(Part 1 here)
My brain lies to me: it tries to shield me by painting attractive pictures in my head to hide reality. Fortunately my brain is not a very good painter. I hear the media say "Drink this, eat that, exercise there, and you'll add three years to your life" and my brain tells me that's a great idea. "Try this, experiment with that, you'll gain insight, and everyone is doing it so it can't be bad" and the brain twist irrationality into seeming logic. "Understand that you make your own reality, that you define your morality, if you find your inner strength you'll overcome. All can be yours, you can achieve anything, just believe in yourself" - my brain knows this Disney-mantra is not true, it knows that this is not even logical, it knows that past experiece makes it all a lie. My brain lies to me, but out of the best of intentions. The saving grace is when I tell my brain who is in charge, and its not the brain! These are the times when I have flashes of clarity, when the haze momentarily parts and a real scene is unveiled. For an instant I see the stones of solidity on which I can build understanding. The now-obviousness of true normality is almost but not quite dull, possibly scary, certainly disturbing. The reality is that it is as if we are made of the shards of a broken picture. And of course it must be like that, why is that so hard to see? Of course we're not whole; only someone completely deluded or floating on drugs would rationally deny it. There once was a picture, perfectly painted; and the painting has been slashed. Or like a beautiful piece of glassware that has cracked - it functions like a broken jug and holds water yet leaks. Or like the damaged painting which conveys a scene but where the details are twisted. Its such an effort to explain the obvious. What no one could teach me, once learned I now find impossible to teach. For how can you be instructed about a discovery. How can you teach a realization. Like someone learning to swim, all the instruction in the world can not convey the experience of immersion, the release from gravity, and the unfailing trust one can place in the buoyancy of water. One of my greatest longings (and fears) is that I could live under some great ceiling fan that would sweep aside the fog and show reality for what it is, to see myself and the lives around me as they really are, naked and revealed in all their glory and shame, joy and pain. Then perhaps let the mist return for awhile, for once seen I fear I could gaze for too long without taking refuge in my brain's lies. But practice makes me stronger. This is the truth being lived by my colleages and friends, family and siblings; that life as we now know it is full of joy and pain! In the midst of joy there lives a vein of pain, in the midst of pain hides a streak of joy. This is true, who can deny it? Life is not the social pretence. So now what? (Part 3 might follow)
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Why?
Probably the best therapy is to express yourself. Why do you think psychiatrists make you lie on the couch and talk, while all they do is murmur "hmmm", "uhuh", or "go on"? Archives
May 2017
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