Not long ago I wrote a poem that was about retraining my brain to think. This always sounds funny to me, no matter how many times I read it. No matter how many times I write it. Who has to learn how to think?

What a ultra-maroon.

Bugs Bunny

I suppose it would be easy to think I might be referring to recovering from some sort of medical event, a stroke perhaps or any of the many other misfortunes that might befall one and make the very act of forming thoughts a skill that must be relearned.

I am not.

To explain what I am, in fact, speaking of it will require opening myself up and sharing more about myself, my past, my struggles with mental illness…

…as well as the place I am today, the things I thought lost forever being regained, one by one, dreams I’d spat upon and cursed now beginning to come to pass.

It’s a shit story with a happy ending. (No, not that kind. You guys are the worst.)

But rather than try to sit still long enough to write a memoir or whatevs I figured I’d chip at this idea, this self-revelation, self-examination… bit by bit.

Here’s what we’re looking at:

Regular readers of the blog and my Instagram followers have read about and even seen pictures of my journal. I journal quite a bit. I’ve likened the practice to a symptom of a disease, and of course the disease is being a writer. You write all goddamn day for your keep, then sit down in your easy chair and pull out the journal and a fountain pen and write some more. (For the record this is not a picture of my journal, although I’m a bit jelly of that pen).

Occasionally I get introspective in there, (when I’m not whining about whatever feeling of mine got hurt most recently or spouting gibberish free verse, representing the unclogging of mental pipes in the most base format). And sometimes those sessions form themselves into something passably like an essay. That happened today, giving me the idea to create this section on the website.

A series of essays, posted with no regularity, no road map. Just what one of my heroes, the late, very great George Carlin liked to call Brain Droppings, (and yes the image to the right is a link to the book which I’m doing because I love you.) I think these thoughts, (because I have regained the ability to do so), I scribble about them in my journal, and, if after reading them myself, they seem to make any sense, I’ll post a link to them here. I don’t intend to make a huge deal about them. Not looking for tons of feedback (although of course I’ll welcome it) or anything else grand and profound. I’m just trying to turn the lens upon myself to see if there’s something I can learn. Maybe through sharing someone else might learn something as well. Why the hell not?

Why?

I kind of answered that before I asked it, but there’s a slightly less cavalier answer as well. One of the results of regaining the ability to think has been the formation of the following notion:

I would like to get everything from this life that I can.

Me

I am committed to living what remains of my life to the fullest. I am committed to looking at myself and striving to understand what leads me to the decisions I make, what I’m doing that is enriching my experience on this planet, and what, conversely, is depleting me and that I could therefore be doing less of.

So in a way, I guess I’m writing the textbook to my own course called, “Living a Live that Doesn’t Suck,” and I’m posting it here.

Enjoy.

The List

• Past Relationships: Gleaning some Meaning