BRAIN DUMPING?

  Gotta' love it. Always an opportunity to learn, even in the senior rusty years. Try it. The results can make you moan or laugh or go mad with sheer frustration. Well worth it. Keeps that brain ticking and well-oiled with new input. Might even grow some new gray cells. Nothing to lose and a lot to gain.

Today's word of the day is the title - brain dumping. Now we all know lots of people who seemingly have already dumped their brains, now moldering on some garbage heap somewhere, possibly on a compost pile, serving a purpose at last. Does give some comfort that finally, a use for political brains.

In actuality, brain dumping is a method wherein one supposedly dumps all content of one's brain onto a piece of paper, writing it all down. Humpf. I sure as shootin' would need more than one piece and extended time if typing on a computer screen.  The dumping is supposed to release the anxiety one feels, emptying the mind, allowing one to reset, prioritize, and one can just feel the Zen moment!

Actually, this is but a new name for the simple idea of knowing what one can fix and what can one not fix. Worry about what is within one's ability to cause a change, affect an issue and not about what is beyond the reality we live in. You know, like when wives tell the hubbies to worry about the big things, like world peace, nuclear disarmament, and wives will take care of the little things in life, the 'smalls' - budgeting, paying bills, deciding where the money is to be spent, where to go on vacation - you know, the smalls, the oh so important things that make up life.

Quite frankly, if I were to sit down and type out a list of all that is in my brain, running around inside the skull, it would freak me out. I would never get it done, always seeking out what I perhaps left out, lest it forever cause me anxiety! Did I leave out the next sixteen planned projects? What if I forgot one? Does that mean I must then disregard that thought? Did I purposely leave it out and what does that mean? Did I remember all the paints I need to order from Jerry's Artarama? But there it is, now dredged up from the depths of my definitely cluttered mind, so I should add it to the list, right? But I thought I had finished the list? Do I now relist? In what category? Will the list ever be finished? What if I remember something new, or a new anxiety or task arises in midday? And then? 

Oh, the anxiety level is rising, fast, faster.... I can just see the new Dr. Seuss book - Oh, the Anxiety Games - as it rhymes away the whole mess of brain dumping. Seriously, sit down and begin the task. Is the list ever done? Can we not simply list our to do list and forget the other issues. Leave Putin to the rest of the world. Turkey might actually be of use when they threaten to ally with Ukraine. Might stop Putin with a hit on his head, desperately needed.

 The pandemic? Soon we will all have had it, mostly a bad cold for the majority, like the flu, and we will stop panicking - at least until the next round of animal to human transfer comes around. So just keep those masks around, the comfy ones, the effective ones, and get on with life. Stop confusing science with idiocy and take the shots and get real, for G-d's sake - and for the sake of the rest of us.

Now I know there are some important issues we cannot leave out. An example, you ask. O, here is one. Is Justin Trudeau actually the child or grandchild of Fidel Castro? Oh, my goodness! Now where does that fit on my list? World crises? Crackpot issues? Concern re the rising level of insanity in the world? How can I fit that worry in among my concern over rising food prices? Oh, the anxiety. Rising, rising, and how do I fix it. 

Is it better to list in the morning? But what if I am running late? What if I try to write it at work - and the boss catches me!? Uh-oh. New worry. If I leave it to the prebedtime ritual, I will never get to bed or sleep if I do get into bed. Not with all that circling my brain. Now I have a headache, a majorly mammoth one. 

My conclusion? Brain dumping? Too many of us are dumping gray cells every time we start to list. Simply write a to do list, for you and for the rest of the family so they can get on with life. Always remember: There is always another day, and if not, then why worry? It will not matter! See? Simple. Now throw away that list and here is one problem you can chew on all day, comfortably, knowing it is out of your hands, so the worry is not yours to take on. Here it is.

How do we get those truckers back on the job so the supply chain creaks back to life, and we can stop gasping as the prices rise even more? What?  Are we supposed to give up eating? Seriously, write a letter to your representative, a forceful, but polite one, suggest that they expel Rand Paul for incompetence and stupidity. Then grin, smugly, for you have done your job, and get to work on what you can do. Earn that paycheck, be a good person, love your family, be a good friend, help capture the latest nut job on a plane, give some charity and off you go. You have had a good day. Tomorrow will take care of itself - tomorrow.