must...slow...down...
The brain is an amazing thing...it processes a million forms of stimuli in the course of any given day, deals with complicated internal mechanisms (psychological, biological, chemical), and still takes time to remember the lyrics to Richard Marx songs. Or maybe that's just MY brain....
The thing is, I think my brain is working too fast. Not in the sense that I'm uberintelligent, or ultraclever, or anything like that...simply in the sense that I seem to be having too many thoughts all at once, all the time.
When I sit down to write, 34, 785 things rush like lemmings off the cliff of my psyche, leaving me with no choice but to try and give voice to all of them. This is not really the formula for quality prose, so more often than not I end up tossing my garbled text into the recycling bin, or wearing my backspace key down to a nub.
What to do? How do I slow it all down? I figure that one of the first steps to organizing my mind is to try and discover what the heck it's juggling around up there. And organization, to me, means making lists.
Lists=organization. Easy.
So I decided to list all the conscious thoughts I had in the space of a minute yesterday. I'm sure there were things that I missed in the throes of recording the more dominant ponderances, and I didn't even bother trying to ferret out subconscious messages...but the list was still shockingly long. Here, an abridged version (keep in mind....60 seconds)...
- why are my hands cold?
- do I smell cookies?
- Irish accents are so great. I wish I had an accent.
- I should learn how to make cheese.
- I should take a shower...
- this coffee is bitter.
- whatever happened to Andrew Ridgeley?
- it's my mom's birthday. phone!
- crap, she's at work.
- I should get a pet chicken.
- why is there so much art I don't like?
- I forgot to email Christina.
- Did I forget?
- where is my hand lotion?
- what is that mark on my leg?
- my shoulders are sore.
- I want a goldfish.
- ohhh I want goldfish crackers.
- I'm tired.
- I can't stand Phil Collins.
- I should grocery shop.
- Wait, I did email Christina.
- Why are they playing Phil Collins?
- Why Phil, and not Andrew Ridgeley?
- Okay, I want a cookie.
- I think I talk too much.
- Why do they not sell fortune cookies here?
- I wonder how Drew is doing.
- I need new flip flops.
- Freaking coffee is cold.
- I should cut my hair.
Well, I didn't say I was thinking interesting things. Just a lot of things.
I'm also easily bored. In the time it took me to type out that handwritten list, I left my laptop to:
- make a cup of tea
- make a phone call
- open a window
- turn lights on and off
- check to see if my blow dryer was still perilously plugged in
- put on rings
- wipe the kitchen counter
- make a mental grocery list
- plant a mental herb garden
- write two emails
- message a friend.
It's not just my brain that won't slow down.
I really don't know how to achieve serenity. I'm the kind of person who goes to meditate in nature and gets attacked by bees. I'm the kind of person who flips to the backs of books to see how they end, simply because all that nuanced, well-crafted prose isn't holding my attention (magazine articles seem to work out fine, however). I'm the kind of person who doesn't finish listening to a whole song, let alone a whole CD. I'm the kind of person who is so busy thinking about something inane (or 36 inane things) that she walks into walls and gives herself a nosebleed (yesterday, as well).
Advice is appreciated, as are solid plans to reach toward a goal of peace and coherence.
I just can't promise to stick with it longer than ten seconds.
11:48:38 AM 
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