The heart and the mind

The desire to explain myself runs deep.

It's a defense mechanism.

I was conditioned to think that the only way to defend myself from verbal attacks and criticism is to be able to out argue people and state a strong case for why I feel the things I feel.

It’s not that I want your approval, I feel I need it for my safety or survival. I felt this as a child and as someone whose ideas and feelings tend to be a standard deviation away from the norm, “the real world” of earning morning and adulting has given me two choices. Fake it or get good at explaining myself.

So I chose the latter, and I’m still not the best at it because my mind makes connections that are very hard to express with words sometimes but that make sense if I can weave them together well enough.

My mind is always working on overdrive. It is a blessing and a curse.

I've always be curious, an explorer. At a young age, that desire was suppressed by social constructs, compulsory education and the fear of those around me who did not want to disturb the established order, even in the tiniest, most inconsequential ways. So I quietly explored ideas outside of my education and those constructs.

Fear ran deep in the suburbs, probably the place where it was least warranted. Those constructs often reached far deeper than necessary to maintain a kind of social order, to prevent destructive chaos, and never mind that they were never consensual.

People didn’t like things that were too different. Everyone was on the conveyor belt, competing for fewer positions in a machine that they did not realize was starting to show signs of decay.

The nature of education in the West is that we learn to argue our position and convince others that we are right. If we can’t convince them, we’ve got to fight harder to get our ideas across. (It’s not much different in the rest of the world, where people tend to be subject to the whims of their elders.). That means we are always on the defensive. It's a subtle feeling, but I was always very acutely aware of it.

The readiness of others to put down my perspective because it wasn't something that was part of the zeitgeist was palpable. There were a few friends who I shared my thoughts with, and they listened, but I ended up with a reputation as a stoner before I ever knew what marijuana smelled like.

I don't know when it started, but I didn't feel safe in my own skin. When I expressed my truest feelings, it always seemed to be met by rejection, and at such a young age, repeated rejection resulted in a feeling that I should be careful what I shared with others. Some of the things I said brought up people’s fears, and so they didn’t respond kindly. Talking about death or spirits or the nature of reality or questioning common sense often did not go over well. And so despite rejecting it consciously, I was still infected with their fear.

While they feared some imaginary other, I feared those closest to me. I never knew what was going to set them off and start attacking my ideas.

So I wrote, and I thought about a million ways to get my ideas across to others, and I read Dune, and played RPG games that assured me that I wasn’t the only person in the world who was curious about gnostic interpretations of the Bible or Taoism or talking to trees. I read about communes and squat life and all kinds of things that made people around me roll their eyes.

I found refuge in the online relationships I made with punks and weirdos in the music scene, on the message boards of my favorite bands at the time, and in chat rooms about music. I practiced expressing myself with words in a safe environment and learned to speak at length on any topic.

The more I practiced, the less I feel victim to the attacks of others and the more I felt as they might provide me with a sword, or at least a shield to protect myself with. Words became a means of fending off enemies, and although I never declared those around me enemies, I found that people could turn at any moment, triggered by their own traumas, looking to crush any and all who disagreed with them. Some would brutally attack another just for touching on a soft spot.

I couldn't help but feel because my emotions were so intense, but as I am only now realizing, I sometimes used words as a way to detach from my emotions, to step outside of them.

Sometimes I burst out into flames and let people see everything, the raw, untamed emotion that usually lie deep under the surface of our interactions. After that the unhealed excess fire would go back to lying dormant in my subconscious because I had never fully faced my pain.

Sometimes I would meticulously sculpt these feelings into intricate pieces that could pierce the hearts of those who read them, be it for their own good, to help them realize something beneficial to them or to make sure that they kept their distance.

I did my best not to run away from my emotions, but now I see that half of the time, it was not my heart that felt, but my mind that simulated the process of feeling. I put my emotions into words in order to release them...and then they would show themselves again, as if they hadn't gone anywhere.

The mind is not like the heart. The mind thrives on logic, and it speaks to the minds of others, but emotions don't exist in the mind. The heart connects to the world of the emotional body and to most of our subconscious wounds, as well as our deepest joy. This is why you find that some of the smartest people talk and act like robots; their minds are very mature and developed but their hearts are nowhere to be seen, hiding deep beneath their big fat brains.

I never fashioned myself as one of these people because I feel so deeply. I cry often, and it's therapeutic. But I can see, due to some recent revelations, that I do not allow myself to sit long in that state with my heart exposed to myself. I can see the old wounds, and I can work on them. I'm not afraid to work on them, but I'm often resistant to go too deep, the same way I’m resistant to walking outside without an umbrella.

It's that defense mechanism, the old patterns. Although I've become brave enough to look at whatever lingering ugliness might be hiding in the depths of my subconscious, and give it love, I have a responsive tick. Whenever I start to feel discomfort, I jump into the mind as soon as possible, and then I stay there as long as necessary.

I get that 10-15 minutes with the heart, and it helps, but then I bury everything back beneath my mind, and I don't touch it again until things become so unbearable that my brain can no longer function as usual. These moments are fewer and further between but still, I want to let my heart breath, every day.

I once thought that writing was that chance, but when two people I love helped me to see how writing effects me, I realized that I do way too much writing and way too much reading, too much explaining, and too much trying to understand.

These are great and beautiful things, I have developed these superpowers to a degree that I can be proud of, to the point where they really are useful tools to create connection and understanding, and can enhance any kind of art or expression.

Music is the one place where I let my emotions run freely, but unless I spend time listening to the harshest songs of loss and regret and pain, I do not have a chance to dig deep enough to heal.

Meanwhile my fear that I'm not safe has survived to this day. Now it's no longer a fear of the words and opinions of others because I know how to protect myself from them. It's taxes and visas, it's laws that don't make sense and bureaucracy. It's financial instability and inflation. All of this leads to me feeling as if I have no emotional reserves for anything.

余裕がない (Youyuu ga nai), a casual expression (not some ancient Japanese wisdom, don’t be weird) that I think really sums up a lot of the pain of the modern age, probably the most chronic and debilitating first world problem. The closest expression in English might be "I can't afford something", in terms of energy, money or time, but unlike "Afford", it doesn't require an object.

That's how I feel, whenever I let my mind run the show.

My heart feels pain sometimes, and it feels tired often, but it is also capable of the gratitude that can allow me to reshape my life. The mind quantifies and tries to solve problems and fixates on those problems.

I've decided that I'm going to try and spend less time with words, less time trying to understand and analyze things, less time trying to make myself understood or fixing my problems from the logic of the mind. I want to spend more time allowing myself to feel, more time in the moment.

Yes, meditation, but active meditation. I like walking around the city and forgetting what things are. A car passes by and I can forget the word car, and the concept of a car. It is just shaped and sounds. All I really need to remember is not to walk out in front of them.

I will still write, but I will wait until I've felt everything I'm ready to feel. I will try to channel my heart through my mind. I will audit my thoughts and make sure I can feel my heart working together with my mind. If I feel too much to balance and put into words, I won't rush it. I won't get addicted to the dopamine hits I get from explaining things in a way that I feel is satisfactory enough to convince other people and keep me safe.

I will make space between everything that I do and try to remember that more strategizing isn't going to solve my problems because I've already played out every scenario in my mind and there is always too much that is uncertain to really feel I've made the right decision. That feeling is only granted by the heart.

When the heart is fully onboard with the mind and both are in balance, there are no wrong decisions, and everything becomes a chance for growth and expansion.

You can find my fiction and music at:
https://linktr.ee/ipluseverything

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