Don't think about elephants

On a long enough timeline the survival rate of everything drops to zero. 

Or says my all time favorite cynic, Chuck Palahniuk. I'm sure he means this in the grimly dissatisfying sense that everything dies. Nothing lasts forever. Impermanence prevails over the abiding. That anything which is here and alive will eventually be dead and gone - certainly a comforting thought which awakens the feeling of hope and will to live in us all.. or not.

However, I am not wholly convinced that this idea has to be a negative one. Don't roll your eyes at me. For I am far from the silver lining girl - in fact, sometimes it feels like at best - my glass is half empty and at worst - shattered on the ground in pieces. But hear me out, let me exercise my positive thinking for a moment..

Its as if we have a propensity for negative thinking hard wired in our brains: its why time feels like its flying by when we have fun and interminably long and arduous when we are bored or depressed - because we feel as though happiness is fleeting and unhappiness is lasting. As if when we are up we are waiting for the inevitable decline. In essence, this feels realistic and true but in actuality, it is false and maybe even crazy. Sociologically, entropy is a metaphor for chaos - as internal randomness applied to human interaction both personally and communally. 

Rudolph Clausius, the entropic pioneer, explains that all processes in a closed system have increasing entropy. As systems become more complex, a level of intricacy will be reached thrusting the system to work within the paradigm of unpredictability - chaos. When we view entropy as a measure of chaos, we can say that the probability of accessible states for any complex system is a measure of that system’s uncertainty. 

Humans are probably the most complex web of systems, processes, and states in existence. Setting aside our multi functioning, highly convoluted physical bodies - our sense of emotion, free will, ability for abstract thought, and memory. The psyche is open in the sense that information and energy can flow within and without it, yet closed to matter - the psyche cannot be affected by rain, etc.. Much to Christopher Nolan's disappointment, information cannot be extracted from the mind and matter cannot be physically implanted into the psyche.

Therefore, for the purposes of this blog post, we can ascertain that the human psyche is a closed system. Remember that Clausius taught us that closed systems have increasing entropy (chaos) and as systems increase in intricacy they increasingly react with chaos - so that, when left unchecked, the psyche can become engulfed in unpredictability - leading us to wholeheartedly and sometimes debilitatingly believe that happiness is temporary and only a cruel catalyst for unhappiness. 

But if you can decrease the complexity, then the entropic chaos will decrease as well. Simplification and minimalism - within the mind, heart, work, home, relationships - promotes a decline in entropic energy leading to normal healthy functioning. Living systems maintain avaricious structure by dissipating entropy before it has a chance to build up. 

Carl Jung wrote that the psyche is governed by entropy and equivalence. Meaning that energy disappearing from one faction of the psyche must reappear somewhere else (like matter being unable to be destroyed or created). I take this to mean that a mental simplification (and decline in entropy energy) must be channeled into something else - energy has to be used, even metaphorical energy: running, doing, acting, reading, conversation, laughing - these are ways to release the mental energy before it builds into chaos. 

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I have just one other faction to my Chuck P. quote, which I don't feel like reducing because I am hungry and bored of writing now but, I'm going to lay it out there and you can do with it as you choose:

If on a long enough timeline the survival rate of everything drops to zero, how long before the past, memories, forgotten yardsticks, etc.. cease to be a cognitive faction of the everyday. How long does it take personal history to be rendered obsolete? How long before precedence is dead? Before hindsight goes blind? 

3 Ordinary Things that Annoy Me

Here are three things that really bug me:

1. Eating bananas - I am not sure what happend to me in my youth, but eating bananas just really annoys the hell out of me.

2. Enduring the awkward feeling of not knowing what to do in the time it takes to be sung Happy Birthday - And conversely, singing someone else Happy Birthday and knowing that really NO ONE likes anything about this horrible minute and a half but yet we are all still participating.

3.  Having to blow my nose and needing to pee at the same time - but being at the end of the last roll of toilet paper..

The cage fight with my brain and why I won't lose

Contrary to what I would like to believe, the brain is not a muscle. It is an organ. An intricate organ made up of neurons and gray matter (actually glia - which acts like glue to hold together and support the neurons). It works much like an engine manifold, with the non-neuron gray matter acting as a manifold vacuum propelling the support and guidance necessary for brain function. Conversely, neurons receive synaptic connections like a spark plug - igniting receptor molecules in target cell membranes. An intake manifold distributes combustion evenly and efficiently throughout an engine, as such a brain is the center of the nervous system for a properly functioning body.

However, I prefer to think of the brain as a muscle. There have been numerous reports and studies conducted over the years, suggesting that if one does not utilize the brain, functions like memory, cognitive capacity, intelligence, adaptability, etc.. will be compromised. Leading one encouraged to "exercise" the brain through discussion, reading, provoking documentary, word and number puzzles and so on. I like to think of the brain like this because it lets me feel as though I have a certain amount of control over my mind's capacity versus just biological or genealogical traits.

