maybe there is a good reason some songs are so simple and catchy and annoying.
or maybe this is just the way my brain works.
using that which already exists to brainwash myself.
hey paul hey paul hey paul, let's have a ball.
hey paul hey paul hey paul, let's have a ball.
hey paul hey paul hey paul, let's have a ball.
hey paul hey paul hey paul, let's have a ball.
this, running over and over and over in my head to drown out my painful thoughts, and keep from scarring myself deeper emotionally.
it's the same thing every time i experience something hurtful.
there was almost a full year where this happened every day when i woke up, all throughout the day, even when i was actually listening to music loudly on the fucking subway, and at night when i couldn't sleep.
this chaos of words, swirling in my mind.
painful sentences trying to be heard.
the truth trying to surface, but being drowned by pop music and my desire not to cry.
ultimately, this safety, this inner defense mechanism has hindered my overall thought process.
i don't think as many deep creation-of-the-universe-type thoughts as i used to.
i used to theorize, i used to figure things out that i had no way of knowing for sure.
surely i couldn't have figured everything out.
not even everything but people, which is where my current mental notepad is focused.
this mental castration.
i never get to the point where i ultimately know that nothing matters, even though i know that.
i don't FEEL it.
that desperation to make something worthwhile.
pressure to make something stick out against the ink.
i tend now to just spout out cliches.
like "whatever happens, happens," and "everything is."
and i'm ok with it.
sometimes i feel profound.
that's not profound!
being profound is exploring the intimate details of the unknown, using language to describe the inexplicable.
making something complex sound simple yes, but not making yourself sound simple in the process.
hey paul hey paul hey paul, let's have a ball.
i no longer try to change my destiny.
hey paul hey paul hey paul, let's have a ball.
i just let my destiny happen to me.
hey paul hey paul hey paul, let's have a ball.
when did this change in me?
when did i surrender as captain to the mutiny in my mind?
did i choose this?
i seem to remember wanting to be like this, but not knowing how.
wishing i could just stop thinking and sleep, please god let me go to sleep, i'll do anything, even believe in you.
i can't clearly remember how i used to be.
before drugs and self-hypnosis, and distractions everywhere!
i think i was sadder.
i seem to remember being more depressed, and depressing people i talked to.
not talking about sad things, but great big, unchangeable truths.
dwarfing the importance of humanity against the cosmos.
i remember faces of friends and family when i'd show my true self.
the way they looked at me like i was an alien for having the thoughts i have.
i know i learned how to sleep again.
i remember clearly lying on my back in bed and forcing my toes to relax, then my feet, then my ankles, then my calves, then knees, etc.
i didn't know i was hypnotizing myself.
wanting to think of something other than my lack of control in the universe, and the painful impotent feelings that brings, i wanted to think of something, anything.
i put on music to drown it out.
now i don't need to have music playing, because my brain does it automatically.
i didn't know i was brainwashing myself.
so i wonder if this is how human beings learn?
is this how our minds adapt?
are the people we consider geniuses the people who are too fucked up and abnormal enough to not cope and not adapt, so in essence, they never turn off what gift they were given in the first place?
do we all have this potential from birth?
maybe some of the simplest people you know used to be the brightest.
they could have just latched onto some expression, or some way of thinking, that works more efficiently than other people, who appear more intelligent.
the simpler people are happier because their defense mechanisms work more efficiently.
is that growing up? maturing?
is that wisdom?
speaking in generalizations and being ok with not changing the state of the world?
allowing everything to "be."
this is the first time i've had thoughts like this in so long.
this feels like my mind is waking after being asleep for so long.
my father and i were once talking to each other, when my brother was very tiny.
we were laughing and talking about driving i believe.
and my little brother chimed in from the back seat and said "i used to drive too."
and my dad and i laughed and my dad said "you did?"
and my brother said "yep, back when i was older, like you."
my first thought was that my brother had the notion that human beings shrank instead of growing, and that he was somehow more advanced than we were because he was so young and tiny.
that could have been the case, but looking back now, i'm not sure what to think.
i don't discount past lives, because i'm not arrogant enough to think i know how the universe works.
maybe he was remembering the man he used to be.
but in this moment,i feel like i have grown younger, instead of older.
i gave up on the brilliance i had because it was too much for my brain to handle.
i wanted silence instead of noise.
i remember the chaos being overwhelming,
like being in a noisy restaurant and closing your eyes, and trying to plug your ears, but still hearing everything so clearly, even more amplified because you're trying to shut it all out.
there was a period of time i thought i had been abducted by aliens.
it was the simplest explanation for why i had so many hundreds of thoughts streaming through my mind every minute.
and not being able to pick them apart from each other, except at night.
lying awake and picking one thought to explore fully.
coming up with theories like the clockmaker theory before i'd ever heard about it.
the idea of a single linked human subconscious mind before i'd ever read anything resembling that hypothesis.
i used to invent.
i had a notebook full of inventions with sketches.
how old was i then?
where is my notebook now?
had i already reached my potential as a youth?
am i the opposite of einstein?
start off making excellent grades, and theorizing on the nature of the universe, only to be misunderstood now that i'm older?
hey paul hey paul hey paul, let's have a ball.
i must unlock my potential again instead of leading this procrastinatively hollow life.
i have a unique gift that i'm completely squandering.
hey paul hey paul hey paul, let's have a ball.
i have a destiny i'm avoiding.
but how to unlock and open my true mind and self?
maybe not how, but when.
i simply must choose to act and begin again, instead of hiding behind the guise of not knowing how to live up to my calling.
