Starving the Monkeys: Fight Back Smarter

by Tom Baugh

  While I agree with the above analysis, I think that the way that these different portions of the mind interact to solve problems is different from a simple male-female assignment. I think it is more fair to say that the subconscious mind is more primitive, yet unimaginably powerful, while the conscious mind is more modern, but more limited in processing power. Men have a male subconscious and a male conscious mind, while women have a female subconscious and a female conscious mind. I think that the male and female subconscious minds are similar in function, but different in purpose. On the other hand, I think that the conscious minds of either gender are probably more similar in operation than either are to their respective subconscious minds.

  We will return to some of the philosophical implications of these distinctions in a moment, but for now I want to return to the topic of creativity. The interaction between these two minds, the subconscious and conscious, of either gender, determines how effective we are at solving problems, or creating new ideas or simply enjoying our lives. When I asked you to do some of those exercises above, I was asking you to probe the relationship between your conscious and subconscious mind. The more difficult you found the exercises, the more you have allowed others to program that relationship for you. And in so doing you have made yourself more vulnerable to exploitation, and less creative, and ultimately, less fulfilled.

  Now, the next thing to understand is that all creative processes, such as figuring out how to automate or create something, is more of an art than a science. For example, we know what electrical parts do what, or how software works, or how a backhoe works, and so on. This stuff you learn in school. All that math and science which you must learn is merely a tool, but you must know how that tool operates.

  Equally important, then, is reflection. You must take time to think about a problem, and that thinking must be done correctly. Creative types will understand immediately what I mean when I talk about what I call "brain bubbles." I will describe these in more detail in a moment, but understand that your brain bubbles, or your creative flow, must be jealously guarded.

  Also note that you cannot be creative on a 9 to 5 schedule. Creativity happens when it is ready, not when you wish for it to happen. There is a reason for this which I will describe shortly. Importantly, your motivation must be more important than just mere money. I am certainly not opposed to making money, but you must understand that the creative side of yourself is absolutely cash-illiterate. Your creativity comes up with neat ideas for the sheer joy of creation and creation of value, of pulling up wonderful things from the primitive elements, air, water, earth and fire.

  Of course, if your creativity is motivated by pure profit motive, then some of the ideas you come up with are likely to be destructive. This is a distinct concept from the joy which comes from creating value. If you see only the dollar signs when you think, then try to focus for a while on the concepts of stuff, push, time, energy and quality of life which I mentioned a few chapters back. Mix in the concept of free trade and soon your motives will become purified. Only then will you truly profit, as opposed to imagining how to extract unearned value. Your subconscious mind will help you in whatever value system you trained it, so take the time to think about the positive values in life.

  So, what is a "brain bubble"? Philosophically, they are the fertile soil from which ideas spring. Some call this "flow". No matter what you call this state, it is an alteration of your consciousness, a taking of your conscious mind out of gear so that ideas can bubble around. To start a bubble session, treat yourself to some creature comforts. Dr. Paul would call this "mothering yourself." The idea here is that you want your subconscious mind to shut down operation of its default survival mode. In survival mode, the caveman in you tries to take care of you by making sure that basic survival needs, such as food, water, air and shelter, are met.

  If you've ever wondered why the stereotypical computer geek, as seen on TV, is always surrounded by a pile of snacks, this is it. Others drink a beer or two, some put on a favorite shirt or jacket. Chicks enjoy sipping a glass of wine or slipping into a warm bubble bath (and I enjoy watching them, but that takes me back into caveman mode somehow). A crackling fire or soothing music works for others. Some smoke cigarettes, cigars, or pot. My personal favorite method is to take a nap. The common theme of all of these methods is that it is something which tells your subconscious mind that you are safe. Otherwise, for example, why would you be napping? Thus, your subconscious mind knows it is OK to get to work on problemsolving about your automation task or drain-field problem or financial dilemma or whatever.

  Next, while you are in this semi-hypnotic relaxed state, think positive thoughts about your problem. These thoughts have to be in a form which is conducive to a solution. Here are some examples which are not good:

  "I want to solve world hunger." Too broad, and arguably, it is solved already just by not worrying about it. Also, just a want.

  "I want to make ten thousand widgets without hiring any monkeys." Again, a want, but also includes an artificial constraint. Not hiring monkeys is a noble purpose, but may actually get in the way of reaching your goals.

  Why are wants bad? Well, they are distinct from needs, for one thing. You can argue that a want is already satisfied, since you are already wanting that thing. Mission accomplished. Consider the following, which is a recent favorite of mine:

  "I want to referee a bearskin tickle fight between Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann." But, I already have that want. "No more to be done," says Mr. Subconscious, who then goes back to caveman mode to consider the possibilities, including possible misspellings. Bastard.

  "Need" is hardly any better, and grates on the rational part of your subconscious, which must be pretty strong already if you are still reading this book. Plus, if you have read "Atlas Shrugged" as I suggested, and enjoyed it, you will be irritated by this word at a deep level.

