“Economy” in the sense of making spare use of things, our minds being by nature frugal. With finite mental resources, it’s natural that we should try to conserve them. When we encounter a bunch of new things, we would rather add them to what we already know than overturn any existing knowledge.

So, whenever we can, we try lumping similar things together — thereby gaining as well a big future advantage, for now we don’t need to dredge up all the specifics, but can simply recall to mind their rough sum total — our general impression. What’s lost in precision is gained in flexibility and speed.

Of course, to find similarities means to detect differences: and what we reject from one group, we often lump together, by opposition, into another.

— A poor man’s theory of mind, perhaps.

Well, I know I’m conscious of my mind’s limitations more than most, having puzzled over this since I was quite young. And later, when as a special education teacher I encountered so-called clinical cases, my awareness expanded.

But now let’s head into territory more idiosyncratic and, I hope, more interesting.

 

Lenses

For a long time now, since I was twelve or perhaps even younger, I’ve tried to bring certain other minds into my own: not assimilating them there, but instead keeping them slightly apart as semi-separate beings within me. As such, they offer different lenses — virtual eyes — through which I can peer out at the world.

This can’t be so unusual an experience, for surely you too have stumbled out of an art exhibit, a movie, or a concert to find the world utterly transformed, at least for a while. My goal has been to somehow preserve these kinds of transformations within me.

A few examples, as disparate as possible, might help here:

1. Stan Brakhage, whose experimental filmmaking I first encountered when I was fifteen. I tried to memorize as many of his films as I could find over the next five or six years, bringing his vision very deep into my consciousness — so that even now, many years later, I can glance at a negligible patch of light and transform it into something immense and mystical, connected to my very soul by the intricate pathways of optic nerve and visual cortex. (Such exalted language comes in part from Brakhage as well.)
2. Philip K. Dick, the science fiction writer I resisted reading for years, unable to overcome my distaste for the awkwardness of his sentences. My old rule was that you can judge a book in a flash — not by its cover, but by any one of its sentences. Almost invariably true, but not for Dick. The throwaway quality of his prose is a perfect match for the disposable realities he conjured up — and that we now live in. Every brand new product — or idea — that I pick up reveals, through his eyes, telltale signs of its already starting to fray, to fade, to obsolesce. (Even this passage has a limited shelf life, for Dick himself is increasingly over-exposed, turning into a cliche, & is thus due for steep discounting.)
3. Nora, a month-old dwarf bunny we once acquired for our two daughters, but who died a scarce two weeks later (though persisting inside me ever since). Who taught me to regard every expanse — lap, bedspread, carpet — as a possible meadow. And every window as a possible menace, as if at any moment a hawk might swoop down from the blinding sky.

I could multiply these examples many times over, for my interior lens collection isn’t small. I do take care, though, to limit its size, a point I’ll come back to.

 

Guides

But first let’s dispel my visual bias. Rather than lenses, the other minds you select could serve as interior guides, suggesting ways of acting or moving or just being.

Many times people place themselves in the thrall of another person — most often larger-than-life figures — movie-star, athlete, saint — whose stances, movements, expressions they can use to mold their own.

But beware: let no single guru monopolize you — a mental economy thrives on free competition.