But the catch that I always seem to fall onto is that unlike my bicep or my calf, my brain has the capacity to think abstractly and to imagine the impossible. My leg muscle only knows to be utilized proactively whereas my brain can be used passively - dreaming, thinking, dazing - doing things in it's idle state. To the point where, at times, I cannot turn it off. Where I can be running and then halt running and chose to walk or stand, when my brain starts to run, I just can't seem to stop it. Which feels undermining to myself. I can move and stop moving at will, breathe and stop breathing at will, and choose and not choose to see (i.e. open and close my eyes) so why can I not stop my brain from churning - chewing up the past, present, and future - spewing out crap that doesn't serve any real purpose. Where is the control valve here?

Back to my brain being a muscle. In yoga, I train my body to bend and relax in positions not normally achieved throughout the day. And so I have begun to train my brain to stop. To halt the running. And it is so fucking hard. And, at times, it feels like I am bubbling over, containing the crazy from erupting. Like the water gates are going to break at any moment and I will drive my car into a wall or flame up in unbridled tears. And I focus. I look around the room and I look at what is here in the now. The right now. The dust on the ceiling. The fan turning. The walls are gray. The carpet soft. The feather lodged under the dresser. The chip on the table. The cat walking. I stop thinking the what ifs and the whys and the hows and the wheres and I just watch the shit that is here. The shit right in front of me. The whatever that matters right now. The what I can control this moment. And often the crazy mind trip, the sweaty palms, the shallow breaths, and the beat beat beating heart stops. And it recedes. And my head comes back under my control and I feel the better for it. For taking my mind and my body back under my control.

And I only just keep hoping that the more I force the stopping the easier it will get. Because your only two options are to stop it or let it go. And letting my head run off isn't working - so controlling it and training it and working to stop it is the only option left. But it sucks. And its hard. And its like going to the gym for the first time in your life each and every time you attempt to stop the nonsense.

But I mean, really, what are the other options? Thought is mine - it is perhaps the only thing in the world that can always solely belong to me. And I won't be having anxiety tell me how to use it.

Disgusting Am I

For the most part, on the outside, I feel like I appear to be a (more or less) normal person. I shower daily, attempt to work out on a regular basis, wear clothes that fit, don shoes in public, and at least put a marginal amount of effort into my skin and hair.

Fortunately for the vast majority of the outside world, this is all that is known about me: a thinly shapeless cleanish girl with an OK sense of style and physical prowess.  

However I live with myself 24/7 and am well aware this is mostly a facade perpetuated by my soap and treadmill.  Shielded by societal norms, culture has no idea that I am actually a disgusting pig.

In an attempt to come clean (no pun intended) I am slopping off shroud of normalcy to free my inner vagabond, therefore I am pleased to present you with A Compilation of the Disgusting Things I Do:

A Compilation of the Disgusting Things I Do

1. When I get nervous (and I am frequently nervous over almost anything: real issues, the sun coming up, bananas, books with stickers on them, etc) - I eat at supersonic speeds. Like dangerous speeds. Speeds at which causes pieces of un-swallowed food to lodge themselves in my throat. Sensitive about not choking and dying, my gut reaction is to hack and cough until my breathing can return to normal. Wholly concerned with only clearing my throat of the enemy, I am unaware that spit, food, coffee, toothpaste, whatever is going everywhere. As such is the case, I have invested in numerous screen cleaning products.

2. I have a poo list. In short, my poo list is a grouping of individuals who get updated periodically on my pooing habits. They are normally people near and dear to my heart or those who I have no respect for and therefore could care less what they think of me or my colon. Normally it is the former (Rusty: you are the latter). 

3. Something happens to me in the morning time and I sweat from my armpits an embarrassing amount. My morning routine is pretty basic: get out of bed, shower, make my bed, apply lotion to my legs and arms,  make coffee, blow dry hair, put on clothes (yes I do all the former in my underwear, judge me tomorrow), put on clothes, apply anti-perspiration deodorant.  Let me repeat that last part for you in case it got lost: APPLY ANTI-PERSPIRATION DEODORANT. My house is set to 70. My room fan is on. The rest of my body is cold or normal. My armpits are sweating like I am a pro-fuckin-wrestler. I don't get it. Before anyone sees me, I carefully towel down, apply more deodorant, and spray the fuck out my upper body with something that smells unlike weird drippy sweat. 

[Update: I work out, as aforementioned, running for miles and biking for double. And I don't sweat this much as Morning Sweat]

4. I draw things on my bathroom mirror. I get bored easily. Being a girl sucks because there is these cultural standards that we are to adhere to: kempt hair, nice face, clean, etc..) So I have products (make-up, hair goo, face cleansers) to ensure my spot in the female stratosphere is better then average. Unfortunately, my brain doesn't really seem hard wired for the total girl thing. So when I apply these liquidy accoutrements, I get angered at how un-fun it is. So I beseech you: have you ever seen a lipstick badger or a hair mousse evil zombie apple? Well I have. And believe me, so has my glass cleaner.