  Negativity also sucks:

  "If I don't close this sale I will lose my house." Oops, survival mode just kicked back in. Grab another beer or reach for the lighter and try again.

  So, I have found that it is better to state the problem in positive tones:

  "Before the end of the summer I will make a widget which saves me the trouble of hiring a monkey to do that job."

  Notice how much stronger that is. "I will". And by a specific time, otherwise, "I will" sounds a lot like "I want" if you give it long enough. And this time getting rid of the monkey removes the negativity, since you can now focus on the savings. You have made the monkey removal portion mean something good for you.

  You can also leave it a little open-ended to let your subconscious mind fill in the blanks:

  "To reach at least one hundred thousand qualified customers who will benefit most from using it, I am going to market my widget by ..."

  Notice the specific goal, and what you need to do, which is to market it. The openendedness, if used consistently, establishes a pattern which signals your subconscious mind that it is time for it to now carry the load.

  Also note that you get rid of all the negative strategies, such as selling it to little old ladies who don't need one. Instead you are focusing on providing value. This helps your subconscious mind design your next widget as value-based, rather than as trickery-based.

  Remember at this stage you are not trying to struggle out an answer. Unless you are truly fortunate, or your problem is insanely simple, a solution simply will not pop out the first time. Instead, you are just letting the problem statement simmer a while. You need to stay in state for a while, refreshing your problem statement from time to time. It is not necessary, or desirable, to chant the problem statement like a mantra. This is like the boss looking over your shoulder asking "Are you done yet? Are you done yet? Are you done yet?" Not good. Instead, enjoy drifting around a little. You might even wander around the house, or out into the yard and look at the trees or some bugs.

  The neighbors will think you just became autistic. You may ignore or say stupid thi
ngs to people around you. I sometimes poke First Wife like a plushy just to see how things move around. Or make up little songs. Cats are great for this stage, their purring seems to be just the right amount of sooth. Maybe that's why evil geniuses on movies always have one around. It could also explain why I, in general, don't like dogs, which are only marginally more useful than some people I've met.

  You could, theoretically, maintain one of these states for days. It is at these times that brilliant people are rumored to go out into the cold without a coat, or eat and not remember having done so. I myself have eaten meals and then asked First Wife when dinner will be ready.

  On the other hand, a momentary interruption can pop a brain bubble, which is a shame since it takes an hour or two to get one rolling. Usually, questions are all it takes. For example, "Hey, do you have that report ready?" You have to then re-engage the conscious mind, play back the sounds you just heard, or ask for a repeat, and then process the question, and then come up with an answer. All of this pulls you out of the flow state.

  With practice, you will learn which portions of your mind does which kind of work. Then, you can selectively inflate a brain bubble in one portion, while the rest does stuff which seems semi-normal in their limited range of action. This kind of sounds like a "high functioning autistic."

  When I was doing range shooting in the Marine Corps, I dropped into a state which was almost machine-like. Without thinking, the process is the same for each round:

  Body alignment, firm grip with the rifle lying in the frame you have become. Breathe in then halfway out and pause, sight alignment, and squeeeeeezzzzzzz the trigger until the hammerfall surprises you. Then feel the gentle press of the stock as it kicks your shoulder while the bullet leaves the barrel at over twice the speed of sound.

  The thought of missing or my score or anything else just didn't matter beyond that one round in the chamber, which I visualized in slow motion drilling a hole right through the target. The entire sequence slowed down in time. I think this was because my subconscious mind shut down other functions, and what was left was essentially over-clocked, so everything important seemed slower and easier to control.

  I could see a target come up in slow motion and moments after it came to rest my round was on the way. My mind intersected the motion of the target with my trigger squeeze. The squeeze itself seemed to take a perceptible amount of time but which became a single smooth pull after thousands of rounds. The Marine coaches taught me to remember the last sight picture just before the rifle bucked, and almost without fail I could nail it exactly. "Six inches at six o'clock" I would say to the scorekeeper/spotter behind or beside.

  The spotter beside you, just as skilled as you are, saw your entire body in proper alignment relative to the target. He watched your hands and rifle out of his peripheral vision while his eyes saw through the target. "Firm grip, not too hard" or "focus on the front sight tip" he might coach, over and over, to a novice. Until the novice heard these words in his own head, incorporated them into his subconscious programming, and became an expert.

  On humid North Carolina mornings, as the bullet left the barrel, the spotter, particularly if using a scope, could see its vapor trail cross the five hundred yards from you through the target. And, from experience he knew also where it had penetrated by extrapolating the part of the vapor trail he could see before it disappeared into the vanilla background surrounding the blackness at the center. All this was calculated in his head before the bang from the muzzle had time to get through the slight delays he had learned to install in his own subconscious mind. These carefully programmed delays prevented a flinch which would cause him to miss the show. In the heat of a desert, the mirage wavers slightly as the wake of the bullet further roils the already roiling air. The effect is the same.

