Tag: mental clutter

  • A brain dump

    A brain dump

    The irony of a brain dump lies in the fact that it is my search for my brain that leads me to want to dump what distracts me from its use. Distraction creeps up, sometimes slowly with warning, but sometimes with devilish bravado unseating my senses and leaving me gasping for reality.

    Reality has never been a friend of mine. Each time I thought we were getting along, it slapped me in my face with a boulder. Not even a rock. As if a need to prove to me that living life in full measures means that life can only ever respond in kind. Kind. Now there’s a quaint notion that I hope to experience at some point.

    I find myself caught at the curious juncture of being invisible while simultaneously lacking the benefit of anonymity. It means that I can do nothing worth noting without my efforts being dismissed, while having a keen focus on everything I do that may be judged to be lacking. It echoes in terse tones my relationship with society for almost half a century.

    Someone guessed my age recently. They assumed me to be 30, instead of 50. Perhaps I did experience a kindness after all. But, they weren’t significant to the outcome of my life, so their generous gesture was lost against the rumbling of the thunder that was beckoning the next storm that threatened to roll over me.

    Crescendos of joy quickly obliterate the years of struggle. And the years of struggle return in anguished chants, mocking my half-smiles when that joy is unceremoniously ripped away. The vagueness of expression, at least, appears to offer me the comforts of an old friend. Pathetically, my oldest friend is a writing tool and not a being.

    Self-deprecation is such a luxury. I marvel at the possibility of being able to abandon life while indulging my self-loathing, oblivious to the unfulfilled duties and privileges that others have claimed. My fixation on fulfilling the same has left little room for claiming what I need. Even when I do, my attempts are so feeble that it lacks any convincing.

    The lock down has tested my philosophies and my resolve. Both have passed, despite neither serving me. It only ever serves others whom I cherish, but never me. I suspect I need to rethink my belief that the purpose of life is to serve others, and in such servitude we shall find joy. I think I missed something important in that. Of course, it’s difficult to convince myself of this being an erroneous philosophy because the joy I’ve experienced in serving that elusive significant other has rewarded me with a joy so divinely sublime, its fleeting moments serve to torment me for the rest of my life. Each expired second since it flitted by has in itself been a lifetime of torture.

    Love is for fools who have hope, live with hope, and believe in hope. Guilty on all counts. Only, when you live as precariously as I do, interpreting a love such as this becomes a mystery of its own. It’s the kind that cherishes deeply, loves intensely, holds endearingly, but releases gently. It’s the release that I need to work on. Perhaps if I didn’t make it so comfortable I may have more than a fleeting moment of divinely sublime joy.

    Divinely sublime. The divinity and the sublimation both beyond the view of the one who offers it. It’s a twisted tale of contorted cynicism that life has heaved at me in buckets, or more likely troughs. It is my grasp on the subtlety of beauty, or the hints of romance that breathe between her pauses and between her aches that horror has imposed. My subject of beauty focused on the horror, while I, in my romantic notions, caress with care the breaths and the pauses, seeing in her the divine where she only sees the pain.

    It’s a dance with destiny, with two left feet. Me being ill-footed while destiny laughs mockingly at my attempts to courts its lustrous beauty. I recede, full of angst, full of despair, but filled with joy in a conflicting sway of emotional upheaval that celebrates my ability to connect with the beauty that is so well hidden, while succumbing to the demands of the one who hides it.

    A brain dump, or a heart dump. The two are so intricately woven into the being of me that attempting to discern between them is as foolhardy as my hope of fully embracing the beauty that I see. Just there. Within my grasp, but out of reach. Like a mirage, it demands that I revisit moments past, not retracting my hand, fear driving my reach, while hope connecting my sight. Until it is in hand, it remains elusive. A mirage. But so real that letting go is impossible, while holding on is prohibited.

    As I slide further down this slope that extends from the recesses of my being, my efforts to dump that which clutters my thoughts only reveals the beautiful prose of life that it harbours. My contempt for it yet again misplaced, as I realise that I grew loathsome towards it for distracting me from my purposeful endeavours, while denying the reality that such endeavours were the distractions I needed to cope with the absence of what I buried so deeply.

    Once allowed into that haloed space, it can never be released. Only peered at quietly and solemnly in secret. It will only ever again be revealed to the one who reached its alcove without even knowing. Such is the miracle of two, cut from one. So natural is their embrace that the ease with which it satiates the thirst of the souls leaves no scarring, or evidence of its visit. Only the quiet confidence it instils in empowering the hesitant decisions that have long since lost relevance. But relevance is defined by what is yet to be reconciled. It is in such reconciliation of the hurts of the past that the present in discarded, and the future laid to waste.

    But hope. If not for hope harboured by the jaded fool who courts its pleasures far beyond its graveyards of happiness, the discarded gifts would forever leave the future wasted, and the past honoured. It is the jaded fool that disregards such constructs of nature. It is the jaded fool that seeks the divinely sublime, despite the backdrop of horror that threatens to disembowel any attempts to be glorious beyond the measures of the past. It is the jaded fool that resurrects the romance that love courts, or the love that romance beckons. If not for this fool, much will be spent in futility.

