The Brain Station, Part Two
Continuing An Essay of the Mind: Antonio’s Desk and Sensory Envelope
by: A.Z.K.R.
After I made my post about The Brain Station and Italian Conductors, I kept thinking about how these concepts could apply to other parts of my memory, and it brought up more things worth blogging about, namely, Sensory Envelopes, Rotten Bananas, and Bad Brain Weather.
The Sensory Envelopes have to do a little more with short term memory than the trains do, but it isn’t an exact science, there are just different nuances.
We as living beings are processing information twenty-four seven, and I picture this process like a little man sitting at his desk surrounded by mail chutes. I didn’t think it fair to blame all of our memory shortcomings on the Italian Conductor, so I decided that the sensory boy is Antonio, the Conductor’s younger cousin.
Antonio sits at his desk in a swivel chair sorting information as it comes. I don’t pretend to know the ins and outs of his organization, but I know there is a garbage chute, a wastepaper basket and those plastic sorting office drawers all around his desk.
When sorting, Antonio has to make a ‘forget later’ pile and a ‘remember later’ pile. As an example for how these work- you see hundreds, maybe even thousands, of faces a day, and he to decide which ones are worth storing, and which ones go to the rubbish heap the Dream Team dumpster dives in. Chances are, you don’t forget a face the moment you turn away, or what an isle of the grocery store looks like as soon as you leave it, he lets those pictures sit in a pile until he’s certain you won’t need it. This process of tossing things on his desk is why “retracing your steps” is such an effective tool. It forces Antonio into the specific action of picking up each envelope he’s set down in a stack until he gets to the one you’re trying to remember, like the Where I Left My Keys’ envelope.
It really helps Antonio when you set reminders for yourself because it sends the same envelope to him several time. If one gets buried, misplaced, tossed down the wrong shoot, etc. no biggie, he has a spare. But this only helps if its pointed. The reminders you set are little pink sticky notes Antonio puts above his desk, and sticky notes fall down, so you have to replace them, but the important part is that Antonio stops to handwrite the sticky note and put it up, otherwise you create repetitive visual sensory envelopes, which aren’t helpful in the least and can be bad. If you put a to-do list on your bedroom door, but you don’t put up a mental sticky note to look at it every time you wake up, or pass by, it becomes ignorable junk mail that he throws away every time he gets it. You walk into your room and it’s messy. A ‘Your Room Is A Disgrace’ envelope comes in. Antonio gets irritated and tosses it because you haven’t told him what to do about it. Unless you stop to look at your hamper in the hall and say, “I need to do laundry today” thus making a sticky note, Antonio just gets a ‘The Hamper Is Mount Va-Dirty Clothes’ envelope and junks it. He has five of those already.
Breaking down the big mess into small tasks is another way to help Antonio, because instead of just giving the exasperated little Italian boy another ‘Your Room Is messy’ envelope, you can attach a little note that say, ‘start by clearing the floor’ (the more specific the better.) He sighs in relief. He knows what to do with that.
Antonio is not to blame for mistakes. He’s just a little guy; he needs your active participation to do his job well.
Now there are two ways Antonio deals with his desk. At night while you sleep he either sits down and carefully sorts through what you might still need tomorrow and what’s a waste of space, —or— he panics when his desk gets too crowded and swipes everything off of it onto his workspace floor at a random date. I fully believe he does both interchangeably.
Remember that if you’re tired, Antonio is really tired, and if he’s staying up later than you to sort envelopes, he’s bound to make mistakes, miss sort and might doze off or forget things you actually still needed. He has bags under his eyes and drool cascading from the corner of his mouth. We have to take care of him and help him maintain his space as opposed to manic stress sensory overload purging. Writing things down is one way of alleviating little Antonio from remembering everything for us. And if you later remember something you had forgot, pat little Antonio on the head because that means he didn’t throw it out. It was just misplaced somewhere around his desk.
Antonio’s desk is also a helpful visual for distractions, fixations and daydreaming.
When you suddenly have a though that makes it reeeeeeally hard to focus (the word for that is extremely), it’s when Antonio suddenly has a very special envelope on his desk distracting him from sorting anything else. This envelope might be shinier than the others. It has colorful stickers, and beautiful, intriguing calligraphy. He doesn’t want to look at the mundane ‘Your Math Book Is in Front of You’ envelope. The ‘Mom Is Talking Now’ envelope…Oh, Ooops. Antonio didn’t turn on his ‘Outside World to Inside World’ intercom. When something is gnawing at you, whether it be excitement of some kind, nervousness, anticipation, etc. like an email from someone important, Antonio feels it too, and he’s trying not to look at the envelope that’s different from the others.
Creating blocks of time and restraints that you can stick to is the best way to help yourself and Antonio. It’s getting Antonio to put that shiny, or scary envelope in a drawer of his plastic sorting bin for later, so that he doesn’t have to look at it, and can focus clearer.
Antonio is not an excuse for your problems’, he’s a tool for helping you understand them, because every sight, sound, smell, texture, emotion and random thought you have, is an envelope on his desk.
(The Rotten Bananas and Bad Brain Weather will be discussed in later posts.)
Anakalian Whims 