If you've been on a video call with me, you've probably noticed a device on the wall behind me that is a somewhat abstract representation of a cat. It's also a kinetic representation of a cat, with a tail that swings back and forth and eyes that appear to oscillate between looking right and looking left.
In the center of the somewhat abstract cat's body is a somewhat abstract representation of a clock face with kinetic hands which keep a somewhat abstract representation of time passing.
The object as a whole is a facsimile of one that was on the wall of my childhood pediatrician, Dr. Bock. While my mother and my siblings waited for our appointment with Dr. Bock, I remember being mesmerized by the movements of the somewhat abstract cat's tail and eyes. I was in Dr. Bock's practice from just after birth until I turned 18 and graduated out of pediatrics. I can't remember many specifics of those visits, although they always seemed to involve hypodermic needles and vaccines, and they always involved the somewhat abstract cat.
Dr. Bock was interesting and, even as a young child, always made me feel grown up and capable. She had an engaging manner I would now describe as wry. I learned that after I graduated from her practice, she left medicine, went back to graduate school, and became an oceanographer. I don't think I had anything to do with that.
Times past
A few years ago, I was in the Vermont Country Store and for the first time since my long-time ago, last visit to Dr. Bock's office I saw a facsimile of her office clock. It was for sale.
I said to Susan, "I want that clock as a present, and I want it to be a surprise." I asked for the clock from my times past to be delivered some time in the future. Its more or less accurate representation of current time both holds me in present awareness and helps me be aware of how much time as distance is passing. It's analogous to the mile markers on the highway. I mostly need to stay in the present while navigating at high speed, but it's useful to know the dynamic relationship between what I've left and where I'm going.
A significant part of my work with folks is with the three cognitive positions of time. We can imagine what's coming in the future, anticipate events, imagine people's behavior in the future, predict the weather.Then the future emerges as the present. We experience what's happening in the moment and can be fully present and experience the time we're in. Time future and time present becomes time past. We remember. We learn from the accuracy and inaccuracy of our predictions. We learn from our experience. We reflect on what we will repeat and what we will do differently. Perhaps we will make more accurate predictions.
Anticipation. Activation. Reflection.
It's an iterative process that allows us more control over our lives. It's always slippery control. No one can anticipate the clock from Dr. Bock's office showing up in one's life 50 years later.
Do cats know how long things take?
Next week -- I write predictively rather than certainly -- in the next lesson in Metacognition 101, I plan to explain in more detail how to use anticipation, activation, and reflection in a metacognitive practice.
"Plan," "Predict," and "Next" are anticipation words.
Warm regards,
Francis Sopper