Stream of consciousness

My wife and I often have long conversations based on the first thing that enters our brain. We talk late into each night about education, child motivation, our grandkids, spirituality, faith, love, our dead parents and the painful scars and beautiful love they left deeply embedded in our psyches.

We talk about our desire to give more to the Earth than we've taken and the devastation we've left behind in our wake - the friends we've supported and family we've let down. Our granddaughter's first steps (taken just this morning) and the brilliant thoughts and amazing potential of our other grandkids.

These conversations are easy when the receiver is trusted, safe and able to offer equally thoughtful dialog. It feels good to think with someone you love!

This stream of consciousness comes easy when one is able to let all thoughts, feelings and emotions leave one's body which then are safely received by a trusted friend, a confidant. Offering one's deepest, most intimate thoughts requires trust.

The coining of the term "stream of consciousness" has generally been credited to the American psychologist William James. It was used originally by psychologists in the late 19th and early 20th centuries to describe the personal awareness of one's mental processes.

Stream of consciousness, from a psychological perspective, describes metaphorically the phenomenon - the continuous and contiguous flow of sensations, impressions, images, memories and thoughts - experienced by each person, at all levels of consciousness, and which is generally associated with each person's subjectivity, or sense of self.

As I sit in my home office this Easter night writing this column I have a lot to say. As my consciousness streams, I think, ponder and explore my deepest thoughts.

As a 51-year-old American male, with my life more than half over, have I done enough to make my life purposeful? Has anything I've done in my past half-century been different, worthy or important? Has my time on this Earth mattered? What do I need to do in the last 20 to 30 years of my life to leave a productive mark behind after I pass?

I have an option. I can come home from work each night, sit on the couch and watch "Friends" reruns while enjoying a beer and forget about life. I can cook my wife and I a simple meal, eat in front of the TV and talk about simple things happening to simple people during commercials. I can shush my wife when she attempts to talk during "Final Jeopardy" and fall asleep nursing my beer on the couch each night. Or...

I can turn off the tube, turn on some music and talk with my wife about her day, what she wants for dinner, laugh and share stories about adorable things that happened at work and cry about the cancer that is attacking our best friend's body. My wife and I can share, in a stream of consciousness, important, real, personal things that are happening in our lives in a safe, nurturing environment.

A stream of consciousness is an interesting thing. Most want to block out thoughts and emotions entering our cognition because often, thinking about real, important, emotional stuff is tough. I offer, the more we allow our thoughts to spill from the protective, emotional armor of our cerebral cortex into the frontal lobe of instant thought, the healthier we become.

Send comments or other suggestions to William Rutherford at bprutherford@hotmail.com or visit pensiveparenting.com.