then be prepared to sit down and read a chapter of a book. It is worth it. Among very many things covered in the article, there is a reference to how our minds are able to assemble an image from incomplete data. We do it unconsciously. I expect everyone, including myself, takes this for granted, but think about it! The author uses the example of viewing a dog through a picket fence where our eyes are only able to perceive separated slices of the animal, yet our mind is able to conjure a fully intact dog and visualize what the animal looks like. Our brain processes it for us without needing to think about it.

I am reminded of a scene from the documentary/drama “What the Bleep!?: Down the Rabbit Hole” where they claim the first time a native tribe witnessed an ocean-crossing vessel on their horizon of the sea, they didn’t “see” it because they had no reference of what it could be, so it just didn’t compute. I found it hard to accept at the time, but now I can understand what was being portrayed. Having no concept of what that ship was, no reference of having stood on one or walked around one to know how big it is, that image on the horizon must have made no sense at all. The mind couldn’t process that unconscious step of forming the image.

At the same time, it occurs to me that our minds are pretty adept at conjuring up threats that don’t actually exist. Many of the fears and phobias our mind conjures up are figments of imagination. The monster under the bed or the boogie man in the darkness. The spinning view of vertigo for someone uncomfortable with heights. Or, as the article graphically presents, the itching that has no source.

Also from the article, consider how the multitude of sensors of our skin can ignore the collar on our neck all day long, but when a thread pokes out of the tag, it has us scratching and fussing to fix it. The skin works with the brain. But sometimes, as the article reveals, the brain takes initiative to control without bothering to get input from the skin.

When we are adept enough, or introspective enough, it is a spectacular refinement to unravel the unconscious acrobatics that occur in our minds and harness the power for personal gain: optimal health of mind, body, and spirit. You might even call it, achieving a bit of enlightenment.

Expand your awareness. Think about it!