The Devolving Conscious

I am becoming stupid. No, let me rephrase that. My conscious is becoming stupid. See, your body has two controls, namely, the conscious and the subconscious. The conscious takes care of things you do deliberately with full awareness, while the subconscious takes care of things you do without really being aware of it.

Now I have reason to believe that my conscious has retired and gone to live in a small cottage overlooking the sea where it raises goats and pigs and carries out subsistence agriculture. The reason I believe this is because lately, I have found myself unable to do certain things which are usually performed by my subconscious, if I am aware that I am consciously doing them. Complicated? Let me explain.

Lets take the example of showering. Showering, for most people who make it a point to shower everyday, is an act of subconsciousness. The moment you step into the shower, your body guides itself automatically through the various motions of showering, including applying soap to various parts of your body, then directing a waterjet towards those parts to get rid of the soap. And along with the acts that comprise showering, the sequence in which they occur is also fixed subconsciously by your body. But this is what happened today in the shower. As usual, I was letting my subconscious do everything, while I meditated on various topics of little relevance. Then, suddenly, without any warning, I had soap in my eyes. It brought me out of my reverie, disengaging my subconscious and putting my conscious in control.

So picture my amazement when I realized that my conscious had no fucking clue as to how to go about cleansing my body for me. I tried operating the soap, but every move I made seemed to be totally unfamiliar. Do I rub the soap horizontally or vertically, how the fuck do I even reach my back, were some questions my conscious made a valiant attempt at answering, but ultimately, gave up as a lost cause. I emerged from the shower confused and less than sparkling clean.

The same thing happens to me sometimes while I'm driving. After cruising along on auto-pilot for a while, if suddenly I wake up and ask myself, which of these three levers is the brake, I have no idea. So frequently, people driving the car behind me will find themselves yelling at the idiot in front of them who suddenly brakes for no reason. But in reality, he's just testing to see if he knows where the brakes are. Be patient with him, his conscious has devolved.