How My Mind Works (Third Essay)

The key to a well-functioning mind is the ability to absorb information, sort it out, file it away and then bring it out when you most need it. This isn't just the case for academic data or what you might call 'professional' information. The ability to draw pieces of information out about people at the crucial time, to be able to know the right word, the right humorous statement, the fitting aphorism, is actually crucial in making you happy in dealing with people. You deal with them in the full panoply of your power when your mind and memory are working harmoniously and in tandem.

But blockages happen, which make the mind and memory not work in harmony and thus contribute to your "losing" many things of importance you want to maintain. The major blockage that keeps people's minds and memories not working to their fullest efficiency is that they never take time to "store" their memories properly [I speak of that issue in more detail here]. Or, to use our picture of the hub and the spokes, the major problem is that all the important data of our lives never gets much beyond the reception desk. It doesn't get given to a messenger, who patiently decides where the memory is to be stored and then, after it is stored, patiently 'writes down' where the memory is so that it can easily be accessed in the future. Rather, memories pile up like so much dirty laundry at the reception desks of our mind/memory.

But since memories are so varied in our life, it is as if one memory is like a shirt, one a can of peaches, one a newspaper and one a block of wood. The "newspaper" memory needs its own place in the vast cavernous structure of our mind, but it is just lying there in the reception room with the rest of unsorted memories. It isn't too bad if you have a few things there. Indeed, most reception rooms have a newspaper or two. But the newspaper just lies there. A shirt is thrown over it. Soon, the newsprint begins to sully the shirt. The shirt gets wrinkled. Then, a can of peaches it thrown on top (i.e., a different memory of another experience). Perhaps the can starts to get rusty. Maybe it even leaks. So, it soils the newspaper that is already soiling the shirt. Then, the block of wood, which is lying around, begins to splinter a bit or shed. What you begin to have, then, if you haven't learned to take your memories and file them in the proper and useful places, is that you have memories that merge in your mind, but the merging process is anything but beautiful. It leads to a "soiling," so to speak, of them all. You forget, for example, whether you said "X" or "Y" to this person at a particular meeting. Or, you forgot some interesting detail about the person's life which you would have liked to recall.

Or, from the professional perspective, you just didn't take the time to learn thoroughly a fact about something or a scholarly approach to a problem, and so you don't have a precise enough grasp on something that if, you did, would allow you to advance further in your understanding of the phenomenon or, even better, give you freedom to connect that phenomenon with another thing that you understand. By not having all the "facts" down, you spend your life trying to recreate in your minds the important facts rather than, by having all the facts or arguments always available to you, begin to walk down the corridors that connect the various caverns of the memory in order to "connect" things with each other.

Thus, the major problem with most people's minds/memories is not that they don't have a good one, but that they don't treat their minds and memories as sacred possessions. They/we tend to let pile up in the ante-chambers of the vast cavernous library all the miscellaneous flotsam and jetsam of life, only sorting it out with reluctance and not too much skill. The memories then run together and are never really filed away. Thus, when something really important comes along, it runs into a clogged system and often can't be recognized for the important thing it actually is. Indeed, as it comes into your life and "recognizes" the dismal state of mental organizaiton that you have, it might just decide to leave you in your muddled misery and go to find a more ready reception someplace else.

Dealing with the "Problem" of the Mind and Memory

For most people, then, the mind is as clogged as a reception room that hasn't properly filed away all the new images that pile into the room. For some people of certain amounts of discipline, they already are aware of the fact that the mind and memory is like a cavern and, at various times of their lives, have taken the effort carefully to store things away. Maybe this happened in undergraduate or graduate school; perhaps through a series of trainings received "on the job." Perhaps the person is so disciplined as to have undertaken as a regular part of life the learning, filing away and recall of important pieces of information. But still, in any of those three situations, the current reception room may be overcrowded. It becomes so because of so many things that press upon us, because of our inattentiveness, because of distractions or sickness, etc. In fact, in my experience, one needs to spend comparatively more time as you get older in making sure that new tidbits of knowledge that come into your reception area are put in useful places in the caverns. But if you have a well-developed filing system, you can assimilate so much more that comes your way. You can even take a rather pro-active approach to things, and have as it were a welcomer/greeter at the door of the reception room, so that you can anticipate when the piece of information comes into the room, even before it arrives at the receptionist, where it ought to go. Perhaps the greeter/welcomer is also a sort of "bouncer," and will throw out certain pieces of data that want "in." It isn't crucial to absorb everything that comes your way. Thus, as you get older, you might develop a system that even "pre-filters" things so that it might not be bogged down at the reception desk. As we know, sometimes receptionists have to "take calls" before we can get our needs met as we are standing around.

Putting It All Together

We have, then, the following picture that is emerging of the working of the mind. It is like a hub and spokes; it is like vast caverns connected transversely as well as vertically to the reception room. Or, it is like a huge library, with rooms upon rooms. Information comes into our lives and wants "in." We don't spend the time that we need to in order to put the information where it needs to go. It takes discipline, insight and a lot of self-confidence to take the time to put the information where it needs to go. Why? Because the pressure "out there" is to "get busy" or "go fast" or "speak quickly" so that people will think you are smart. The two biggest fears of most professional people are to be "caught naked" and "thought stupid." In order to deal with the first, we overprepare and put too much information on "Power Point" presentations. In oder to handle the second, we speak quickly, hoping we cover all the bases by fast speech. But, we never take the time (or seldom do) patiently to decide what is important to take in and where to put it in the vast caverns of memory. As a result, most people's caverns are dank, dusty, dark and empty. Only one or two are really active, even for smart people. What I am committed to, in my life, is to develop dozens of caverns, well-lit and clean, with wide connective passageways. Indeed, I am trying to, as it were, develop a system of "quick moving" between caves so that pieces of information from vastly different domains can immediately be accessed and brought together for the world to see.

Most people are content to let good information pile up in the reception room. Why? Because so little is demanded of us in any place we go. We don't really require anyone to be able to draw all kinds of interesting knowledge to bear on a situation. You just have to know "how to learn" or "where to find" the information. We don't really reward or even recognize people who have a capacity to build and develop the huge caverns of which I have been speaking.

Yet, whereever I have gone, I find that people truly appreciate it when I can broaden their horizons, by introducing a new word or two, by having a play on words, by connecting pieces of data they hadn't hitherto connected, by placing in a dash of humor, stirring, and entertaining. People learn the most when they have done two things: contributed to the discussion and laughed. So, that becomes a challenge to me as I recall and then present data.

I am convinced that whatever "good" memory I have isn't necessarily the result of a "special gift" or "unique capacity," but is related to my work over the years in taking special care to develop this vast storage system of the caverns. Now, at age 56, I can wander down the halls, picking out information as I please, bring it back, dust it off, clothe it in the way that is most attractive for it, and then put it away after using it. It is a wonderful way for me to live. I think, indeed, that many people would love to live this way, too...

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