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Memory, Sensation, Action
Sep. 12th, 2010 02:19 amTalking tonight with some other women in my program, trying to explain the factors that go into my being comfortable enough in a class to actually think and talk there. Non-egalitarian power structures and formality were the best answers I could come up with. It isn't open to me to simply not be deferential--because this isn't just an attitude that gets appended to stuff I say. If I'm not comfortable the thinking won't even happen.
Partly this is because I haven't got much executive control of what I do when thinking and talking. In terms of the content, yes; but style, manner, all those things are out of the picture. I usually close my eyes or look up while I'm speaking in a seminar. When listening (and when teaching--by necessity), I look at other people. But if I were to look at them while talking in a seminar I'd lose my thoughts completely. Whether this is due to an unusual proportion of sensory or social awareness I don't know; I'd guess both. I very much feel like I'm not all there in these situations, like part of my brain is in another room somewhere. In contrast to the rest of my life, I have a highly abbreviated memory of times when I'm talking or presenting. It's almost exactly like my memories of performances: rushes, costumes, and intonations of words. (With regard to the actual subjects of conversation, it's easier to remember these if it's conversation with one person. I feel a bit more like myself then. Though I still often look up or close my eyes when thinking and speaking.) My therapist in Boston tried to convince me that all of this amounted to anxiety, but I experience none (except on occasion the anxiety given rise to by finding myself--when the flow doesn't happen--unable to think or talk, and I'm worried about being graded on that). It feels, well, as I've said--like part of my brain is in another room. Presumably this is the part with the rich sensory and social awareness that makes my sensorily rich memory possible. The part that feels like me.
Herein lies my fascination with the idea that in certain habitual or "flow" like activities, there is an unusual absence of what for lack of better terms I'll call "executive" cognition; why we don't know how we know certain abilities, why we can't say how we perform basic (or effectively basic) actions. Actions simply feel passive to me.
Maybe it's an attentional issue; it takes all of my RAM to think and to speak, so I can't also be taking in and reacting to other stimuli. And even ordinary levels of other input leave too little RAM for activity. It is perhaps underestimated how much the ability to quickly take in and respond to new stimuli is connected to our sense of being possessed of ourselves. People think of sensation as passive; but the highest level of competent action incorporates this ability. So it is perhaps not surprising that I feel not in control when this ability is depleted--which is also when I am acting.
Partly this is because I haven't got much executive control of what I do when thinking and talking. In terms of the content, yes; but style, manner, all those things are out of the picture. I usually close my eyes or look up while I'm speaking in a seminar. When listening (and when teaching--by necessity), I look at other people. But if I were to look at them while talking in a seminar I'd lose my thoughts completely. Whether this is due to an unusual proportion of sensory or social awareness I don't know; I'd guess both. I very much feel like I'm not all there in these situations, like part of my brain is in another room somewhere. In contrast to the rest of my life, I have a highly abbreviated memory of times when I'm talking or presenting. It's almost exactly like my memories of performances: rushes, costumes, and intonations of words. (With regard to the actual subjects of conversation, it's easier to remember these if it's conversation with one person. I feel a bit more like myself then. Though I still often look up or close my eyes when thinking and speaking.) My therapist in Boston tried to convince me that all of this amounted to anxiety, but I experience none (except on occasion the anxiety given rise to by finding myself--when the flow doesn't happen--unable to think or talk, and I'm worried about being graded on that). It feels, well, as I've said--like part of my brain is in another room. Presumably this is the part with the rich sensory and social awareness that makes my sensorily rich memory possible. The part that feels like me.
Herein lies my fascination with the idea that in certain habitual or "flow" like activities, there is an unusual absence of what for lack of better terms I'll call "executive" cognition; why we don't know how we know certain abilities, why we can't say how we perform basic (or effectively basic) actions. Actions simply feel passive to me.
Maybe it's an attentional issue; it takes all of my RAM to think and to speak, so I can't also be taking in and reacting to other stimuli. And even ordinary levels of other input leave too little RAM for activity. It is perhaps underestimated how much the ability to quickly take in and respond to new stimuli is connected to our sense of being possessed of ourselves. People think of sensation as passive; but the highest level of competent action incorporates this ability. So it is perhaps not surprising that I feel not in control when this ability is depleted--which is also when I am acting.
