3 Second Rule

They say schizophrenics hear voices in their heads. Us ‘normals’ do to, but we group the voices together and name them “I”, and “me”. In my head voices argue with each other, deliberate, plan. I’m sitting there in the room, my face looks peaceful, but inside it’s all a big problem - the lights are going off and the sirens are going off and all the voices are trying to figure it out. Someone asks, “Chris, what are you doing?”

I’m (kind of) caught up with work now, so I will take some time to write here. This is a blog, as you know, but I don’t think of it as a blog. I notice that it is a blog, I check the statistics, I think about it’s ‘message’, etc. But I am only doing that because that’s what other bloggers are doing. It’s interesting to see if someone is interested in what you are writing, get some comments, whatever. But really this is just me writing. I am practicing writing and getting my thoughts out and communicating on paper. There is not something specific I am trying to communicate, however.

This is in contradiction with what I have written before, of course, which has to do with the fact that I don’t really believe what I am saying - what I said yesterday, I have already forgotten and what I am saying now will become yesterday’s.

I’d like to write a story maybe sometime, I’d like to explore writing more - but without a target it is difficult. I don’t think this is how I want to write. The voice that is coming across seems disjointed and hodgepodge.

Soon I am going to redesign the whole look of Authentic Personality and at that point I will begin to make more of an effort to polish my turds efforts into something more respectable.

I remember in High school learning about ‘persuasive’ essays. I think they taught us to appeal to the emotions of our audience. Like if I were talking about the evils of drug use, I could say something like, ‘think of how it effects the children’. People generally feel some sort of empathy for children, even if they are screwing up their own kids. So they feel empathy for children as a group, but maybe their own child they feel completely disconnected from. Sorry, terrible digression.

So if I polish my writing style, i might try to be more ‘persuasive’, but since I have no target, such persuasion would be trying to influence others to let go of their targets. Should I avoid tangents then? I kind of like to go off in odd directions, but I think I might lose someone that way.

Anyway, let me drop the self evaluation here and shift gears into:

eyes shut, laughing attempt. Who am we? Who are I? I Whoo!! (shit, the words have stopped working - except for these ones - these one’s are working) Am where I? (that kind of makes sense). I am where? (Who is asking this question and who do I think will answer?).

Popeye said, “I am what I am”.

I asked, “am I what I am?’.

The question itself seemed to linger and haunt, like i had found some ancient technology to blow up the universe. “Yes”, as an answer to such a question seems absurd. No just couldn’t be right. Maybe I should keep my mouth shut.

Popeye said, “I can only speak for myself”

So there was one speaking for and then there was the ‘myself’ being represented. Is there a committee in his head? Does Popeye have a bureaucracy?

They say schizophrenics hear voices in their heads. Us ‘normals’ do to, but we group the voices together and name them “I”, and “me”. In my head voices argue with each other, deliberate, plan. I’m sitting there in the room, my face looks peaceful, but inside it’s all a big problem - the lights are going off and the sirens are going off and all the voices are trying to figure it out. Someone asks, “Chris, what are you doing?”

Me: “Just thinking”.

Practicing madness is what I’m doing. But one doesn’t reveal that. It makes the other practitioners nervous. They are relying on their peaceful faces.

Mad, blind men, all of us and I get angry because I’m cut off in traffic. Actually, I don’t do that anymore. I never get pissed in traffic unless my wife is in the car. So I don’t know about enlightenment, but I know you can transcend your anger in traffic. The trick is to follow the 3 second rule. Keep a big padding around you. Look at the car in front and count three seconds until you pass the same road marker as them. That works because if you are both going slow, you can be pretty close. If you are going fast, you necessarily will have many car lengths between you. If you drive this way you will not get angry at anyone. There will always be space around you for others to move.

I drive down the freeway at the speed limit with all this space around me and I look in the rear view mirror and see this tight pack of speeding vehicles rushing towards me. I think it must be how the buffalo feel. The stampede overtakes me and I pretend its not even there. Just maintain my speed. I have to keep an eye in my rearview mirror because one of the cows will pull up right behind me, totally ignoring the 3 second rule, and they will stay there! The pack will move on but this one dumb cow just sticks to me 3 inches away from my bumper. I turn on my left turn signal and hop lanes and dumb cow rushes back to the stampede. I don’t mean dumb disparagingly, just in terms of how this sort of primal nature takes over when we drive and we feel obligated to keep up. Several of my friends tailgate like this. They think they are excellent drivers. Its good to realize this because when someone tailgates me now I don’t automatically think they are being a jerk. I think they have no idea. So have you ever noticed the buffalo car stampede? If not, I invite you to try the 3 second rule.

There. I did it. That’s what I wanted. Being a writer you always feel constipated. There’s something in there, at the bottom and you can’t get to it necessarily. But that was a satisfying turd.