Mental Masturbation

I have a brain that likes to cannibalize itself. No, wait… that’s not true. I have a brain that likes to eat slowly away at my soul.

It is not my entire brain that suffers from this malady. It is just a small, very vocal minority. I think it would be fair to compare this part of my brain to those Westboro Baptist protestors. The ones who show up at funerals and yell crazy shit at anyone who will listen, there are not enough of them to take over, but damn they can ruin a good time. Not that a funeral is a good time…… you know what I mean.

Anywho, back to my soul eating brain….. Meditation has helped me slow down this little monster quite a bit. The Buddha tells us that an untamed mind is basically hell and that Nirvana can be found through controlling the mind. When I meditate I am practicing slowing down my thoughts and learning to train a mind that has been running wild for the last 36 years (I like to compare my brain to Jodie Foster in the movie Nell.  Chicka mow mow may). The more I meditate, the slower my mind gets, the less of my soul my brain eats, the better I am. Seems simple, right?

Here is the real problem. There is a part of me that likes, no…. LOVES the soul eating. I get off on it. It’s like picking at a scab till it bleeds. Sometimes it just feels good. I like to call it mental masturbation. It feels every bit as self-indulgent as the other kind of masturbation, but it will not make my palms hairy. It could however be making my brain hairy and I just have not noticed it yet.

Today I noticed I was really letting myself have it about a new situation in my life. Just really getting into the guts of this great new thing and ripping them out and chewing on them until there was no taste left. Ahhhh, the sweet ecstasy of entrails.   But this is where my program and HP kick in. I had a moment, just one small moment, where I could see what I was doing to myself. It’s kind of like I was in a dark room chewing on something and then there was a flash of light and I realized it was my own arm I was chewing off, not someone else’s. Not that it is cool to chew on anyone else either (unless it’s that kind of party), but man I can really get going on other people and what they should be doing.

So when I saw I was chewing my own arm off and loving the pain, I paused and let the feelings pass. I don’t have to do this to myself today. I don’t have to be perfect today or hate myself for being human today.  When I can show that kind of love to myself it is soooooooo much easier to give love away to others, because they don’t have to be perfect either.

So that’s that. I needed to get that out of my head before my next class. The other way I combat my soul eating brain is feeding it philosophy daily. This new diet of Buddhism, Socrates and Plato seems to be working right now and I don’t want to let a day go by where I don’t feed my brain something other than me or you to eat.

Love and light….