    Some believe this to be the words of a writer. One who is perhaps endowed with the ability to express what others struggle to contemplate. However, it is more truthful to note that these words are of the one who pains to express clearly the lyrics of his soul, in the hope that its mate will pause for long enough to see the truth of what can be.

    [If you’ve read all the way to this point, I am duly impressed and saddened. For anyone to connect with these words, you must first connect with my pain. Blessed be the gentle ones who love too fiercely, accept too easily, and hope with futility.]

  • A Brain Dump

    A Brain Dump

    The short posts don’t allow for a meaningful purge of what rumbles inside my head. And there’s a lot of rumbling this morning. Having finally published my novel, the reactions I’ve noted along with the assumptions that people make about my reasons for doing so, are entertaining. I’ve always taken a morbid pleasure from watching people sum me up incorrectly, or assume to know what drives me. I barely know myself, so it’s highly improbable that anyone else will know either.

    Despite my efforts at explaining myself, sharing my passion, living out loud, and scribbling my thoughts in digital ink for any passerby to read, I still remain a well-kept secret. A colourful life such as mine is intimidating for many to grasp. It’s much easier for them to find random points of entertainment instead. Of that, there is an unlimited supply.

    However, it only serves to be morbidly entertaining if the ones who are peering in have no significance in my life. What then when one held dear takes a closer look and feels afraid? Those are the moments when the introspection shifts from morbid curiosity to flirting with regret. Being trusting has earned me more struggles than deliberate betrayals ever did.

    When philosophy teases us, we play with words that talk of the strength of character of those most burdened by the trials of life, but when reality demands that we embrace them, we recede from fear of contamination. Sometimes, we recede from fear of feeling burdened by them. But from afar, from a safe distance, we admire and celebrate their resilience, as long as they keep their resilience to themselves.

    The irony of society is that it will be more inclined to offer itself to one who appears untarnished so that it may experience the process of being tarnished by the experiences of life with them, rather than to revel in the joy of one who has already been polished by what once tarnished them. It’s the equivalent of wanting to marry a virgin, but hoping to have the sexual experience of a seasoned whore, and then realising that the whore may be more pleasurable, but looking for one who is still virginal in demeanour. We really are an entertaining bunch, aren’t we?

    Sometimes it seems like we’re hypocritical in our approach to establishing or respecting respectable standards, but that hypocrisy is easily defended when such standards become our own to defend. Fear of the future has tainted many well-meaning men, and suspicion has destroyed many loves before they were allowed to bloom.

    Words have been elusive, except in unpredictable bursts of late. The topics have been revealing, teasing my soul and flirting with my audience, but largely unfulfilled either way. Fulfilment continues to be a slithery one. Testing everything that I assumed to be true, and teasing it with new experiences and emotions that have long been dismissed as taunts of fairy tales.

    Poetry has been a bipolar friend. Sometimes testing my skill at articulating the melody of my mindlessness, and at other times distorting my words to reflect the angst that defines my madness. Between mindlessness and madness, love is cradled in a delicate hammock, ready to tip over at the slightest sway, but even in its tipping over, offering laughter and joy in unexpected waves of delight that distract me from the sand in my face.

    The ambivalence of life digs ever deeper. Joys grow more intense with each ravaging of happiness that passes, only to be followed by yet another crescendo of joy. Each time, the crescendo exceeds the previous pitch, creating an ever-deepening cavern into which to plunge when the joy is tainted. From depths of despair to wings of angels, peace is elusive. But peace fades from want in the presence of such joy. If only the joy would stay, perhaps then it will inspire a peaceful serenade of a life waiting to be indulged in hues yet to be seen.

    An interesting life leaves a kaleidoscope of scars that form beautiful patterns in the stars, as we imagine constellations of soulful connections in spaces that remain empty and lifeless, if not for the gaze of the beloved into that realm. My vocabulary fails me much. Yet another double-edged dagger, fulfilling my need to articulate more closely what my heart yearns for, yet denying me attachment due to my increasingly complex expression in my efforts to be understood. Finding the most articulate words to describe in the smallest phrases has birthed the epitome of sophistication through minimalism. Only such sophistication serves no good end in the absence of one who seeks to understand, or heaven forbid, to embrace.

    A dump indeed, this has been…but not of the brain, and more of the heart. A strange encounter.

  • A Brain Dump

    A Brain Dump

    Mental clutter creeps in at times when I find myself focused on serving others but neglect my own nourishment in the process. My own nourishment, however, escapes me when I find myself lacking in my efforts to achieve the very ambitious goals that I set for myself. Incremental growth has rarely appealed to me. This has been at the core of my contention with the world.

    But contemplating such contention is what leads to the mental clutter. My concern with how I am perceived or received by others too often feels like a necessary evil. This is especially true when I consider that this path that I have chosen in recent years has increased the need for collaboration and interaction with others rather than prompted me towards my ideal of living as a recluse.

