a ride on the ol' braintrain

hi

I’m as warm as a croissant reading the comments for the live laugh love post.

People like my brain. They think i’m a philosopher. At least that’s how 18 people feel which means, ah shit wait that means the rest of you 14k fucks hate me.

Sorry about calling you fucks I couldn’t resist the double-k in ‘14k fucks’ just sounded so good and I had to do it.

I did not, however, need to explain why I did it, nor comment on said explanation.

Now THAT”S what I call a snake eating its own tail.

Hey you remember that Nokia snake? The one that ate all those apples? Why the hell did he die when he hit his own body? That lil guy would just wiggle up atop his own self and keep on going, he’s not gonna just bonk himself and go Ah shit I’m basically dead.

That’d be like someone seeing praise for their work and thinking ah shit everyone hates me oh wait.

I don’t really feel that way - the everyone hates me schtick - but it’s an easy place for my brain to go, like there’s an express train headed that way, one of those super fast ones they won’t build in the USA for some reason. Or as the neurosciboys say, the grooves for that neural pathway are deeper. It’s an easier path to take and so my brain likes to take it.

That is to say, these negative thoughts are part of the (booming loud voice that echoes into eternity) Default Mode Network.

Here’s the audio for that in case you can’t read:

According to Michael ‘well that book coulda been an email’ Pollan, the Default Mode Network is a series of highways in the brain - fast and easy. When you psychedel, that is to say when you take Mrs. Mushies or LSDeez, your Default Mode Network shuts down and all your thoughts have to travel on weird side streets they’ve never gone down before. It’s like they’re all using Waze even though there’s no traffic.

But as I have found out the hard way, you can’t just always take LSD. If you try, the side streets get crazy and the highway sorta stops working too and people are just walking around the brain like its the apocalypse looking around like, “what the hell?”

So what’s left for us dark thought loving trains of choo choo chaos?

I don’t know. I never do, but realizing that we’re having the thoughts in the first place never hurts.

Every morning I wake up and there’s a song stuck in my head. This morning it was Mary had a little lamb. I don’t sing that song to my kids or anything, it’s just a banger.

So I’m singing it adding question marks to certain lines like “Everywhere that Mary went, that lamb was sure to go??” Seems like they need space, Mary and that Lamb, etc, when another part of me, seeing that I’d left the cottage cheese on the counter instead of putting it back in the fridge, says silently in my own head, to myself, “you fucking idiot what are you doing.”

Um overreact much? Good god brother it’s just cottage cheese.

I’ve been noticing that voice more and I gotta say, I don’t love it! It’s a mean guy and not just to me but generally? Like I’ll be looking out at the street and he’ll just say, “No one’s gonna fuck with me today, no way.”

…what?

In the language of internal family systems, this is a part that is a Protector. He stomps around the default mode network making sure I never feel anything good because feeling good might lead to feeling bad and that will not happen on his watch. Except it does, but he doesn’t know that cuz he’s just Chester.

Yea I just named him Chester and I think it’s nice. Adds a little softness to an otherwise absolutely insane guy!

But that’s the thing with IFS, you’re not supposed to shun your parts cuz it makes them mad and feel unseen so they scream louder to make sure they’re heard. You’re supposed to say ‘hey Chest, how are you bud? Listen I def feel you with the whole saying awful shit to me thing but, I’m okay. I’m good. You go back upstairs and play SOCOM II, k pal? And he’ll doubt that I’m being honest so I’ll say “I’m serious” and that’ll convince him because he’s just Chester and now he’s upstairs and I’m here writing this.

Trains. We were supposed to talk about trains. Braintrains. Insane in the braintrain. Now I’m being a little too goofy probably, laying it on thick as we say in the Butter Community. The BPM for this post - bits per minute - is way too high - its illegible, there’s nothing to hold onto for the reader to remember that they’re good, alive, safe (GAS).

But maybe THAT’S my point! That the only person who can truly make you feel GAS is you.

Because you are. Even when you’re not.

Uuuum cringe! Look at this asshole just saying kind things about the self, what is he a fukin loser?

Hi Chester how are you?

Good I’m hungry.

There’s cottage cheese on the counter.

Chester storms away to eat the cottage cheese.

Why is it so hard to believe good things? Why is our default mode network full of highways built by our asshole teenage selves whose worst fear was to be ridiculed by others so they decided it’d be best to just think everything was lame than risk liking anything at all?

We fear being cliche more than just about anything else. To be cringe is a fate worse than death.

But why? Cliche is cool.

I know it’s cliche, but I love my family. I know it’s cliche, but I think people are more or less good and decent and if you were in a room with them you’d probably end up being friends.

But these things can’t just be true, can they? Because if they were, why are we doing all this other shit. We need new roads or maybe just to stop driving our braintrains around so much and hop on our brainbikes and cruise the side streets of our souls where the good feelings reside.

Well you know what they say — you can’t spell platitude without latitude. And for things to be real they must also have longitude. Length. The up and down one. That’s emotion - you’re up, you’re down, but you’re alive, and sure you’ll bump into yourself but lemme tell you something lil snake, it ain’t gonna kill you.

Alex whatever you do, do not publish this I beg you please don’t ah shit