Can you believe it? I just spent nearly two hours this morning, composing what was meant to be a quick, simple blog post, which turned into a long, arduous, complicated, f*cking Greek odyssey. And all because I had an idea - one that took no account of the fact that my brain can’t cope with what my mind thinks it can. Talk about being out of synch with yourself.
I had decided that it’s like my brain is full of ants, and then I realised that no, it’s not. Ants, whilst they may look like they’re running around without any clear idea of what they’re doing, actually do all have a specific purpose. This is not what it looks like in my head.
What my brain is full of is puppies - lots and lots of overexcited puppies on stimulants. They can’t be still (even when they’re asleep, they still twitch and squirm about), they can’t decide what they want to do, and they don’t all do the same thing at the same time - so some of them want to sleep, some want to play, and some of them want to feed. Sounds exactly like the state of my brain. And there’s no-one in charge to tell them what to do, other than their mother, who they ignore anyway 'cos they're like that.
Here’s the irony - I managed to complete a drawing yesterday, which is now ready for me to paint; I half-finished another drawing, which simply requires completing; I also completed a draft copy of an actual post that just requires editing; and then there is another post that either needs tidying up or scrapping, along with about two other ideas for posts that I’ve had in the last couple of days; plus there’s my rekindling of my interest in food, and yoga (aka obsessions/special interests, which of course now requires more time trawling on the internet, whilst it begins to dawn on me that my brain and the internet are seemingly incompatible when it comes to searching for information).
So, lots to keep me occupied, you’d think; plus, I was already starting to feel a bit overwhelmed by all of that, when my mind was erratically randomly ruminating on it this morning. What better way to deal with it than to shove in another idea for something else to add to my burden.
Yes!! That’s it!! That’s the way to simplify all of this - add more!!!??? What is wrong with my mind? I seriously wonder whether I was dropped on my head when I was a child.
Either that, or it’s actually a cunning plan to avoid having to deal with any of those other things because my interest is now on the wane (thank you adhd); or because I’m now overwhelmed and overstimulated with all of that stuff, can’t focus on any of it, or make a decision about which to do first, and my mind is trying to save me from a meltdown by abandoning the whole lot; or it’s because I’ve found a reason to come on here (food obsession), and that’s actually what I really want to do. Or perhaps it’s all of them.
But, for some reason, we either don’t recognise any of that, or we just can’t say it, possibly because we still haven’t accepted that it’s true. My brain can’t cope with what my mind insists on throwing at it.
And the bright idea that I had? I have a daily meditation book (which includes random quotes), along with pages of quotes I’ve copied from other sources, and I thought that it would be a nice idea to share one every day.
Except that, of course, I had to write a bit about why I was doing it; and then I had to also take a photograph (do you know how long it takes for me to compose a photo?); and then I had to decide whether to write it up in Pages to save a copy on my computer, or simply compose it on my Blogger page; and then it wasn’t quite right; and then I worried about what I’d do when I ran out of quotes (‘cos my book only lasts for a year); and then…, and then…, and then…
After all of that, I decided against it, because I finally realised that, once again, I was trying to force myself to do something that I can’t do - discipline myself to doing one creative thing every day. But I’ll fail before I even begin - not because I don’t want to do it, but because my brain just will not function the way I keep on insisting it ‘should’. In my mind it seems so bloody easy and simple: how hard can it be to just copy a few words out of a book, and stick them on a blog? Let me count the ways…
Everything (and I mean EVERYTHING) takes me longer to do than I anticipate. I have absolutely no sense of time, nor of the slowness with which I operate (and yet my thoughts race around my mind like Formula One racing cars).
So the idea that this would be just a quick little thing I could do which would take up hardly any time at all, and wouldn’t encroach on any other writing or art I wanted to do, is frankly the workings of a seriously delusional mind, and a decidedly wonky brain. You might as well just replace it with a lump of Swiss cheese, there are so many holes in it… to match the ones in my logic.
So the idea that this would be just a quick little thing I could do which would take up hardly any time at all, and wouldn’t encroach on any other writing or art I wanted to do, is frankly the workings of a seriously delusional mind, and a decidedly wonky brain. You might as well just replace it with a lump of Swiss cheese, there are so many holes in it… to match the ones in my logic.
Well anyway, there we go. I did finally get a post written, though not the one I’d planned (“the best laid plans of mice and men…”, as they say in Scotland. Or something like that, before it’s translated into the English). Enough!!
I think my puppies might be asleep now, thank Dog.
Śanti - may your mind and your brain be as One.
