"Taming the Monkey Mind"
by Thubten Chodron (Singapore: Graham Brash, Ltd., 1990) includes a step by step method for controlling the mind. Which I need. Other than looking for the answer, say, here:
Detail, George's Liquors. Image copyright Bianca Dorso.
The hell with 1904, for which I'm supposed to come up with something every day about 1904 except that there are days (like today) when you realize your mind is so restless, it is much worse than a monkey running around making a mess and refusing to settle down and behave; it is more like living with some self-involved insecure moody overly-sensitive pouty and rude teenager with bad manners, and I was a teacher once so I know, plus I wake up with one every morning and no, not like that. I mean the one sitting at the end of the bed ready to start in again with the self-involved chatter and insecurity and he won't shut up, and NO, not like that. I mean I have the mind of an adolescent -- in fact I have pretty much the exact same mind, if you want to know the truth, that I had when I was fourteen, but I've spent a good deal of my life since then keeping it drugged and doped and heavily sedated and half awake, so that now when it comes to and misbehaves at a dinner party or in heavy traffic and embarrasses me it takes more than the threat of a "swift kick in the behind when I get you home" to settle it down.
Because then I get it home and it's like, "Good, we're alone. Let's talk."
I don't know how parents do it. If I could, I'd send the brat off to military school "so fast it'd make your head spin," as my father used to say.
Sometimes I miss the days when scotch and quaaludes solved the problem.
Sleep is the best of both worlds. You're alive but unconscious.
Detail, George's Liquors. Image copyright Bianca Dorso.
The hell with 1904, for which I'm supposed to come up with something every day about 1904 except that there are days (like today) when you realize your mind is so restless, it is much worse than a monkey running around making a mess and refusing to settle down and behave; it is more like living with some self-involved insecure moody overly-sensitive pouty and rude teenager with bad manners, and I was a teacher once so I know, plus I wake up with one every morning and no, not like that. I mean the one sitting at the end of the bed ready to start in again with the self-involved chatter and insecurity and he won't shut up, and NO, not like that. I mean I have the mind of an adolescent -- in fact I have pretty much the exact same mind, if you want to know the truth, that I had when I was fourteen, but I've spent a good deal of my life since then keeping it drugged and doped and heavily sedated and half awake, so that now when it comes to and misbehaves at a dinner party or in heavy traffic and embarrasses me it takes more than the threat of a "swift kick in the behind when I get you home" to settle it down.
Because then I get it home and it's like, "Good, we're alone. Let's talk."
I don't know how parents do it. If I could, I'd send the brat off to military school "so fast it'd make your head spin," as my father used to say.
Sometimes I miss the days when scotch and quaaludes solved the problem.
Sleep is the best of both worlds. You're alive but unconscious.
There's a new book out entitled, "As the World Burns: 50 Simple Things You Can Do to Stay in Denial." I'm going to check it out. Because, you know, alcohol and drugs can't do everything.
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That's the same reason I started posting my art over at my place. Damn monkeys...
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My mind stopped growing at the age of nine. I was thus spared the horrors of adolescence, and did not discover sex on my own. Nine is a good age. The world is vastly more interesting than the (largely invisible) self.
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