My Mind
Observation
Joey Lovestrand
Some things are a lot funnier at 2:00 in the morning. Other
things are just depressing. Like the fact that I can't sleep. It's not
that I don't feel tired. But the concept of willingly succumbing to an
unconscious state mystifies me. As hard as I try I can not do it. But
surely that is my downfall. As soon as I fell my mind drifting off into
that sweet subconscious never land I become thrilled by my own success and
the excitement jolts me back to a fully alert state. Maybe I need more
exercise. I could make my body so physically exhausted that I just drag
my brain along with it. Perplexing how I can control this mind of mine
now, while I write, carefully crafting each word in a sentence.
My
amazing organic computer calls up in an instant one of the thousands of
words that I need to convey a feeling or a tangible object or some
meaning. It doesn't ever seem to spit out the wrong word either. It even
remembers the order of the letters needed to reconstruct the arbitrary
system of the English language. And, without being consciously prompted, it
guides my hand to script each of those 26 characters which make such
odd combinations to match the sounds that I hear as I speak to myself
late at night--but not out loud of course.
The mind somehow is able to
reproduce those sounds perfectly for its own enjoyment without ever
asking the assistance of the vocal chords. I watch in amazement as a three
pound blob of flesh and nerves completes with great complexity the
simple task of a mere scribe. Yet the mind is much more then my automatic
word processor. For out of pure imagination phrases are constructed that
have perhaps never once been uttered by a human being in the history of
mankind. Thoughts are generated on their own without any apparent
active cause needed to draw them out. The machine has taken control of
itself. Not only is the mind generating original thoughts and recalling
words and letters and diligently guiding my hand to duplicate meaningful
markings, but it is also watching, through my eyes, every stroke my pen
makes reminding it to go back and correct whenever a letter was skipped
or scratched too quickly to be legible.
It focuses on the point of my
pen against the paper when the room is full of other colors and
distractions. (Not much other movement though. It's 2:00 in the morning.) Even
more unbelievably the mind has other side jobs as it simultaneously
works the senses of hearing and touch. Soft music which I (or my mind)
listens to in order to relax can be heard and understood yet ink still
flies furiously across the page staining intelligent communication. Nerve
endings in the bottom of my hand are receiving signals from the brain
that it is rubbing across smooth paper. And my forearm is being told
that it has not done this much writing in a long time and might need a
break soon if it wants to avoid a cramp.
All that work and the mind is
still not tired. Though I wish it were because it's 2:00 in the morning.
The works even hard to identify noises of fans and vents, not only
perceiving the sounds but also recognizing and identifying the sounds based
on stored information about all the things in the room that could
possibly generate such a noise. It feels the hangnails on my finger as my
thumb brushes across my face and knows immediately what it is and decides
that it is unhealthy but quickly resolves that the energy required to
remove the symptom is not worth exerting at this hour. No one looks at
my hands anyway.
The music stops and immediately the mind has perceived
the lack of sound and begins an internal debate as to whether or not my
whole body should be summoned to leave the warm blankets of my bed and
restart the CD. The mind can sense the comfortable warmth or the
blankets and can recall previous experiences or the chill coming off the hard
floors at 2:00 in the morning. It can make an accurate guess of the
amount of time needed to restart the CD player and in an instant downloads
a picture of the controls and knows that for music to continue the
button marked PLAY must be pressed with a gentle force from a single
finger.
Since there's not much to lose my whole body rises and smoothly
slides out of the blanket as the mind guides each limb in perfect harmony.
Both feet are firmly placed on the floor. The mind has mastered the art
of balancing a limbering six-foot frame of bone, muscle and flesh.
Steps are quickly issued and the mind reads the distance from the CD player
using its depth perception abilities based on complex geometrical
estimations with measurements gained from two eyes sitting inches apart from
one another. Before taking any unnecessary steps towards the CD player
the feet are commanded to hold their position and the body slightly
leans forward in a marvelous balancing act as the left hand is extended
(the mind called the left hand automatically without any deliberation
long enough for myself to comprehend. Presumably because the pen remains
in my right hand) and without any trial shots touches the center of the
play control. It doesn't even need to interpret the characters P L A Y
printed on the machine to designate which button would signal an
attempt to play a CD but simply relies on its own photographed image of the
CD player.
