I Am Not Nothing. Even Without My Ideas

I've been putting off this blog for the same reason I try to avoid journaling - I have too many thoughts. I try to stop them from all coming at once, but my mind is like a poorly built reservoir next to a thirsty city, with cracks going up and down its middle. And the moment one single drip escapes through a crack, one idea, I barely have time to examine it, drink it, enjoy it before the whole thing collapses and I am pummeled by an ocean of ideas. Who? Where? Why? How? What if? They swim past me and under me and over me...so far over me that I sometimes feel I will never reach the surface. And it takes all my energy, every ounce of me, to push all the water back, to make it reverse. To make it draw out of the houses and back down the streets, to make it pull houses together rather than break them apart. To make it place cars back in driveways and families back at dinner tables and dogs back in yards. To make everything safe. Safe but dry. And that's when I realize, I am still thirsty. That's why I am, against all better judgment attempting this blog. Because I need to examine my ideas, to drink them, to enjoy them. But I also need to find a way to make sure they don't destroy me and everything I care about.

Does that sound arrogant? I think it does. It has all the trappings of a narcissistic drama. Begging for help, or just attention? because I am special. I think more. I suffer more. Are they not all ploys to excuse the fact that I am trying to be more? Pathetic. Why should I suppose that I think more than anyone else? Have the audacity to even suppose my brain (of all the nearly 7 billion amazing amalgams of nervous tissue firing all over the planet) works faster, more efficiently, better? Despicable hubris. And yet...

I once owned an iPhone. I would never spend that kind of money on a phone, not because I don't think they are worth it (I believe everything is worth at least the money it costs but that is a series of thoughts for another day), but because electronics hate me. That is objectively true. It's been true as far back as I can remember. Whether it was the Gameboy when I was 9, the television when I was 11 or the desktop when I was 13, and then 15 and then 17... everything electronic that I own will fail, sometimes its because they are lost or stolen, sometimes its because I do something stupid but mostly, they just wake up one day and decide to cease working. They always give a warning, unexpected auto-shutoffs for the gameboy, a strange black line on the television screen, increasingly longer start-up times on the desktop... They try to say good bye, to give me time to prepare for their absence. People who haven't known me long always give the same advice: I should have it checked out, I can call this 1-800 number or stop by that store or check out this website.

This used to bother me. Did they really think that if those solutions actually worked I wouldn't have thought about them? Of all the hundreds of thoughts that have raced through my head, why would I miss the most obvious, unimaginative "have it checked out"? I thought perhaps they thought I was stupid, or slower, or just ignorant. I am, after all, black, and an immigrant and people who are not black or are not immigrants, even the nicest ones, seem to think those classes of people are somehow less knowledgeable than they are. What is especially funny is watching a black person interact with an immigrant on the bus. They both give each other odd stares, roll their eyes when they hear each other speak a little too loudly on the phone and shake their heads in a mixture of Pharisaic pity, irritation and gratitude. Completely oblivious to their actions and thoughts singing in tandem: "I'm sorry I'm me, but I would be even sorrier to be you" But I digress, that deserves its own post.

But there was another explanation for the incessant suggestions to "have it checked out", one that was less personally offensive but far more pernicious. Maybe not everyone had hundreds of thoughts running through their heads. Maybe they just had a dozen. Or even less. Maybe when they sit in silence, holding a broken laptop, all that goes through their minds is an unending "It's broken, it's broken, it's broken..." Or maybe that vacant look in their eyes, is matched by a vacant silence in their brains? So that when someone suggesting having it "checked out" there's a good chance that was the idea they needed to make that happen.But if people aren't thinking, what are they doing when they aren't talking or sleeping? Nothing? Like I said, bloodcurdling.

This would certainly explain the history of the world, from the stupid wars, and stupid racism, to the stupid playground bullying. Stupid ideas. Stupid thoughts. Because there were no good thoughts to counter them. There are next to no thoughts at all.

