Head gremlins.

Spending time with my grandparents has given me time to think. They don't seem to do...anything...at least not anything that my almost 23 year old mind deems to be of consequence. Grandpa lurches out of bed at 6, then shuffles his way to the kitchen, where he takes his pills. Then he sits in his armchair and watches TV or listens to the radio. If he feels like treating himself, he sits outside reading old bike magazines, reminiscing on the excitement of his youth. I find it depressing. The only drama around here is whether or not he takes his pills on time. If he doesn't grandma gets annoyed and chastises him like some idiot child. It makes me angry. Grandpa used to race fucking motorbikes. He was a proud man. Now he is being treated like some unwanted infant, and he has no way to escape it. I never want to be like that. If I ever become incapable, fucking shoot me.

I have had a lot of time to myself. My grandma talks a lot of old person jibber jabber, but she's also funny as. Grandpa has a hard time talking coherently. I sat outside with him for a few hours yesterday, and I think he liked it. It must be hard being on your own with someone who treats you like a fool. We talked about bikes and buildings and girls. His sole piece of girl advice "stay on the right side of them." Old people have such a different perspective...I will talk to him more today. He needs a friend. I think he's depressed.

Aside from idle chit chat most of my time has been spent reading, drawing or thinking. Mulling over my proactive happiness of the last week, I noticed that my mind had stopped berating itself. I believe it is because I am becoming more detached from the world, no longer placing my happiness in the hands of others. I became cheerful, and falling headlong into the moment, I didn't stop to analyse, bottle and name it. Now that I'm in the greying world of my grandparents, the cogs are slowly grinding back into action. The clever little bastard went straight for the soft spot. I think I'm finally starting to understand why it finds girls such tasty morsels. It has nothing to do with them. It comes down to denial.

There seems to be a part of my mind which is solely dedicated to playing the negative parent. When it sees a thought process or behaviour it doesn't like, it shouts "OI! No! Stop that! Don't think like that." Then I continue thinking. Maybe something along the lines of why I shouldn't be thinking such things. "

Now why do I do this? How did I create such a destructive pattern?

Well, partially, I think it is because I hold myself to an impossible ideal.

I strive to become my picture of perfection. I don't think this is bad in itself, in fact, my constant self-improvement is something I love about myself. I will never stop, and I will never stagnate. I plan to heave the Sisyphean boulder to the clouds until I die knowing I did my best.

The problem is that when I compare myself to an unattainable epitome, I will come out lacking every time. The reason my head gremlins are always on my case, is because I have an ideal of what I should be. I should be confident. I should not be afraid of anything. I should be a self-sustaining beacon of joy. Sometimes I live up to these standards, but when I don't, which is often, the gremlins burst out of their pods and start gnawing away at my self-esteem. I chastise myself for being imperfect; I chastise myself for being human.

Another reason is Tolle. When I read the Power of Now way back, I started looking upon my mind and my random, darting thoughts as bad. I villified my egoic mind as something evil that needs to be shut down. I'm pretty sure Tolle warns against that kind of behaviour, but at the same time he paints the egoic mind as some insatiable dark creature of the depths. Coming out of reading that book I was certainly persuaded that thinking is bad, and being in the moment is good. I have moved past that recently. I was talking with Pax and Robbie on the beach the other day, and with their input, I decided that "over-thinking" (the "over" itself is an inbuilt judgment I don't agree with) is only negative if the thought patterns themselves are negative. What I find almost hilariously ironic is that I will often be pondering some philosophy, girl or theory, completely harmlessly, and then I will realise I'm doing it and be like "You're thinking man! Stop it! Arg!" Now...the original thought was fine - it is the second thought, the beration, cunningly disguised as a do-gooder, that is actually doing me harm! Thinking by itself is completely fine. In fact, if anything, I enjoy my aimless wanderings. What fucks with me is the villification of thought and my consequent attempts to resist and restrain it.

I picked the title "Head Gremlins," because it sounded cool, but the more I think about it, the more I realise it's quite an astute metaphor. Gremlins are not inherently bad. Look at Mogwai. He's adorable, happy and good natured...but he requires close attention. If you don't feed him the right things and watch what he's doing 24/7, he can be a real shithead.

I put it to me that denial is the cause. By so strongly resisting certain thoughts, I am feeding a vicious loop. "I" think x. "I" say "don't think about x retard!" "I" still think x. "I" get frustrated at lack of ability to control thoughts. Loop. Constant identification with thought patterns as "I" strengthens them.

I think it is this pattern that got me so fucked up over the last month or so. My mind fixated, and I fought it at every opportunity. Not only that, but the pattern started to pervade into other parts of my life. My mind began to argue with itself over other things. I'd crack a joke to a table of friends. "You shouldn't have said that." "That sounded stupid." "That wasn't funny." My gremlins were having a feeding frenzy. I became unsure of myself. By attempting to control my thoughts, and failing, I felt like I had no control over anything (actually true, but not a beneficial thought pattern).

I believe that this aspect of my mind, this naysayer, while probably necessary for prehistoric survival, has little use in my world. Sure, sometimes it is good. ie. "Yeah you probably shouldn't jump off the roof, dumbass." For the most part, however, I think it is an inefficient and destructive mechanism, at least in its current incarnation. What I have learned is that I cannot deny it. What you resist persists. Last week, my mind was still flitting around like the acid fucked butterfly it is. I treated it as the petulant warblings of an infant. You wanna fruitlessly cogitate eh? Go ahead ya little bugger. Have fun. I'll get on with my life.