Coup d'oeil: not only hard to say but hard to explain.

 I learned a new word today. My desktop dictionary defines Coup d'oeil as; a glance that takes a comprehensive view. It comes from eighteenth century French and literally means, "stroke of eye". Typically, this word is applied to the great military minds because they could look at a battlefield and know instinctively how best to proceed in battle. It is used in a book that was recommended by a couple of people. The book is titled, Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell (2005). If you have the chance to read this book, or listen to it, as I have, you will be amazed by the undeniable fact that human beings rely less on their conscience minds than they think. Gladwell sites undeniable evidence that underneath all the thoughts we hear in our own heads, our decisions and behaviors are guided by this one little part of our brains that we don't even know is there. It works all by itself, and is there for a very good reason. It seems, according to Gladwell's book, and the research of many others, we actually have two brains. One is the one we hear in our own heads. The other does something truly amazing. I takes the millions of bits of information that surround and bombard us on a constant basis and filters them. It acts a buffer between what we are focused on and all that seemingly unimportant data. This is why we are capable of split decisions regarding our likes, and dislikes, courses of action, solving problems, creating art, and the list goes on. What it really interesting about this is we don't even know it  is happening. 

Discovering this really made me think of some instances in my life where this part of my brain took over. looking back at those events, I now realize that I have no idea how I knew to do what I did. 

It takes me back to a summer job in upstate New York. I was working as an electrician's helper for the State University in New Paltz. I was helping one of the staff electricians expand the electrical service in one of the large dining facilities.  For most of that summer I found myself inside the plaster and lath ceiling plenum, among roof trusses and 2" channel steel that was used to support the lath and plaster. It was a dark and dustyplace laced with wires and HVAC duct. If you were to stand on the floor of the dining room and look up you would see that the ceiling was not flat, but had large recessed boxes in it that held Musak speakers, and lighting. On the inside of the plenum (above the plaster and metal lath) the vertical sides of these indented boxes were supported by the black steel, basically forming a cage to which the metal lath was attached and then plastered.  The steel on the vertical side ran up past the horozontal surface that supported the speaker or lighting; like punji sticks, only these weren't sharp or smeared with poison. 

One day another worked decided he was going to give us a hand. He entered the ceiling plenum through the small access panel that was only reachable by a fixed ladder in the electrical room. In order to get to the place where the work was being done we had to walk along the top of a duct and climb down to the plaster and lath ceiling, which was now our floor.The new guy went first, flashlight in hand, and set out across the duct. His flashhlight went dead, he steped on a cable and rolled off, and impaled himself on the black steel.

There I was, 16 years old, all of 130 pounds, looking in to this black square, listening to a 185 pound, fully grown man scream. I remember exactly what I did. I grabbed my flashlight clicked it on and went through the small door. I walked along the duct, careful to avoid the 1" thick cable. I shined my flashlight down on him. He was stuck on the steel, hanging there; helpless. I jumped down on to the plaster, knocking some loose from the lath. It showered the floor below. I grabbed the large man's impaled arm. It felt like a hot, wet, raw, prime rib. He was soaked in blood. I lifted him off the steel. He screamed at the pain. The journey man, Greg, heard the screams and came through the hole with his flashlight as I lifted the man back up on to the duct. Greg pulled off his shirt and tied it around the man's gnarled bicep and we got him out of there. Greg radioed the dispatcher and called for an ambulance. 

The man wound up with over 90 stitches; most under the skin. The steel had missed the artery in his upper-arm by less than a quarter of an inch. If I had pulled him off the steel at a bad angle and hit that artery, he would have bled out in a matter of seconds. 

I can remember every detail of that incident; as if it had happened an hour ago. What I can't tell you is how I made the decision to do what I did. I just knew what had to be done, and did it. After reading Gladwell's book Blink, I finally understand that it was my other brain that did the thinking for me...  in the stroke of an eye. 

Please share your insights on this phenomenon.