Layers

On crepe cake, focus, and the upside of distraction

A few days ago, in the midst of a fairly typical morning, I found myself simultaneously tracking such a weird constellation of thoughts that I broke out laughing. I was prepping for an imminent trip to London, Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Sheffield; watching a windstorm churn Cultus Bay here on Whidbey Island, Washington; listening to Andy Weir’s novel Project Hail Mary on Audible and imagining his protagonist’s encounters near Tau Ceti—all while thinking the floor needs sweeping now, not tomorrow; how does he write such great dialog?; Matt Damon in The Martian—brilliant casting; what will Sheffield be like?; forecast looks good enough to ditch the squall coat and bring something lighter; setting up the tablet and SurfacePro can wait until Tuesday; that light timer in the living room clicks like a trapped cricket; check the news or enough of the Gong Show for now; chocolate almond milk or a piece of the good stuff?

I zoomed out a level and laughed at the variety of all that busy-ness between my ears. Then I zoomed out another level or few and laughed at the marvel of laughing at the variety—noticing the noticer noticing. I figured I could keep zooming out until my perspective wasn’t even human anymore. But “I” was enjoying being “me” too much for that, just then.

Since my previous posts about zooming among/along perspectives, other ways we layer our thoughts and awareness have been pulling my focus. Each time I reach a conclusion about them though, another possibility reveals itself like a “dance of the seven veils” turning into a “dance of the seventy.” Thousands of words and umpteen drafts later, I’m back to a basic image, a woefully simplistic model for human attention that won’t let me go: Cake.

Crepe cake, specifically. A tall, elegant stack of French crepes separated by layers of frosting or filling and wrapped in buttercream, meringue, ganache, or fondant.

When I woke up on November 6, cake was the last thing on my mind. Once I’d calmed my inner weather, though, and settled down some of my reactivity, the image returned again.

I’m no baker. Serious baking requires a chemist’s devotion to precision; I like to go off script. Despite the appeal of the Great British Baking Show (every episode of which I’ve watched at least twice), I don’t aspire to emulate its contestants. An episode featuring crepe cake, however, inspired this analogy.

Imagine that the layers of a crepe cake represent everywhere your thoughts focus or flit in a given day. All the texts, emails, social media, inner thoughts, inner guidance, tasks, projects, ideas, dreams, actual conversations, random comments and overheard remarks, news blasts, videos. Everywhere your thoughts land long enough for you to notice; every thought you imbue with particular meaning. Each day, a new cake.

A crepe cake’s Platonic ideal has every crepe layer identical in dimension, flatness, and texture. The interstitial frosting is so thin that a slice of the finished result reveals a beautiful pin-stripe cross-section. No two human days and minds are exactly alike, however, so for now let’s acknowledge that every crepe cake, like every day, is unique. (There’s a deeper aspect where the uniformity returns, but that’s for a possible future post. :-)

We have modern minds; our ancestors didn’t have smart phones and computers turning their thoughts into short-attention-span theater. Perhaps their crepe cakes were shorter and neater, while some of ours stretch tall as buildings, lean like the tower of Pisa, or reveal a tangled mess once they’re sliced open. During and right after the election, the crepe cakes of my own thoughts were none too pretty. I was pinballing between focus and distraction, from “We’re doomed!” to “Tangerines on sale!” But here’s what I noticed: That my thoughts added up to anything at all that week was evidence of my mind’s lightfooted ability to focus and then distract, and that both abilities felt essential for navigating change, handling a shock to the system, recovering from a surprise.

I’m hardly the first person to realize there’s such a thing as healthy distraction. But I tend to label days when my mind keeps bouncing all over the place “unproductive.” They’re over-peppered by distraction. But during the election follow up, when the pundits I pay attention to were obsessed with hand-wringing, tuning out and giving into my brain’s gift for distraction was a lifesaver.

Back to the cake analogy. Thoughts tend to presume that they provide all of the info we need, but they don’t; an all-cake diet isn’t healthy. We go off balance or collapse if we over-identify with what we think and ignore signals from the gut, heart, and body. But the fact that such prolific mental activity is possible—that over the course of one day our thoughts can bounce between serious, laser-like focus and the giddiness of sugared-up kids—is one of the many marvels of the human mind. Like so many things, it’s blessing and curse. These days, I’ve been grateful for the blessing.