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Tiny Mind Motions

In a review of Tracy K. Smith’s book of poems Wade in the Water, Sam Anderson quotes the following lines:

A rust-stained pipe

Where a house once stood, which I

Take each time I pass it for an owl.

This common experience of pareidolia becomes the opportunity to describe a phenomenon Anderson calls “tiny, private mind motions”:

How many fleeting associations combine to make up a life? How many rusty pipes do we mistake for owls? A vast majority of our waking hours are filled not with witty jokes or brilliant thoughts or epic feelings but with tiny, private mind-motions — thoughts that are hardly even thoughts at all, that don’t rise to the level of sharing with another human being. That millisecond when — again and again — a rusty pipe looks like an owl, or a newscaster’s voice reminds you of a long-gone uncle, or a daily routine sets off a small chain of involuntary associations. These things are almost nothing, and yet they are who we are.

Every morning, when I screw the lid onto my steaming thermos of coffee, I think to myself, automatically, the phrase “heat capture.” I have no idea why. I’ve never used that phrase in any other context in my life. And yet I couldn’t stop it if I tried. After years of this, I finally mentioned it to my wife, who revealed a similar habit: Every night, when she shuts the bedroom blinds, she thinks to herself the ridiculous words, “Sleep Chamber: Complete.” She said she kind of hates it because it makes her feel as if she’s living in an episode of “Star Trek,” but she has no choice. . . .

These things will never be part of anyone’s biography. Unless we tell one another, they disappear.

Workshop

Try to observe one of these private, habitual thought events in your own mental life. Is there some thought or observation or memory that gets triggered frequently in your life? As you notice these, write them down and return to them for later analysis. Select one and inquire: How does it feel that this is your tiny mind motions Where does it come from? What does it mean to you?