Pop Emotions

Isn’t it interesting how the media we experience everyday can affect us in extremely profound ways?

I watched a television show that was doing a special episode having to do with the death of a character/actor. The character’s mother said something that really caught my attention. She said “but I would always think, ‘how do they wake up every day?’ I mean, how do they…how do they breathe, honey? But you do wake up. And for just a second, you forget. And then, oh, you remember.”

That split-second when you forget about something as painful as death, or the overwhelming feeling of stress you’ve been dealing with, or any other pain or loss. That one second when you heard something to make you forget or laugh. That one instant when you weren’t awake enough or were too focused to remember to be in pain. It’s beautiful and fleeting. It’s one of the small miracles of how we deal with insufferable pain.

Like everything else, we humans can’t let it be. Then we remember. It all comes crashing back in wave bigger than it had been before. Like a Tsunami, it’s worse for having been gone for that moment.

We all deal with pain, grief, and loss. We sometimes have time when stress and responsibility overwhelm us. It isn’t something we can avoid. When it’s really the crushing weight of something serious. When it’s something that pulls the tears from your eyes because you’ve just run out of other things to say and do, remember those instants of clarity.

Hold on to those seconds. Keep those moments close. When you catch yourself in one, draw it out. We all feel wrong when we stop being sad when we know we ought to be. Sometimes it’s those moments that get us through. The quiet joke, or the peaceful sigh.

It will all come rushing and crashing back. It will. It always does right after. Just try to hold tight to those seconds when it wasn’t. Sometimes that’s all you can hold on to.

Waves crashing (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Man Inside the Head

Have you ever seen a man that lives inside a head?

It’s very strange. Most people live in a house or other sort of shelter. This man lives inside a head!

Where there would be a brain, he lives right in there! It’s bigger on the inside you know, a head is. There’s room for a whole lot of rooms.

The human mind is capable of many things, but one wouldn’t think it could house a whole human being!

I’ve seen this man walk right out of his head-home and just move through the world as if there were nothing odd about his living arrangement. It was quite shocking.

The really surprising thing, is that it isn’t just any head that he lives in. He lives inside his own head. Can you imagine?

It’s strange enough to live inside a human head, but to live inside your own head is quite extraordinary. It’s a bit Escher-like, isn’t it?

Escher Sphere (Photo credit: LostBob Photos)

Disconnect

I realized yesterday and today that I had been feeling a little… Off.

I think I figured out what ‘s causing the slightly off kilter feeling. I feel like i’m a little out of sync with myself. It’s almost as if I’m living inside my own brain and watching myself go through the motions.

I don’t mean this as a big complaining, or whining post. I don’t mean this as a large-scale existential examination of my life as a whole. I just mean, that I’m going about my everyday life, and my mind seems to just be a little out of sync with everything.

I feel like I’m waiting for something, or I missed something.  I feel like even though everything is moving and functioning properly that I’m not part of that. I feel like I’m not existing in the same instance as everything around me.

It isn’t creepy, or frustrating as much as it is just unsettling. When you feel like you aren’t moving at the same speed as everything else, or in the same space as everything, it’s hard to feel grounded. It’s hard to feel like a part of what’s happening in your own world. That just tends to make one a little uncomfortable.

I’m sure that like everything else, this will eventually snap back to feeling okay. I probably won’t actually notice when it happens. I wonder what it would feel like if this sensation were magnified?

Krang (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

What would it be like for me to go through an entire day, or week even, feeling less like a whole human being and more like a creepy brain-creature controlling a human-shaped biological robot? Would it create a serious disconnect between myself and other people? Would I start treating them like creepy brain-creatures? Would I be able to go back to living as a singular entity? Would I want to?

Maybe I’ve achieved a higher level of consciousness. Maybe I’m just nuts. Maybe this is further evidence of my whole Genius Theory. Maybe I’m an Alien!

I’m going to guess it’s probably half and half higher consciousness, and nuts.

Could be worse.

                                                                                                                                                                                                  

Have you ever felt this way? Tell me about it!

 

Over-think this!

I’m an over-thinker. It’s one of those things that I can’t really control sometimes.

Cover of What If? Classic Vol. 1 (Marvel Heroes)

Since I tend to focus on the negative,(I’m working on it, chill) what ends up happening is my brain goes to a “Worst Case Scenario” kind of place, and runs with some pretty terrible ideas. I’ve read that Humans are the only species to not only focus on “What-If” type scenarios, but that our minds can’t distinguish between the thoughts of it happening and the actual experiences of it happening. This results in people(me especially) creating situations in which we’re as stressed out by the concept of something bad happening to us as we would be if it actually happened. I don’t have to experience, let’s say loosing my job, to know about the level of mental distress it would cause. I only have to sit down and think really hard about what would happen.

Since I am a freaking PRO at this, I sometimes get myself in an overwhelmingly negative place based on nothing more that speculation. I also tend to be a little hyperactive so my brain kinda starts making serious leaps of logic.

Here’s a for instance: I have a really bad day at work. So I start to think about how I want to get a different job. Well then I think how hard it is for me to look at job listings and get information sent out around work. So I decide it would be better if I quit my job first. Then I would have lots of time to apply other places. Unfortunately, that means I’m not bringing any money in. Then we would be hurting for money. What if I couldn’t find anything else? What if even fast food places and restaurants aren’t hiring? How many months could we go? Would I be able to get my old job back? Then they would resent me for trying to leave in the first place. The Wife would be disappointed that I had to go back to my old job. She would never see me as capable of providing for us. She would see me as a terrible husband.

That was just a small for instance, but you see how it gets out of hand quickly inside my head? The end thought that I get stuck with and start focusing on there is: I’m not a capable provider and a bad husband. The Wife could do better. That’s a really destructive and negative place to be stuck. I don’t want to be thinking that, and it’s a pretty long way removed from the original “Work sucked today”.

The problem is that while that sort of thought process doesn’t happen all the time, it’s a pretty quick decent to a pretty dark place. It can happen with any thought at any time, but since I sometimes lean towards being a little more negative it happens with negative emotions a little more frequently.

I’m not actually feeling like this about anything right at the moment. My recent writing renaissance has helped me quite a bit in that regard, I feel. I just happened to be pondering this morning about this here blog and I felt like I needed to explore my negative over-thinking a little bit.

Is this something the rest of you do? Did you know that Human beings are the only species that can’t emotionally distinguish between thoughts and experiences?