I opened this post by saying that I thought I was arrogant for thinking that I might think more than everyone else. I think I was correct, but not for the reasons I once thought. I am not condemned as arrogant by the fact that everyone else actually thinks just as much, if not more than, I do (they may, but I increasingly doubt this). I am condemend because I think that thinking more is something that I should be arrogant about.

Even if my brain does think more or works faster, there is no gurantee that it is working better.

On the contrary it might mean that it is broken.

I once owned an iPhone. And for two weeks it was my pride and joy. Then it fell out of my pocket as I was running to my dorm. I picked it up, horrified. It had taken far less for my electronics to bid me adieu in the past. But it was working fine. I gave a prayer of thanks and forgot all about it. Until that evening, when I felt a warm sensation in my pants. Not the good kind. I reached my hand into my pocket and my fingers were burned on the casing of my iPhone. I had to use a paper towel to get it out of my pants before it bruised my thigh but it was only once I had it in my protected hand that I heard the whirring.

People gathered round to see the sight. I placed it on a table and the wood only amplified the noise. The poor iPhone wouldn't respond to anything but it was working hard, something, some things? inside were turning, hurtling by the sounds of it, revolving around in a desperate attempt to...say goodbye? I think people were giving advice, I can't really remember, but they probbaly were - they always do. But I wasn't listening. I knew my iPhone was saying goodbye, giving me a chance to prepare myself before it became another useless collection of metal and plastic. The heat came from the friction as whatever was inside that black, rectangular casing performed its last rites. It was worked so hard, hard enough heat to warm my pants, bruise my thigh, burn my fingers. But not to turn itself back on.

Maybe that's what my brain is. Broken. It's whirring away inside my skull, the friction churning out ideas so fast I can't keep track of them: religion, politics, faith, business, policy, faith, religion, relationship, emotions, politics... So busy churning out ideas it can't turn itself on, be at peace, rest, be happy.

Maybe the reason so many people don't think so much, is because they figured out how to turn it off. It is those of us with endless ideas: writers and artists and philosophers and inventors and homeless people in the park at night, who are the foolish ones. And we don't even know we're broken.

Yet in all honesty, I do not want to know how to switch off my thoughts. Even when they make me sad, or angry or confused, they are who I am. What am I without my thoughts? My ideas? Nothing? Like I said, bloodcurdling.

I think that is the problem.

I am not nothing without my ideas.

After all a child is not nothing, an octogenarian with Alzheimer's is not nothing, a mentally handicapped nine year old is not nothing.

But I think I have forgotten the me beneath the ideas. They feel so large and looming, so all encompassing. Maybe I have come to trust them too much. Maybe the secret to turning off your brain is the confidence that you will still be something when you do.

I am not nothing without my ideas.

Even now I can hear the ideas calling from the other side of the dam. At once begging to be set free and threatening to come out anyway if I will not oblige - or to never come out again at all.

1. Good ideas shared are a public good. From an economic perspective, it is foolish to waste your time coming up with them as someone else will. No one should do it, unless you are a fool of course.
2. From an evolutionary perspective, it makes sense that there would be a few people with the defective gene that prevents them from turning their minds off. They would sink in the mire of their endless opinions, sentiments and persuasions while onlookers stopped by, carefully skipped over the undesirable ones and picked up one or two they might find useful and then were on their way. Just like a few people have sickle cell anemia so that the rest of their community doesn't have to get malaria.
3. How the stupid things happen because when most people won't think, a few people think a lot of evil thoughts. And how the people who think the most seem to be the most inept at judging what thoughts are evil and which ones are not. Is that why the are always either hateful or depressed and always crazy?
4. ...

Post-Script: As soon as had finished this post, I hit the wrong button and thought I had accidentally deleted it. A thousand thoughts rushed through my head but I can remember at least two: "All those ideas are gone. Forever." and then almost immediately "You are not nothing. Even without your ideas. Do you believe?" I believe, help my unbelief