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I'm a Bit Jealous of My Subconscious

One of the things I've learned, very slowly, over the decades is that my subconscious is much smarter than I am.  It's very unsettling, like something out of a science fiction story.

I'm a lay person with respect to psychology, although 37 years of marriage to a psychologist may help a bit. I use the term "subconscious" to refer to the processing that my mind does that I am unaware of and only observe in retrospect.

I've had to do a fair amount of public speaking in my time. It is one of the greatest tensions of my life, being painfully shy but seeking opportunities for service that include a significant component of public speaking.  

I prepare a lot for things; my rule of thumb has always been that the more anxious I am about a future experience the more preparation I do for it. For public speaking the preparation involves some time thinking about what I want to say and revising the list to include only what I need to say.  Often my list of wants includes distractions that if left in would make me less effective as a communicator.

I know how important it is to get people's attention before speaking. You can't take for granted that standing in a certain place will achieve that. So I usually say something silly or outrageous to catch people's attention before beginning.

I have tried when younger to use notes after the introductory attention grab to hit the points I want to stress but that doesn't seem to work for me nor does it seem necessary. I speak only when I feel that I need to speak and I try to only say what I need to say and notes seem to be an encumbrance at that point.

This is where I find that the background processes in my mind have been working; more often than not the words are there, because I speak about things that I care about.

I've tried forcing the words, practicing reading notes out loud, shifting words here and there. That's still important for a conference presentation where timing matters. But with practice the feelings that motivate me fade from repetition. I would not be a good theater actor for many reasons but my difficulty in saying the same words with the same feeling multiple times would certainly be limiting.

I (and many other very good people) spoke about things we cared about yesterday at a faculty meeting. I came home and told my wife how unsettling it was to hear my words come out on an issue without consciously thinking them. I consciously felt them, had felt them long enough to give my background processes time with them, and the words were there.

In particular, as I age, my foreground thinking is slower. I have experience and good reflexes as strengths but I am not as sharp as I was when I was younger and I have had to made my peace with that.  The unsettling part is the growing gap between foreground and background in my mind. If I could switch the two I think that I would prefer to do so, to feel more like a driver than a passenger in my own life.

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