I often think about one thing while doing another. You probably are familiar with the experience. You are brushing your teeth and suddenly are remembering something you did or didn’t do without focusing any attention on the feel of the toothbrush bristles or the technique you may have of brushing first one quadrant, followed by another. Then, “absent-mindedly”, you wash your mouth and move off to another activity, such as selecting socks or putting things into your pockets and, the next thing you know, you’re standing at the front door ready to go, patting yourself down, wondering if you have everything you need, including your keys.
“Did I brush my teeth?” you may ask yourself.
There is nothing absent-minded about this experience. Your mind has been present – and very active – the entire time. It just hasn’t been connected and moving in synch with your actions, hasn’t been consciously considering your physical movements and your motives for those movements. And so you can’t recall what socks you are wearing, what items you’ve stuffed into your pockets, and whether or not you’ve completed your usual morning routines, such as brushing your teeth. You may not even be able to recall what mind musings were so important when they occurred that they distracted you from the actions of your hands, feet, and body.
You’ve been on automatic, we like to say. You’ve acted reflexively, mechanically. There has been no thought associated with your movements.
But has your automaticity been purely physical? You’ve had thought, not been without it. However, because that thought has been dissociated from physical action, you may have little awareness of what you were physically doing during that time and hence – later – weak memories of what you have done. You have been, to coin a term, on “mentamatic”.
There is an almost instinctual, involuntary quality to mentamaticity. Like sleep, if we release to it, it just happens. I can be typing away on my computer and suddenly I am off into worry about the safety of one or both of my daughters. The rain tapping at the window may be the instigator; it reminds me of the weather when someone I love was in an auto accident. Without hesitation, an emotional switch is flipped deep inside me and the neural circuitry of concern begins to race in one or another portion of my brain. I separate from words and the connection between awareness and my fingers resting against the computer keyboard. The magnet of mental imagery and its language of hope, fear, and “what-if” lifts my fingertips into the air pending conscious reassociation of mind and body in collaborative intent. When that reassociation happens, then ah, here I am, sitting in front of my blog. Down go the fingers again. Words appear before my eyes. I relax back into the stream of synchronization that some call awareness.
“Be gone, mentamaticity!” I may command. All will be ok. Or it won’t. I can’t control it, everything, or most things around me. I can barely control which hand holds the toothbrush every morning and night.
Wait. Did I brush my teeth this morning?
There are techniques we can learn to manage the speed of our thought flittering. Meditation is one; it teaches us to sit back and watch thoughts pass by, as if we are observers on benches next to the raceway of our minds. These techniques are useful. They help us slow. They remind us to breathe. Unfortunately, at least for me, they do not always connect me with my movements, motions, and activities. Calming the mind is vital for health. Our brains, and the vehicles of thought transport traveling through them at high speed, need rest, just as our muscles do. They also need guidance, direction. Mine sometimes needs a neural traffic cop with a whistle and a large red-gloved hand to control the flow and direction of my mental traffic.
Pick up the toothbrush. FWEET. No, you can wait, first meeting of the day! Pay attention to the toothpaste tube. HALT. Engine off, fear of dying without doing something in the world! Cap off the tube, squeeze toothpaste onto the brush, notice if the brush touches the end of the tube. Stay where you are, question about spread of germs from tube to brush to tube to brush to … FWEET! Quiet! Just brush your teeth. First top, then bottom, then side, then spit. I am brushing my teeth. I am not fixing the world. I am not staying alive. I am not slowing down the cars that are threatening my family as they drive when I’m not there. I am here. I am not there. All you thoughts are about there. Get back to thinking about here. And don’t forget to make your lunch today. No, wait, I’ll be in a meeting and lunch will be provided. FWEET. Teeth! Toothpaste. Let the meeting and lunch go through, mentamaticity. Off you go now. I’m putting the cap back on the toothpaste tube. I’m rinsing my mouth with water. It’s good to have clean teeth. It’s good to have lunch, to pray for protection for my family, to have a purpose in life. It’s good to also put the toothbrush back where I store it. FWEET. You can go now, fear of failing. I’m going to figure out what socks match these pants, what things go into my pockets, and what sandwich I’ll bring to the office, just in case lunch isn’t provided. I’m also going to apologize to my wife for ignoring her in the kitchen a few minutes ago and I’m going to text my daughters to remind them to please drive safely today. And, gosh, look, the rain has stopped. Maybe the clouds will clear and it will be sunny today. Maybe I won’t need my rain jacket. What time is it anyway? Do I have my phone? What about my keys? Ah, well, at least I started the day knowing that I brushed my teeth while I was doing so.
Automation is part of our lives. It is part of our actions and part of our thinking. Occasional pauses to notice both the automation and mentamaticity, and to try to synch body time with mind time and vice versa, are good. They remind us that we live among the spaces of voluntary and involuntary being. And the more we experience the feel of those spaces, the more in harmony with the world we may become.