You Already Know More Than You Think

I didn't expect an iceberg to open the door.

Or that an 11-year-old would hold my gaze like a Zen monk while I explained the subconscious.

We were sitting together, my grandson and I, talking about the mind. I asked him to imagine an iceberg.

"The part you can see above the water," I said, "is your day-to-day thinking. What you're doing right now. Talking to me, listening, thinking about what you might say next."

That got a nod.

"But the bigger part - the part below the surface - that's where your feelings live. Your memories. Your instincts."

He looked at me, focused, not blinking. Not distracted.

It wasn't just that he understood. It was that he recognized it. Like I was describing something he already knew, but hadn't had words for yet.

In that moment, watching his stillness, his presence - it struck me. This wasn't just comprehension. This was something deeper.

More Than 11

He's homeschooled. Sharp. Testing at the 12th-grade level. But that wasn't what struck me.

What struck me was the attention. The eye contact. The stillness. His presence.

It felt like I wasn't just talking to an 11-year-old. I was talking to a deeper part of him - the part shaped by his mother's thoughtful guidance, by life, by listening. By all the invisible patterns that had already formed beneath the surface.

And I realized something:

He's not learning this now. He's remembering it.

Which made me think about how much we all carry without knowing we carry it. How much wisdom lives in that vast space below our daily awareness.

The 80% Mind

There's a saying that 80% of the mind operates below our conscious awareness.

We tend to think of that part as mysterious, maybe even inaccessible. But what if it's the opposite?

What if the subconscious is where the real learning happens?

When you learn to drive, you start out painfully aware of every turn signal and blind spot. That's conscious competence.

But after enough practice, something shifts. You start making decisions faster than you can explain. You know how to merge, how to brake, how to navigate traffic - all without thinking about it.

That's unconscious competence.

And it doesn't live in your to-do list.

Think about cooking. Everything in my kitchen is muscle memory now. My hands know how to manage slicing an onion so every cut is exactly the same, even while looking across the kitchen at something else - and I manage not to cut myself. I know how much time perfectly scrambled eggs really take - maybe 45 seconds?

But here's what's fascinating. These days, I set timers for everything. I tell Siri: "Set a timer for 45 minutes called 'rotate the potatoes in the oven.'" So when it goes off, it gives me a command. I can easily have five of these going at once.

But something strange has been happening the past month or so.

About 50% of the time, I'll check on something, or turn it, or turn it off - 30 seconds before the timer goes off.

I never look at the timers. Never check the clock.

I've been quietly wondering how in the heck that happens.

It's like my body has its own clock. Deeper than conscious thought. More accurate than any timer. After decades in kitchens, some part of me just knows. The 80% is keeping time while the 20% thinks it needs Siri.

Or consider how you read a room when you walk in. You instantly know the mood, who's comfortable, who's not. Nobody taught you that. But you know.

It lives in the 80%.

The Mobius of Mastery

I've talked before about the Mobius Mind - the way some of us don't think in straight lines or single lanes. We loop. We hold multiple ideas at once. We toggle between deep focus and wide curiosity. (If you've been following along, you might remember how this showed up in my Wavefront days, constantly translating between engineers and artists.)

But this moment with my grandson added a new loop:

Maybe the real Mobius isn't just between different ways of thinking.

Maybe it's between conscious and unconscious knowing.

Between what we can explain - and what we simply are.

Mastery doesn't live on the surface. It lives below, in the part of us that knows without needing to be told.

Why I Waited for This

I've wanted to be a grandfather since I was 12.

Not for the title. Not for the family tree.

But for the moments.

Let me tell you why.

I only saw my father twice a year. In July for his company's picnic, when he'd fly down from Seattle (Boeing) and take my brother and me to the big BBQ. Then at Christmas, he'd pick us up that morning and drive to his parents' house. My grandparents. His three siblings would be there - my aunts, uncles, about eight cousins.

After the meal, I'd want to listen to my grandfather talk about anything. Anything.

But he usually fell asleep eventually in that comfy chair.

Coupled with the fact that I never even met my mom's dad, I think I was subconsciously seeking an elder. Maybe I'm doing revisionist history here, but I just know that at 12, I decided I would be a young grandfather. So I wouldn't sleep through those interactions. I would be there as an elder for my grandsons.

And I have been.

And it's one of the joys of my life.

Because being a grandfather, being an elder - it's not a once-a-year thing.

It's an all-the-time thing.

What Lives Below

That moment with my grandson, watching him recognize something in himself through our conversation - it taught me something too.

If there's something you've practiced, embodied, lived with long enough that you don't even think about it anymore...

That might be your unconscious competence.

That might be your intuition.

That might be your wisdom.

We tend to overvalue what we can explain. But some of our greatest knowing lives in the quiet hum beneath the surface.

So the next time you get a gut feeling, or sense a pattern, or just know something before the timer goes off - pause.

Give credit to the part of you that remembers.

You already know more than you think.