When you get up in the morning, you do not think about triangles and squares and these similes that psychologists have been using for the past 100 years.
You think about status. You think about where you are in relation to your peers. You're thinking about your spouse, about your kids, about your boss. Ninety-nine percent of your time is spent thinking about other people's thoughts about you, their intentions, and all this kind of stuff. So sorting all that out, how we navigate this complex social world, there's going to be a neuroscience to it, and I think it's going to be very powerful.
Well, I don't think about triangles and squares, that's for sure. But I don't think about status, either. In fact, status is something I almost never think about. I certainly don't waste my time thinking about what other people may be thinking about me, if for no other reason than that I doubt anyone else is wasting their time thinking about me. The first thing I do when I wake up in the morning is listen to the birds outside my window. Then I get up, get dressed, and go to Mass.
Frank, you iz what you iz and what you iz can only be described as wonderful. When I read this entry yesterday I decided to think about what I think about when *I* get up and yep since I live in the country, the first thing I think about is the birds thinking about their first catch of the day. The robins who've made their nest in my deck rafters recently left their babies' pale-blue eggshell casings on my deck, nearly perfect except where the baby had first peeked at the world and decided it might like to visit. Lovely. The other one was much more aggressively opened, I guess, a real nosey little robin, it seems. And, I thought about that this morning when I thought about whether or not we had hydro so I could have coffee and actually wake up. Then? I thought about what I might be doing today and had an Euraka! moment and smiled listening to the news about Ingrid Betancourt and then? I thought about how I really ought to do my taxes (which is what I think, as a matter of course, every morning since I've not done 'em for two years and maybe, jes' mebbe, today will be the day); and, then, I thought about Greece and how easy it would be to just take a cruise and visit my friend, Demetris, and then I thought, well, no, it might be too hot there, right now; but, I looked out the windows and thought about the red sky at night and sailors' delight and that got me thinking about Ulysses and then, I thought, well, I'll go tell Frank *I* was thinking about him and thinking about Nigel B. since I was thinking how blessed I am to read these two blogs and learn so much and love their creators' minds unconditionally; and then, I did what all dames do in the morning, you know, libations, liberations, and ablutions, semi-colon counts, and stuff, right? Now, I am sitting here savouring coffee letting you know exactly what ain't entering my thought stream and that so happens to be what anyone thinks about me or even if they do or don't and how I don't care; but, I thought about you going to Mass and I said, as I do every morning, a particularly Frank-cheering bead for you and this was all stream-of-thought off-the-cough since I had a very nice smoke on the deck and enjoyed waking up enough to write this since it isn't even six o'clock yet and now, I am thinking about circles and squares and they are so dull that I thank gawd I can actually go and start writing which is really what I am always thinking about every morning because that is truly what I do and have done for the last thirty-five or so years of my life when it's quiet and the red sky is dawning and it's going to be a beautiful day in the beautiful downtown middle of elsewhere which is where I live and when I am writing which is where I'm going, I turn it into The Beautiful Downtown Middle of Elsewhere which is just another kind of way of saying Express Transport out of me me me into not thinking about anything, really, except how words make worlds and I want this one to be spectacular. Good morning :)!
ReplyDeleteDear CED:
ReplyDeleteAnd I suspect you and I, in our lack of concern over status, are like most other reasonably sane people. In a few weeks, we will be upstate, where there are real bird choirs (though the house finches in my backward have lately been most florid in their singing, and there are mockingbirds around here. Sure agree that circles and squares are a dull business and I hope - and pray - that on this fourth of July you continue to have a wonderful day.