Joseph Grammer's Blog - Posts Tagged "brains"
Morning Walk (Avoidance)
It's cold out today in Alexandria, and I have many things to do. Hard to remember sometimes that the thoughts in my head are merely voices, not who I actually am, but when I successfully recall this seemingly innocuous idea, I feel like I can tackle whatever it is I'm supposed to, uh, tackle. It's not an original idea, and certainly not mine, but let's call it "You're Mad Plural, Bro."
At any given time I have 1000 competing spikes of information, all vying for top billing in my DLPFC (dorsolateral prefrontal cortex), right in the front of my squishy brain. But when I'm stressed, or anxious, like this morning about the work I have to do for my client, it makes a big difference to realize, "Shit. That one obsessive sentence is not the be-all end-all of existence. It's just a single damn thing."
Normally, the hopped-up crowd of thoughts can seem overwhelming, or at least confusing, but at times like these I'm way grateful for their numbers. They outweigh the recurring alarm-bell thought of "DANGER. WORK. YOU'RE FUCKING UP, JERK-OFF."
Walks outside are good for fostering healthy brains. At least for mine. When I consider myself, I can see I'm more like a weird conduit or husk for all these thoughts and less the generator or factory (the conscious part of me, anyway). Shit kind of pops up in my head and I deal with it. Some psychology guy somewhere mentioned a technique in which you're all like, "I'm having the thought 'X'," which is supposed to distance that idea even further from your nervous system. Next-level dudes can say, "I'm aware that I'm having the thought 'X'," and then I guess you do that a lot and you're a Zen master. Word. C'est la conscience (coffee).
At any given time I have 1000 competing spikes of information, all vying for top billing in my DLPFC (dorsolateral prefrontal cortex), right in the front of my squishy brain. But when I'm stressed, or anxious, like this morning about the work I have to do for my client, it makes a big difference to realize, "Shit. That one obsessive sentence is not the be-all end-all of existence. It's just a single damn thing."
Normally, the hopped-up crowd of thoughts can seem overwhelming, or at least confusing, but at times like these I'm way grateful for their numbers. They outweigh the recurring alarm-bell thought of "DANGER. WORK. YOU'RE FUCKING UP, JERK-OFF."
Walks outside are good for fostering healthy brains. At least for mine. When I consider myself, I can see I'm more like a weird conduit or husk for all these thoughts and less the generator or factory (the conscious part of me, anyway). Shit kind of pops up in my head and I deal with it. Some psychology guy somewhere mentioned a technique in which you're all like, "I'm having the thought 'X'," which is supposed to distance that idea even further from your nervous system. Next-level dudes can say, "I'm aware that I'm having the thought 'X'," and then I guess you do that a lot and you're a Zen master. Word. C'est la conscience (coffee).
Empty Head
Sometimes, you need to let go and allow things to be exactly as they are. (And by sometimes, I mean all the fucking time, amiright??!?!!!!?%$##*&)
I'm right.
Writing is like dancing in that formal education is probably super-helpful for becoming a pro, but if you really push your peculiarities to the limit, you can still be pretty cool, as long as you're a nice autodidact who learns widely, listens to criticism, and preserves a deep, maddening love for your art without letting it become more important than other people.
If you're reading this now and you're unsure if you should start writing or continue writing, just know that you absolutely fucking goddamn should, because your words are important. And if somebody tells you they're not important, maybe they're right ... but you should still keep writing anyway. You're going to suck for a long time before you become remotely good, but it's really important to belittle yourself as little as possible, and to treat your art with the kind of love religious people probably feel in church.
If you do that, then by garsh (*Goofy chuckle as Evanescence roars in the background*), you just might make a swell helping of fiction.
So go do it.
I'm right.
Writing is like dancing in that formal education is probably super-helpful for becoming a pro, but if you really push your peculiarities to the limit, you can still be pretty cool, as long as you're a nice autodidact who learns widely, listens to criticism, and preserves a deep, maddening love for your art without letting it become more important than other people.
If you're reading this now and you're unsure if you should start writing or continue writing, just know that you absolutely fucking goddamn should, because your words are important. And if somebody tells you they're not important, maybe they're right ... but you should still keep writing anyway. You're going to suck for a long time before you become remotely good, but it's really important to belittle yourself as little as possible, and to treat your art with the kind of love religious people probably feel in church.
If you do that, then by garsh (*Goofy chuckle as Evanescence roars in the background*), you just might make a swell helping of fiction.
So go do it.
