Three Thoughts on Thinking
Placeholder thoughts, coincidences, and the things we know before we know them
Something slightly different this time. Not an article, but three linked, I think, ideas none of which can be spun out to full length without insulting the reader.
Nature, they say, abhors a vacuum. If so, she’s not wildly competent; slip the surly bonds of Earth, and there’s not a lot there.
The mind, however, is different. It just keeps whirling away, spewing thoughts into our awareness with the enthusiasm of a straight-to-video action star with a machine gun. It never stops. You are thinking as you read this. You will be thinking when you finish it. Some of these thoughts may be genuinely interesting. You are, no doubt, thinking about what you are reading, you may, if you’re not giving the piece the attention it clearly deserves, be thinking about what you will eat later. You may even be thinking about the location of the “x” button at the top right corner of the screen. In which case, history will condemn you.
But not all thoughts are like this. Sometimes, I notice, I have thoughts which serve no purpose at all at the time in question. They are habitual phrases which float across my awareness. Many refer to events long gone and never to be repeated. They do not spark other thoughts, let alone actions. They just appear and then disappear again.
They are, I think, placeholders, thoughts thought for the sake of thinking, not for their content. Homeric epithets of the mind in a way, existing solely to fill in a gap, in the same way that describing the sea as “wine-dark” was a convenient way for the poet to get to the end of the line. It wasn’t so much that he wanted his audience to think that the sea was that colour at that time, but he had a certain number of beats left to fill, and “wine-dark” filled them.
Novice meditators believe they’re not meditating when they’re thinking. True “no-thought” only comes much later. Until then, the mind is going to do what it does, even when it doesn’t really need to. Inside us all is a toddler, demanding to be part of the conversation even though it has nothing to say.
The local newsletter / magazine / pamphlet plopped on to the doormat. A photo of General de Gaulle on the cover. Just the thing to put an Englishman off his lunch. He had lived in the area while in exile, apparently. This sparked a discussion about the unexpectedly affectionate relationship he had with his disabled daughter Anne (the only person, I think, allowed to address him as “tu”). A few hours later, flicking through X, a picture of the two on a beach (he in a suit, of course) and a little blurb about their bond.
Coincidence? Bet your bippy it was.
Neither of these events was particularly likely. Seeing them in close proximity less likely still. There must be some sort of meaning here. But what? Should I take myself to Westminster and declare to the assembled politicians, “Between the Thames and you, stands me?” Things may be tense, but they’re not Fall of the Fourth Republic tense.
But, I was reasonably relaxed when I was scrolling X. Nothing was particularly exercising me (despite the best efforts of many of the site’s users), there was nothing taking up my attention. My mind was open and alert (ish). I could pay attention to what I saw, and I could relate it to what I had seen before. Having nothing better to do, my mind, primed by evolution to look for patterns, saw one. Or better, perhaps, saw a connection and sought to create a pattern.
The photo of le Général floats around the internet from time to time. There was a perfectly reasonable statistical chance that it would do so on the day the newsletter arrived. As there is that you have two conversations about the same thing. Incidents may be unusual in themselves, and more so in combination but, given the number of events we experience in a day, and the number of things we see, the unlikely can become quite likely.
Some see coincidences as a sign of spiritual progress. Perhaps it is, but not as a sign that the universe is speaking to us, just that we’re relaxed enough to pay attention.
“I knew it!” The TV host exclaimed when his side-kick gave him the answer to the question he was failing to answer.
Perhaps he did. Perhaps he didn’t.
For we know things and we know things. Some we know forwards - we can offer them when asked - others we know backwards - we know them when told.
The former are straight-forward, the latter more interesting. Some things we genuinely know but cannot recall in the moment - the name of a famous, floppy-haired English actor temporarily eluded me one day in the barber’s. Some things we don’t really know at all, but would prefer not to be thought ignorant - like Watson every time Holmes unmasks the criminal.
Others though, we don’t really know. We might suspect. We might have an inkling. We might have all the pieces but not quite have put them all together. In situations like those, a little spark from outside can be all it takes to render the unconscious conscious, to give us an “Aha!” moment.
But can we really know what we don’t know we know? And, if we can, how much do we know that we don’t know we know?