William James wrote:

All action is a re-action upon the outer world. The current of life that runs in through our eyes and ears is meant to run  out at our hands, feet, or lips. The only use of the thoughts which it occasions while inside is to determine its direction to whichever of these organs shall, under the circumstances actually present, act in the way most propitious to our welfare.¹ 

How optimistic. ‘The only use of the thoughts …’ seems to have given ‘thoughts’ short shrift. Of course, the quote is out of context; and anyone who has read James knows he is never short on explication. Elsewhere I have argued that William’s ‘stream of consciousness’ is better described as scenes of a film badly edited, herky-jerky no less, and our subsequent actions, determined by thoughts, are akin to the antics of a pig on ice.

These actions of our hands, feet, and lips often lack the grace and agility or fluency that we would wish. Consider the man (or woman) late for the office. He gathers his keys, starts for the door, stops, considers the light on in the kitchen, turns, stops, turns back to the door, stops, drops his briefcase, goes halfway to the kitchen, utters a curse, stops, turns back to the briefcase, and out he goes, slamming the unfortunate door behind him.

The character in our little drama did not act in a way most propitious to his welfare.

A man I knew—quite an intelligent fellow, invented a better fence for table saws among other things, built and played classical guitar—once became infuriated by his inability to locate the TV guide. When at last he did find the errant guide, he nailed it to the wall above the television with a 16 penny nail.

In all fairness, James does go on to say:

Preferences [what we chose to do], the ends that we pursue, do not exist at all in the world of impressions we receive by way of our senses, but are set by our emotional and practical subjectivity altogether.

He goes on to posit our ‘fondnesses’ for considering moral values—this is good, this is bad; that is better, this worse—before we ultimately act with hand, or feet, or lips. But all these decisions need making, excepting of course ‘the hand in the fire’ type reflect action. And how do we decide? Our senses have provided us with data. Our brain has translated (some prefer  ‘filtered’ or other analogies), then considered options, then acted (to put it baldly). How many options need be considered? How many pros and cons get listed? When is enough enough? Then what? We decide.

Why is slapstick comedy inevitably funny? It is the human condition.

Climbing up Mt Hood’s Leuthold’s Couloir one cold winter’s day, a friend and I marveled at the firmness of the snow as we kicked the points of our crampons into the steepening slope. Overhead, clear crisp blue skies. Weather set. Until we topped out on a bench called the Queen’s Throne and discovered that a lenticular cloud had sneaked up behind us and we were about to be engulfed.

Swirling wind driving pellets of ice rendered eyes and ears rather useless. We stood on the summit, blind and deaf, with but a vague idea of our whereabouts. Two decisions were at hand. Which way down and who would lead. Down was anybody’s guess, but we had both been on Hood’s summit before and had skied below Crater Rock, the large plug in the summit crater’s cirque, many times. We thought the precipitous Steel Cliffs were to our right, and the standard route up the Hog’s Back was somewhere to our left.  After a round of rock, paper , scissors—which I won— I moved to my left ten yards or so to feel a little better about clearing the cliffs, then started down. I think we were roped. Often two climbers went unroped for if one fell they both fell with little or no recourse. This was the presumed fate of Mallory and Irvine on Everest in 1924.

As I stepped off I knew that if the slope before me was as hard as the couloir that we had climbed up, I was in for a ride. The gods were smiling as I plunged stepped down in knee deep wind drift. I managed to avoid the fumaroles and greeted the looming bulk of Crater Rock with raised axe.

The decision to step off (into the abyss? onto hard snow? ice? drift?) was made without ‘thinking,’ without ‘consideration.’ Under the conditions of swirling snow and ice, we both were operating instinctively, intuitively. The decision simply got made.

Stirling Moss, on everyone’s list of top Formula 1 drivers, has similar words to describe the decision he makes as he motors along at 120 miles per hour. Split second timing is needed to get the car exactly where it needs to be. He has no awareness of ‘making decisions.’ There simply is not time.

Moss’s physical equipment is demonstrably not normal. Like Joe Louis at his peak, when, he has said, he often found that he had hit a man before his brain had had time to note the opening, Moss has often braked, accelerated, or changed course before his brain could record the reason.²

Even when there is time to decide, to weigh the pros and cons, all considerations are merely foreplay. Ultimately we just decide. Obviously, if we are deciding who takes the garbage out we are talking about a different breed of dog.

Reducing a decision or an object or an abstract concept to constituent parts, I would argue, gives a false impression, and leads one to thinking, like James, in plurals which in turn fosters more decisions to be made, which leads to confusion and more difficulties than the original decision.

Reductionism is part and parcel of duality: Me and him, us and them, black and white, this and that. Western civilization is plagued with duality. We are bludgeoned with the notion at every turn. Schools teach it, religions insist on it, governments legislate it.

But the dancer and the dance are not two things.

Of course, James would label this business of decisions-just-happening some form of transcendentalism about which nothing can be known. Metaphysics does not lend itself to reduction because there are no parts. It is all or nothing. Or both. Or neither.

Did I hear William snort?

While it is true that metaphysics in general and enlightenment in particular cannot be described as one might describe something as abstract as a state of mind, the behavior of one who’s mindset if focused can be described.

John Jerome wrote a book on the subject titled The Sweet Spot In Time. Mainly about football and martial arts, the behavior experienced by himself, John Brodie, former quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers, and others has been experienced by any number of people in every walk of life.

One need not contemplate one’s navel for hours at a time. Merely do what you do. Carpenters, plumbers, readers, writers, firemen, farmers, perhaps even a politician or two have all experienced the feeling that what they were doing was ‘being done’ and time passed unnoticed. Musicians all know that nothing can be played or sung well if it requires thought or any other intellectualization. If you have to read the music, it is extremely difficult to play or sing well.

Inevitably, the dancer must become the dance; otherwise, one’s actions are merely awkward motions running out through are hands and feet and lips. Pigs on ice.

1 William James, The Will To Believe; Longmans, Green, and Company. New York, 1912. p114

2 Stirling Moss with Ken Purdy, All But My Life, Bantam Books, New York 1963. p26