My Brain (My god, My Brain!)

It is not good for me to be left alone with my brain.

I have been feeding it stuff to ponder, shoveling in strange new thoughts and philosophies like an old time fireman feeding coal into a locomotive engine.

I have faltered over the last 4 weeks. First I pretty much stopped exercising. Now, it got hot as hell, 90 degrees and all that, but that's a bullshit excuse. When motivated, I can force myself to exercise under any conditions.

Simultaneously, I stopped the brain workouts. Strange. Not really.

I hopped back on the exercise train last week and continued it into this week, so that discipline has been recaptured.

The brain remains mushy.

The ironic thing is the doubt is fueled by my need for immediate results. Explosive change. Instantaneous rewards. Odd because I am trying to adopt the philosophy of James Clear, which is to make incremental change consistently until all those victories add up to achievement of a goal.

I know in my heart that flexing my brain is the right thing to do. It is the only way to redirect the polluted thoughts of 45 years of misdirected thinking.

My mind keeps wandering back to the practical. Practicality kills creativity.

We have decided to move in the direction of selling the house. Got the Ugly Houses people coming over today, mostly for the fun of it. I pretty much don't trust them but I want a baseline offer from which to work.

I have spoken to a local realtor for advice. We will be having contractors do some work on the house, inside and out, to make it pretty. Up the value.

These are concrete things. I find I need concrete. I am a bit lost without work. Strange, considering I have hated every job I ever held. 'Cept bartending.

Fixing my brain is not concrete. It is malleable, a moving target with no solid results yet. I notice small changes in my thinking (incremental, for Christ sake - incremental!), but when the chips are down I revert to poison thoughts.

However, I know that redirecting my brain is without a doubt the most important thing I can do with this time that I have.

Still reading James Clear. He makes sense to me. Found a guy named Mark Manson who caught my attention but I'm beginning to think he's full of shit.

Emerson and Marcus Aurelius didn't pan out; it was heavy reading and did not take root in my brain. I am searching for other inspiration.

I am learning Italian, strictly for the brain exercise. I will never use it, will forget it all two weeks after I stop, but it forces me to think. Feels good to do it. Makes my brain ache like overworked muscles.

I dabble with meditation but have not immersed myself. Which makes no sense because when I do it I love it. Shit works. Gotta make that happen.

Fun fact. I do not always do things I know are good for me. Not sure why. I can fall in love with something that makes perfect sense to me and then forget about it for 3 months. People are strange.

Anyway I am working back towards distracting my brain. I got off track a little bit but I'm bending things back around.

Shit, man - the last thing I need right now is to have all the time in the world to spend in the company of my diseased, un-evolved brain.