Game in the Brain

There is a reddit thread about the how much someone distrusts the self. Of course, we always express emotion, and the emotion there is disgust, fear, and anger.  But recently I learned that its more help to just laugh at ourselves when we meditate and when we let emotions flow through.

So if you’ve been following my Mindfulness studies you’ll learn about the Accepting mode of Emotion in Meditation. That we don’t try to control it, because controlling intensifies the emotion, instead we let it flow. Recently I’ve been having my negative thoughts and a part of me was Calling out the Emotion “Where did that come from? Where did you get that Idea? Why are you thinking this?” and the voice is from the playful side of myself – that voice who is there when friends are around, the voice that joins in the jokes and puns, the voice that looks at a serious thing and just notices the juxtaposition and what is funny about it.

It’s the me I associate with Henry, my Brother Jobert and my Airsoft team. That Voice that would play along in the game of who can take the more outrageous perspective in a situation.

So as I try to meditate and let bad thoughts flow this Joker is there telling the emotion – “Yeah go, don’t mind me I’m just here for the show”. “You’re going to go through that sick thought, go ahead I’m not stopping you.” and strangely there is this reaction like the Emotion is all of a sudden self-conscious – “I’m going to do the bad thought, I’m going to say the terrible things, I’m doing all sorts of inappropriate images!” and there is that voice again, that voice I havent heard from the longest time when I gave up on hanging out with friends to do more work and focus more on family. The voice is there saying “Yeah I hear you – go on.”

Its awkward and weird. There is a me saying “be loving and considerate” and there is a me that is making side comments, at the emotions and making all the emotions self conscious. Then the self-conscious emotions seem to break into simpler and simpler abstractions. Fear, Anger, Self-loathing, etc… out of small harmless reasons. But the kinder voice in me having a conversation with the voice of fun saying we’re trying to be understanding. The voice of fun is saying – “I know but its hilarious”, like a kid trying to justify their actions the voice of fun is pointing out how strange and weird this all is.

the Voice is a little bit of Henry, henry was the older brother for us 3 brothers we had from 1998 till we didn’t have time to hang out anymore in 2013ish. He would always point out how pervy, awkward, and silly our actions are. He would call us out in a loving and understanding way – “I like hentai as much as the next person but isn’t that weird?” and try to take the Observational humor in our games and make fun of us.

There is no insecurity in being made fun of, its was there in the start but with friends we realize someone who didnt care would have not called us out and not showed us a mirror of our behavior.

Before we stopped hanging out there was a board game that I excelled in where we tried to predict our behavior. I dont think its about Empathy its about creating Behavioral Models in ones head. Empathy is understanding the feelings and simulating it to have an understanding that escapes words in its complexity and immersion. Behavior models is just more refined archetypes of the person. Enough to role-play them but not really able to fully appreciate the emotional complexity in people.

Its interesting that we can approach Mindfulness and detach from the Self by not taking our Illusory narratives so seriously. That there is a way to see it all as funny and laugh at ourselves and our attempts to conjure a narrative of Ego and Self.

parting thought – its almost like henry is there calling me out “There you go justin, over thinking things again and then your back is joining in the self pity fest. Hay nako*” where the voice and imagery turns to that of a School Teacher calling out an errant kid (Henry is a School teacher btw; he gives us his understanding teacher voice, with a hint of sarcasm).
*a filipino expression like gimme a break.