06 POST It Got Worse

Who are I, Me and Myself? I am still in this hallucinatory chamber. If me, Ant and Bee, could smell it would just be myself''s bad breath. If Me could hear it would just be myself's screams. Me can see alright, scary nonsensical figures, Geru thinks unpleasant scary stuff, and the only thing Myself can do is trash around in my shackles. Oh, wait, did I mention the paralyzing drugs given to Myself. Hopefully there is a name for this mess, it is called SLEEP. It is called nightmares? But where is the alarm clock?

What is that hum Me hears, a never ending hum that comforts me. It is the eternal consciousness of nerves huming. I and Myself gets into a lotus position and hum along with it. Where is my binky? I can use my thumb. Ah, Me feel better.

Well, that blue bird flutters around telling me I can do better. With the help of Rabbit I can get that confounded Tuttle off myself and I could break these shackles and bust out of this chamber. All together now, stretch, shake, rattle and roll....roll right out of bed. Oh, my god, it was only a nightmare after all.

Next Post: another nightmare follows.

09 POST Who are you? Who is I, who is me, or, really, who is myself?

Am I really conscious of who I am to the degree I can tell who you are?  Our understanding of the brain and subsequent language to describe it is to day inadequate.  We know about Mirror cells in the brain that let us mimic others, even their emotions.  This gives us empathy, lets us know how they feel and subsequently how our actions affect them.

But who are you, really?  No, no, don't do this to me.  Don't make me answer that question.  I am beside myself wondering who I am, so the heck with you, that's even a harder question, who you are.  How can I figure out who you are if I can not figure out who I am.

Its an age old question that philosophers struggle with, psychologists battle with, psychiatrists try to diagnose, sociologists try to define in situational group settings, spiritualists describe with wonderfully colorful and imaginative concepts, literary types with wild and exciting stories, and brain researchers with neurological circuitry.  They all have truths and they all fail.  Perhaps they will always fail.  Our beady little brains may not be able to figure it out.  Would our brains have to be bigger than itself to see and define itself in a way that it could explain to itself who it is.  Like a parent explaining things to a child.

Well, you probably are saying, yes but you said the brain sees more than we do, feels more, thinks more, and at times makes us do more than we are aware of.  So can't it be the parent and explain to us, the child who we are?  Does the child really understand what's behind the parent's watered down to their level explanation?  Or do they only understand what they can understand at their watered down level.  Can we really see, feel, think, and experience what we can't see, feel, think, or experience.  Besides, does the brain even care to really answer who it is, or able to.

I am here to tell you that you are Mr. Do (I), widgets (Me), and body (Myself).  You ain't going to like this but you are basically the way you are, or is, by the way I arranges the widgets to see, feel, think, and do.  Now that's cyclic, redundant, you create you.  So who is you....ah, the inborn strengths of your widgets, trial and error learning, or both?  I thought I was in control.  No, don't tell me I am who I is, or who can be, or who was....there has to be more to it.  Is life no more than luck of the draw genetic and luck of the draw life experiences that help or hinder I from rearranging widgets?  And is that also predetermined how I will respond to those cues?  Is free choice only a genetically predisposition for life so it is satisfied when I arranges the widgets so myself will do the right things in the given environment (perceived, emotional, conceptual, or physical) to live in pleasure and safety?  Perhaps so.  Then we can define true free will, or the strength of it, as having useful perceptions, adaptive emotions, wise thoughts, and helpful experiences to help I arrange those widgets to reap the benefits of themselves, of others, of opportunities and to build and engineer self, others, and things to better life, not death.  To sum it up we could say to do what works, biologically, emotionally, socially, or situation ally.  Is that not what your mother told you, to do the right thing?  Is that a moral judgement or really just a survival judgement?

Next Post: so it all boils down to the consciousness controlling the subconsciousness?

10 POST Consciousness is you and the Gunman

Consciousness is you, that every twelfth or twentieth frame that you process, the movie you make that you star in.  Even the feeling of who you are is memory of the movies you made.  Yes, others gave you ideas of who you were and gave you good or bad memories at that.  But you decide what memories and experiences to put together to maintain a sense of who you are.  Yes, others influence you to what to pick in that movie, but ultimately you decide.  That is your choice.  And you want to put some thought into it.  The more thought that is questioning and objective the more freedom will you have.

That is unless you are in an urgent and emergent situation, like a gun to your head, then you can see, feel, think more and even act in brilliant ways to save yourself.  You may not think so at the time but looking back you say time stood still and I seemed to do the right thing but it was the longest moment of my life.

In fact it felt like an eternity, an eternity of hell.  Time slowed down, not to me, to you.  The adrenaline was pumping so hard you seen every third frame or what ever.  Each frame is assigned a moment, and with more moments its a long time.

Who are you? At the moment of gun point you are... scared, on either side of the gun, pointing at you or holding the trigger.  If you are the gunman ask your self why you like to make yourself numb, non thinking and hurting others.

If you are the one facing the gun you probably are on automatic pilot.  Often you will do the right thing to live through it.  Your brain was working without you, subconsciously.  And you, my friend, are those subconscious frames and processing also.  Depending whats in the old noggin determines if you do what works or not.  You may be programmed to do badly. 

Now here is another angle.  You are the gunman  on autopilot.  In real life situations you are both the gunman and the victim.  It is the old devil and angel, each on a different shoulder.  You often hold the gun to yourself and do things you know you should not do. You put yourself on the old roller coaster because you may put yourself through unnecessary trials and tribulations.   Sounds scary, your lower nature victimizes the upper nature, but who let it. You set yourself up.

But relief.  You can control both sides.  You are the director of your own life.  You chose the scenes, the emotional players, the script, and you act it out.  Your script has developed over the years.  It is the accumulation of all the choices, millions of moments and in between moments that you made, make, and will make.  You are in a dynamic changing dance of life that you engineer.

Next Post: How to make better choices.

13 POST Mr. Do, upper nature, Can Control

When Mr/Ms Do is strong, he/she stops the chaos by taking control and putting the widgets in a logical order. Do gives each a chance to talk and keeps Dragon and Crew below so they do not try and dominate.

Dragon is very primitive and likes to take over if possible.  Dragon is a very strong instinct of survival.  Always waiting for him and the lower nature widgets to pop up and take advantage.  Children have to be taught to engage Mr/Ms Do first.

The most functional sequence is for Ant and Bee to see whats out in the world, then let Cuddles and Macho decide if its friendly or dangerous, then decide how to approach the situation, and then let Turtle and Rabbit proceed at the right pace to  accomplish the task that will help them and the rest of the world.  But the widgets can talk back and forth to figure out whats out there, ask Ant and Bee to look for things, ask Geru  if something is what it appears to be or if it is safe or not, give Geru more information, or ask Rabbit if something can be done or not, if the skills are there.  Sounds like thinking.               

The problems arise when the widgets are not cooperative because of natural personality differences, emotional disturbances form childhood or other experiences, misinformation, or lack of skills.  The next posts will address many of these problems and what to do to better coordinate them and balance them out so a person can think better what to do to be aware, happy, wise, and pro active.