Part 2

Reading

Consider reading.

Elephant.

You probably read the word automatically.

A child learning to read proceeds differently.

Letters are identified.

Sounds are assembled.

Words are recognized.

What once required deliberate effort later becomes automatic.

In fact, many literate adults find it difficult not to read a familiar word once they see it.

What began as a voluntary activity seems to have acquired a life of its own.

Looking

Look at a specific object.

Now look at another.

That appears voluntary.

You can direct your attention.

You can decide where to look.

But once you look, something else happens.

The object is there.

It has a color.

It has a shape.

You choose where to direct your attention.

You do not choose what appears.

Mental Arithmetic

Compute 7 + 5.

An answer appears.

You may calculate carefully.

You may perform the calculation again.

You may check the result.

But did you choose the answer?

Not in the same way that you chose to perform the calculation.

You can decide to proceed carefully.

You can decide to check your work.

Yet once the process is underway, the answer seems to arrive with a force of its own.

Remembering

Think of your first school.

Or your first bicycle.

Or a childhood friend.

You can decide to direct your attention toward a particular period of your life.

But you cannot fully dictate what appears.

Sometimes a memory comes immediately.

Sometimes it arrives only gradually.

Sometimes nothing appears at all.

Sometimes something appears that you would rather have left unremembered.

And sometimes you arrive somewhere entirely different from where you intended.

Looking Closely

Reading a word.

Looking at an object.

Adding two numbers.

Searching your memory.

They are all different actions.

Yet they have something in common.

You can decide to begin.

You can direct your attention.

You can slow down.

You can try again.

But you do not simply choose what appears.

The word is read.

The object is seen.

The answer arrives.

The memory comes.

Another pattern appeared as well.

Some activities that once required deliberate effort later continue largely on their own.