    Being reclusive is a luxury in a messed up world, albeit a luxury that offers peace. My convictions, however, will not allow me to indulge my needs while growing painfully aware of the slide of society towards the abyss due to the selfishness of those who are blessed with resources to change its course. Too many assume those resources to be wealth and influence, while the truth is that anyone that has value to offer must offer it if it is ever to amount to anything.

    In that lies the rub of many of my contemplations. The easier path was always one of quiet living. Keeping to myself and minding my own business. Yet, each time I attempted such a lifestyle I found myself attracting those, even in that space, that needed to be freed from a burden that was wearing them down. But like I’ve said in past brain dumps, there are many who, after they have been uplifted, would prefer to avoid the source of that upliftment because it reminds them of their moments of weakness. Then there are others that would rather not scratch open the festering wound that is slowly poisoning their soul. Their wound grows to define their significance so deeply that any attempt to clean it and heal it is met with seething anger.

    The human condition has always been a fascinating one. Especially my own. I flit between offloading my cluttered thoughts and lecturing the world. Between confusion and pompousness, or doubt and narcissism. It’s so easy to cross those lines, and so tragic to see how many assume themselves to be above such crossing.

    A brain dump once offered much therapy for a mind as cluttered and crazy as my own. Therapy has morphed over the years. At one point it was a flirty glance, and a whispered nothing. Over the lifetimes that followed it changed to become a knowing smile, or a familiar embrace, both of which have been elusive. The brutal honesty with which I considered these changes has left and been replaced by a measured expression. The problem with being measured is that it never allows a release of the truth that holds us back, or keeps us distracted.

    In the absence of such expression, clutter normalises and focus flees. Apparently using alliteration is discouraged for authors. I suspect that’s only for authors that lack the wit to appreciate it. Oh yes, the brain dump. I entertained, in recent months, the naive notion that those for whom I maintained a measured expression actually paid attention to my ramblings. The naivety of my being always provided a source of morbid entertainment for me, and this time was nothing less. However, age old jokes tend to lose their humour as we progress through the years that shape us…occasionally we try to shape them.

    Listening to Milli Vanilli in the background, I’m reminded of the frailty of the human ego. I’m reminded of how many would sacrifice their own authenticity to find acceptance at almost any cost. Some, at any cost at all. It’s the sight of such sadness that always leaves me unsettled. Looking into the eyes of those that court acceptance and seeing the emptiness behind it. Seeing vulnerability in the eyes of another has always been a torturous taunt. Ah, that damned alliteration again.

    Vulnerability is strength if expressed sincerely, but disheartening if exposed unwillingly. There is too much weakness in this world. Even the statements of rebellion that occupy my social media timeline are cries of pain disguised as an obstinate protest. Thankfully the playlist moved on to Tracy Chapman now. A story of self-doubt and raw beauty. She actually thought she would be mocked if anyone heard her sing. Thankfully someone convinced her otherwise. How many of us are waiting for someone to convince us that we have something of value to share with this heartless world before we dare to expose it to the light?

    So much is lost in the doubts that drive a wedge between who we are and who we’re willing to allow the world to think we are. Genius, beauty, creativity, artistic expression, passionate protests and so much more are all hidden from the world because of the hideous consideration about what society would think. If only we recognised that we normalise the prejudices of society when we afford it merit or virtue. Many a great nation was destroyed because they grew to worship their traditions and taboos more than the principles that established the value that underpinned it. Tradition and taboo are two things I’ve rarely respected. It always seemed like an unaffordable indulgence in light of the suffering souls that succumbed to the expectations of the flag-bearers.

    To be normal in a distorted world implies distortion of the self. Whether or not the world is distorted is all about perspective. But then, what isn’t about perspective? If I find the world to be distorted and another doesn’t does it make my perspective invalid, or does it call into question their misinformation…or perhaps mine? Defending the truth is a tricky endeavour when such truth is so open to being bent. The more aware we are of how it can be bent the greater that distortion.

    We seem to have reached a stage in human history where our eloquence is so pervasive that the most uninformed opinion can find support and a seemingly valid defense. Life itself is a distortion of the reality of death. But alas, who wants to contemplate death, despite it being the only guarantee we have. Such morbidity is reserved for those that are foolish enough to believe that they can challenge the traditions and taboos to break the yoke that weighs us down.

    A chuckling sigh is all I can muster at the thought of that last statement. A chuckling sigh indeed.

  • Insomnia, Anxiety, Mental Clutter – Be gone

    Insomnia, Anxiety, Mental Clutter – Be gone

    Here’s a technique that I developed many years ago when insomnia was a friend of mine. I’ve since found it to be very effective for not just insomnia, but also for anxiety, mental clutter, or just overall peace of mind. When you feel anxious or frustrated, or if you’re struggling to focus, try this out and let me know how it works for you.

    This technique is discussed in more detail in my book titled Own Your Sh!t.