Brainstorm

DOOM, GLOOM and Megan Fox

I sent my friend this most ominous text, some time back.

“Well you have to clear your head sooner or later… I’m a work-aholic just like you and I get sad when I don’t have work to do because I’m hopeless but sometimes it’s just nice to savour the freedom of being youthful. Because in a few years when uni is over we’re going to be miserable adults looking for a job and weeping at how stupid life is. All of a sudden, that shotgun looks really attractive and BANG we’ve blown off our heads. Sounds extreme but it’s true. No uni student lives past 25. Old post grads are just a lie. I know. I blew my head off once. Believe it… Heed my warning Frank! We’re all doomed to a grisly end. Har! Har! Har! ”

In retyping that text message I have just noticed a pun. ‘…clear your head sooner or later’ and then ‘…BANG we’ve blown off our heads’. I sent this to a Spanish friend, and only once I sent the message did I realise that his reaction may not be the same as somebody who had grown up here and had spent some time with me to realise just how bitter I can be. He’s usually a very jolly chap, who is always smiling and telling amusing stories, so I am unsure as to how he received this information. His reply seemed happy enough though so perhaps he understood the humour.

Humour is a vital tool in modern society as it distracts us from the doom and gloom of all that is wrong with the world. Let’s face it, without a bit of humour, the above scenario described in the text would probably be true. The text was written to make a mockery of the life without humour. With nothing to laugh about, shotguns would probably start to look more attractive than Megan Fox… unless it was a matter of Megan Fox holding a shotgun. Suicide could never be sexier. Right. This is starting to get dark, I’m frightening myself again, and I was prepared to provide further elaboration on that idea. Some ideas are better left alone… I can fully affirm that I am my own worst enemy – for reasons such as this. My mind is a storm of thoughts. Some good, some bad. I am pretty sure that many people have conflicted minds like my own, but they seem to handle their conflicted minds better than I. Or perhaps they don’t handle it better than I. Perhaps they hate themselves to the point where they would do anything to make themselves feel better about themselves. Perhaps they would pose naked to please millions of the opposite or same homosexual, sex.

I really feel like I’m making progress here. It is as if I’m talking to a psychiatrist, only I’m talking to you. Whoever you are. I am most likely talking to myself, as is usually the case. Ha! I make a good psychiatrist for myself then! I am my own worst enemy but I can also cure myself with some assertion. So I am my own worst enemy and my own best friend at the same time. Is that possible? To be enemy and friend, in equal measure, at the same time? Perhaps it is possible to the onlooker; to the outsider. It would be like the Schrödinger’s cat paradox. I must say, the Schrödinger’s cat paradox is probably my favourite paradox. It really is sublime.

Imagine a sealed, opaque box. You can’t see inside, you can’t hear what is going on inside. Inside the box is a cat. There is also an unknown radioactive isotope in the box. There is a flask of noxious acid. There is a hammer mechanism linked up to a Geiger counter. When the Geiger counter detects a certain amount of radiation, the hammer will strike the flask, spilling the noxious contents into the box, thus killing the poor cat. I would like to add that this is hypothetic, no cats were harmed in the development of this thought experiment. You, on the outside of said box must reason whether or not the cat is dead or alive. The cat could be either. It is entirely plausible that the cat is dead. It is also equally as plausible that the cat is still alive. From your distant outside perspective, you have no way of knowing which state the cat is actually in, and for all intents and purposes (déjà vu), that cat is perceived to be both dead and alive at the same time, due to there being equal reasoning for either argument that is ascertaining the cats death or life.

Well, my head is in a similar situation. Imagine my head as the sealed box. To the onlooker, I could be my own enemy, or my own friend… kind of in the same way as the Schrödinger’s cat paradox. Kind of. Loosely. Just use your imagination, OK? Use it. I said so. Lost your imagination already? Your loss, now you can’t amaze in wonderment at the depravity of my mind. You’re probably better off that way, why would anybody want to know what is going on in my mind anyway? You’d need as much psychiatric help as I do, perhaps more. Treat yourself, I manage it just fine.

I seem to have gone off at a tangent there. I apologise for going mad at the readership… if there really is a readership out there. I think a sense of awareness can be perceived as madness, only because everybody takes things for granted. For instance, I sometimes like to listen to the sound of my heartbeat. After exercise, I can hear it pretty clearly without using a stethoscope. It is a surreal feeling. The sound of my life, beating away, maintaining some kind of rhythm - as long as I am not undergoing fibrillation or arrhythmia - that would be bad. But the sound of your own heartbeat can be a sobering experience, even though it is an everyday thing. You are in essence listening to your life. If you want to know what your life sounds like, then there you have it. On a particularly quiet, dark night, it is possible to hear your heartbeat. You should try it. The darkness helps as the lack of light sharpens your other senses.

Where is the point that you finally ‘lose it’? Listening to ones’ own heartbeat is all good and well, but what about ranting at people who may not be there? Or likening ones’ own skull to a feline death chamber? Or calling suicide ‘sexy’? This piece has been very educational to me, as it has let me read what my mind is capable of. When something is still in your head, and hasn’t been voiced in any way, it usually sounds like a good idea. Saying something out loud, or writing it helps you judge whether or not it is a good idea. What could have been written could have been a lot worse, but we have a little thing known as a conscience. A wonderful regulatory mechanism that tells you to stop when it can see you are going too far. Certain substances dull the effect of this excellent mechanism, and lead you to do things you wouldn’t ordinarily do. Such is life, and it really isn’t my problem. The world has its’ own liberties and its’ own customs. Go knock yourself out, world.

“Everybody loves a joke
But no one likes a fool
And you're always cracking the same old lines again
You're well rehearsed on every verse
And that was stated clear
But no one understands your verity”

-Green Day