Mind Games

When I was younger, I would stop mid-stream in a thought and wonder, how did I get here? How did I get to be in my bed, staring at the dark ceiling after lights out and thinking about what it would be like to race with sled dogs in Alaska? And then I would think backwards—right before this, I was thinking about that movie, Iron Will, that I saw on TV last month, and how it was a funny name for the movie because Will was the name of the character but it was also, like, willpower and intention and strength and stuff—and I started thinking about that because I was thinking about my cousin Will, who was a history major at Virginia Tech, and how he once took an entire semester class that only talked about the Reconstruction (after the civil war) and imagine spending a whole semester, months, just talking about what was only a small frame in time and space—which I started thinking about that because I was thinking about how there were probably tons of things missing from the Bible and the scriptures, that is why it is so weird sometimes, I mean they talk about whole generations in a matter of verses—and I was thinking about that because I was thinking about what I would say if someone asks me about evolution—and I was thinking about that because I was thinking about this one girl from school, who thought that cave men were something that was made up by scientists to confuse creationist Christians—and before that I was thinking about the Flintstones. And that is why I am thinking about racing sled dogs in Alaska right now.

And it was a pretty fun game. It helped me, if not to understand my own mind, then to at least appreciate the weirdness and the twists and turns that free form thinking before bedtime can take you on. And I think it was a healthy memory and thinking awareness activity, realizing where your thoughts can go.

The How Did I Get Here? Game is not as fun anymore. I mean, sometimes I do it with my thoughts, and that is still very fun, but most of the time, it isn’t about my thought histories anymore. It is when I look up from my computer and I’ve been piddling around online for three hours and I think, how did I get here?

Today, I looked up in the middle of browsing through Cat Marnell’s twitter, which I got to after reading a New Inquiry article on her, which I got to from a link on a beauty blog, which I got to from a friend posting it on Facebook on another friend’s page. I don’t even know who Cat Marnell is and I never read Vice so I’m not really going to find out. Before that I was reading an article on raising kids with same sex parents that someone posted on Facebook, and that led me to reading an extremely conservative blog called the Thinking Housewife. Later, I’m browsing articles on Psychology Today, also because of something posted on Facebook, and reading about the 9 Habits of Successful people, most of which it turns out I’m kind of middling on, according to the linked quiz.

So, my backtracking takes me to Facebook, Facebook, and Facebook.

And unlike the fun and effort it takes to connect my own thoughts backwards in time, reviewing the path of my internet travels is so blah. It doesn’t reflect my imagination, or my ability to think, or anything but passively reading/consuming/clicking on links. That isn’t what I value about life, and so it makes me sad.

In case you don’t know anything about me at all, I have a compulsive and addictive personality. This means that the internet is like a deadly mix of all the things that prey on my weaknesses, and it really kills me to be so tied to all that.