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Polly Wolly Doodle All the Day
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If you’ve been around for a while, as I have, you may have come to regret the demise of the phone booth. These conveniences offered not only a space for one's own private conversations in public places but also protection against the private conversations of others. With cell phones, you get neither. It appears to be a law of nature that those with the least to say insist on doing so the loudest, thereby distracting everyone within earshot. Since I rarely use a cell phone, I can plead innocent on this score. Not that I have any illusions about the caliber of my own chatter, having been a party to the conversations I carry on with myself. Surely nothing is as disjointed or distracting as the monologue that goes on ceaselessly within one’s own cranium.
It seems the mind abhors silence the way nature abhors a vacuum. Is there any sight, sound or bodily sensation that does not call forth comment from within? Is there no memory that cannot be endlessly rehashed, like a cow chewing its cud? Is there any thought too shameful for my delection? Any jibe, jeer or self-recrimination that does not haunt my thoughts? Is there any worry or regret that does not assault my equanimity? As much as I might like my mind to stay put, it is forever going off on another flight of fancy, speculating on what it might be like to win the lottery or to sink the winning putt at the Masters. Or entertaining itself with pop tunes and ad jingles from decades ago. And so it goes, the mind prattling on, and on and on, singing polly wolly doodle all the day.
Christians are taught to beg God’s forgiveness for their evil thoughts, which may provide some small solace, if not just more food for thought. Buddhists are inclined to go to the root of the problem and try to silence the noise machine altogether. They talk about “monkey mind” -- the mind’s tendency to jump from one disconnected thought to the next, like a monkey swinging from branch to branch. If we are honest with ourselves, we have to admit that the mind is no more capable of keeping to a single train of thought than a drunk is able to walk a straight line.
It is hard to imagine how our enlarged brains aid the survival of the species if our thoughts mostly distract us from the main business at hand, whether it be finding a mate or figuring out where our next meal is coming from. After all, the lowly ant, with a brain about a thousandth of an inch in diameter, is capable of building intricate underground colonies, caring for its young and organizing into armies to defend against intruders. So what exactly is the evolutionary advantage of our massive brainpower?
Buddhists, who gave us the charming metaphor of monkey mind, make a distinction between Small Mind and Big Mind. Small Mind splashes about happily in the shallows of life, singing polly wolly doodle all the day, while Big Mind quietly navigates deeper channels. Big Mind first attached meaning to the sounds we make and formed words. It has enabled us to picture events that have not yet happened, to sing songs that have never been sung, to imagine invisible forces operating in the visible world, whether they be gods or gravity. From the depths of Big Mind came the impulse to leave a mark upon the world, first in pictures, then in writing, enabling us to communicate across time and space. And that made it possible for people like me to plumb for deeper thoughts in the mind’s torrents and to share them with people I will never know using devices undreamed of when I was still ducking into phone booths to make a call.
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