It pains me to say this, but your brain is a liar. Not that you’ll believe me once I tell it so.
The soft nervous tissue contained in your skull makes assumptions not based on facts, draws conclusions that have more to do with wish fulfilment than logic, and has ‘insights’ that a hundred Shakespeare-typing monkeys would never countenance, except with screams of disbelief.
Whoever said the human brain contains more atoms than the universe hadn’t met some of the people I know. And how did he/she calculate that anyhow? Whose brain was measured, Goofy the dog’s? Popeye the Sailor Man’s? And what was used as a measure, a piece of string?
Not that brains are entirely useless, except in matters of the heart. At moments of extreme stress, they engage a mechanism that has proved necessary in our evolution, which is detachment. As in “I don’t believe this is happening.” Useful when you are being mugged, perhaps. And after we detach, we latch on to familiar objects, apparently.
Before coronavirus was everywhere, not all that many other things were. Objects change with the times. When did you last eat Caramac, or a macaroon bar? Exceptions to this rule of mutability are to be found in flea markets and souks from Rio to Marrakech, where you are always guaranteed to find items for sale ranging from broken vacuum cleaners and gate-leg tables to chipped crockery and a VHS recorder with a cassette jammed inside it. Your brain will probably tell you these are bargains, so being mugged was a blessing in disguise. Detach and then latch, you see.
Once, in a market in Carrasco, a barrio in Montevideo, I even saw several scantily clad slave-girls for sale, but a second glance told me they were only plaster figurines shackled together to prevent theft, rather than my fevered brain playing tricks on me. I bought some old biros and a wire coat hanger instead.
How can we fight back against our own brains, unless we are weak-minded, which I assume you are not, since you have read this far, or is someone reading to you…? Well, avoid making generalisations, and saying things like, “I didn’t get that job, so I won’t get the next one either.” Bad luck, by the way.
Above all, don’t be fooled by the confidence tricks your brain uses so you won’t have to use it too much. These might, I suppose, be labelled as The Sky is Falling (no point in fighting against fate), The Victim Rant (“I should have been promoted, not that blonde bimbo.” — Are you deluded?), and The Mental Filter (“Everyone in the office hates the sight of me — they were forever urging me to wear a mask, even before Covid.”)
Faced with all of this, you need to shift your perspective. Go to the top of the Eiffel Tower. Dye your hair. Wear a UNICEF t-shirt to work. Fight against all those lies your lazy brain is trying to foist upon you. Especially the one about not requiring vaccination. Trust me, I’m right. Would my brain lie to me? And if it did, how would I know?
David Aitken