A gentle force is applied until the senses of touch and
hearing agree that the necessary action has been accomplished and the button
has been sufficiently depressed for music to once again begin playing.
A spin back towards the bed is perfectly executed and my awkwardly long
body swiftly finds its way under the blanket again. But this time the
mind has dictated that the body should rest in a different position. The
mind did not so quickly forget the slight discomfort of lying on my
side as my notepad rested on the bed beside me. No, it remembers sending
those signals of minor pain to the nerves in my back and in a split
second determines another position (among the millions of possibilities)
which might offer more support to my spine. Without even relying on my
eyes for anymore assistance then half a glance in the dark, my mind
determines that the pillows are in a suitable position for leaning my
shoulders and my head against the wall while I lie on my back.
Without any
lengthy calculations my body is moved into the perfect position so that
my mind's protective shell gently rests on top of those soft pillows.
Before the idea of writing again emerges into my conscience the mind has
presupposed my ambitions of penmanship and has perceived the
difficulties of writing while lying on your back. But a solution has already been
found as the knees are called upon to rise and the feet to come forward
providing my lap as a convenient writing desk. The left hand brings the
notebook back into position and the right restarts its previous
engagement. Even while all the activity continues, the mind flatters itself by
evaluating the grandeur in which it writes recalling that most minds of
its age do not perform so eloquently in this art form.
Aspirations of
fame bring the mind to generate images of future readings of the
scribbles it makes in bed at 2:00 in the morning. Friends are sure to be
impressed and admire how skillfully this mind works. Its creative
combinations of words and phrases put together in a savvy, rambling style are
sure to strike in other minds self-judgements or inferiority causing
flattering remarks from those lesser minds which can only calculate that by
giving positive feedback and maintaining healthy contact my great mind
might be so beneficent as to share the attention of the world's mass of
lesser minds with a mind that was previously categorized as a friend.
With this future encouragement established a generic female face of a
news reporter fresh out of her make-up room can be seen (only by my mind
of course) and my own face, which my mind has quite accurately
memorized after daily glances in reflecting devices for decades past, is seen
next to her face as my first TV interview takes place. My mind begins
working harder, not only to create the questions, tone of voice and mouth
movements of the reporter but also constructs witty replies to her
questions about its masterpiece of markings and meanings. Finally thousands
of other minds will be able to recognize the superiority of this mind
as a jovial interview ensues in which all the explanations of why this
mind choose to bring a pen and notebook to bed at 2:00 in the morning
are mysteriously divulged.
The mind which my mind has conjectured for the
interview can not remember another mind which could control its body
and voice and choice of words in a more charming way. Of course, my mind
remembers hundreds of interviews that is has previously passively
watched yet remembered in which the mind controlling the reporter drove it
to flatter its subject. Perhaps some marketing mind has deducted that
insults don't please the minds of those trapped in front of their TV set.
Now that the mind has already downloaded in ink its concoctions of TV
interviews it enters new territory as it imagines explaining the
sentences it created about a TV interview in an actual TV interview. But my
mind has also uploaded information about ways that it can make itself
dysfunction and decides that entering into this exponentially complex
world of imagining explaining imaginary explanations is not a valuable
enough endeavor considering the risks involved.
And so the mind quickly
returns to the safe, serene and sane world of simplicity. Money is simple
and the mathematician in my head begins to surmise how much scribblings
like this might earn and then the mind recalls all those things that it
has desired on past occasions and either recalls or guesses (I can't
tell which) their bartering value then begins budget what can be bought
and what further marketing schemes it might have to implement in order
to convince other minds that they should release their assets into the
bank account of which only my mind has internally stored the access
code.
My mind has now generated a certain amount of satisfaction in its
imagined success and as it continues to ponder its newfound fantasy
fortune it also analyzes its own predictions and finds overwhelming
discredibility taking away all the financial assurance and insulting my mind for
avoiding reality to such an extreme. But my mind has not lost its sense
of reality for it still knows that it is not positioned in front of a
motion picture recording device nor does it need to balance a large
budget but rather it is going about its unduplicatable work of art as it
rests its skill on my pillow on my bed at 2:00 in the morning
My Mind© COPYRIGHT 2004 Joey Lovestrand.
Reproduction prohibited without permission from the author.
10/14/04