  Others watching from the side, or down in the target butts, could see the little puffs of dirt in the berm behind the target. These observers could come to the same conclusion as to the accuracy of the hit. Even this provided valuable experience to know what the misses looked like, and where the shooter might be if the target was you. When the target came back up marked accordingly, it wasn't a big deal. It simply "was", for all of us. For the combat shooting courses, the process and principles were the same. But for those courses the ranges were closer, your body was moving and the clock rate was faster.

  Recall that in the Marine Corps in that day air control was performed with grease pencils, maps, clipboards and voices on the radio. No radars, no data-links, no computers and not even very good radios. Each detail had to be juggled in your head using a technique known as "situational awareness." In my air control specialty class at Twenty-Nine Palms, I finished second out of nine highly intelligent and, on demand, supremely calm Marine officers. Number one, who was number one by a wide margin, now occupies the highest rank in this specialty in the Pacific. And he is just as deadly with a rifle.

  I was jokingly referred to as "Iceman" by one of the instructors, spoofing the obvious "Top Gun" reference. This particular instructor probably tagged at least one student in each class with this name to make a point. I seriously doubt that I was much more "iceish" than the rest. The instructors would deliberately stress the students by changing everything, including introducing quirks which were physically impossible. Planes at one side of a bombing range were suddenly fifty miles away, to mimic the delays in reporting times and genuine confusion which pilots experience when getting shot at. You couldn't take everything they said to you at face value. You had to insert reasonable fuzziness to make everything make sense.

  Under stress, my subconscious mind would take over and drop my voice into an almost monotonic calm which sails through the radio undistorted. Time expanded, and I could "see" the picture which the instructors were painting inside my head. These experts were skilled at using those brushes to teach fresh second lieutenants how to think and imagine what they were hearing in their crackling headsets. Garbled voices in your ear can be untangled from the static and pops you learn to ignore until the meaning in those voices comes through as if the speaker was sitting beside you. Today I can still pull all of the parts of a favorite song on a supermarket speaker out and enjoy them while the people around me jabber and the refrigerator fans whirr.

  Two years of training later, in Desert Storm, while in state I could see a three-dimensional map with fuzzy probability clouds around every plane or flight group under our control. In my mind they flew inside tinted rectangular cylinders curving through the sky representing routes to be taken. Ground units were blocks of symbology which could be zoomed at will into little pictures of tanks and artillery. When picking ordinance I could run through all the possible combinations of this stuff hitting those things like little movies in fast-forward. I had experienced all of these combinations in the field during training and saw a lot of that stuff at a place which didn't officially exist.

  Here, the physics mattered. Without the probability clouds learned by experience at Twenty-Nine Palms, the confusion would have been overwhelming. And so, seeing which little vector in my head could get there first and at the least risk of getting shot down, the Iraqi artillery took the napalm. This was the fastest way to get it turned off as I watched the curved cone coming out of it and smacking down on Marines in the field. Just after my Tactical Air Director relayed my order I imagined the little vector turning toward the artillery. In my mind the other little vectors turned and grew to get out of the way. Or to get into position to watch the drop and report the results.

  Under physical stress the same things happen. At Quantico and Parris Island and Pendleton they shot live machine guns overhead while you crawled around in muck and barbed wire. As long as you didn't stand up, or jump up and down, it was probably safe, but still interesting to experience. The bullets from the machine guns almost seemed like individual things which could be heard snicking overhead. At any distance from the gun their muzzle blasts were now only pahs afterward, the pahs and the moving snick echoing through
the trees or off the hills. Hear enough snicks and pahs, and you can learn where the machine gun is. As long as you don't think about one of those snicks hitting you. Which is less likely if you pay attention to the snicks and pahs. Or if you pay attention to the little dirt puffs (which, up close, don't look anything at all like what you see shooting up from the ground in movies). Recognize these, then slow down time and do something about it.

  Later, at Virginia Tech, while I was out on bail, some dork let his big dog charge at the heavily pregnant First Wife. That imaginary doggie-eye thing worked. Dork, offended by our lack of fear and intimidation of his "baby", then handed the dog by its collar to his girlie. To prove his mettle to her, he threw down against this guy two-thirds his size who had simply moved to protect his wife and child from his inconsideration.

  Time slowed to a crawl, my breathing seemed to slow and get deeper. In slow motion I handed First Wife my axe-handle walking stick for her last line of defense. For a moment I stood there watching the size and tempo of his pace and the swing of his arms as he oozed toward me. He then threw his leash (had it been on the dog, where it belonged, none of this would have happened), his only weapon, to the side as his display of macho to her. Seeing this, I began moving before it drifted to the ground, no longer needing to keep my distance, and cleared to engage.