Left brain right brain

After a furious phone call to the people at GoTalk, I am informed that I should receive my modem tomorrow, Friday, which will make it 3 and a half weeks since I first signed up. That's almost double what they told me at the beginning. Granted, hooking up for naked DSL takes a long time because it involves working through another telecommunications company as well. But sheesh, guys - if it's gonna take 4 weeks, tell me 4 weeks. Then I'll be prepared. If you tell me it's gonna be 2 weeks and then it blows out the way it has, then you'll just piss me off.

I've heard some dodgy things about this company. It remains to be seen whether their internet delivery is better than their estimations. Being without the internet for a month at home has actually been a good thing for me. I wonder if it is coincidence that all this weird spiritual stuff has gone on at the same time. Sometimes I think if I got rid of everything and sat in a field, I would have the most amazing experiences :)

I have been working with a writing book that uses clustering, or mind-mapping. I'm sure you've seen them somewhere. You write a word down in the middle of the page and circle it, and then just start branching out with word associations, writing down whatever comes into your head. It's an interesting thing to observe your left brain/right brain arguments during this exercise. The left brain is groaning, feeing uncomfortable, saying, "This is just stupid. What do all of these things have in common? I don't see any pattern here. You're just making it up as you go along. This is dumb." Yada yada yada.

Meanwhile the right brain is saying, "Ahh, trust me. Come along for the ride. Put your feet up. Have fun. There's purpose in my madness. Just trust me. You never trust me. Trust me."

And so sometimes, in these little vignettes I've been writing, the right brain gets to say, "See? See?" Because after writing a whole lot of different seemingly disparate words, suddenly I will get this little shift, this little mini aha moment where I get a sense that I am ready to write. Even though I still can't see the pattern. And so I start writing, and it's not until I start writing, with the left brain kicking into gear as well, that suddenly it will come into view, like being able to see one of those 3D picture things. And it all shifts into gear, the writing flows and I am surprised by this nicely rounded little self contained vignette.

Even though I have no idea where I am going or what I am doing, and even though this life is a painful thing, I know there is a pattern in here even if I can't see it. I know that. Life lived in the mystery is much more exciting and stimulating than a tightly-held life where I know where I am going next. I don't know how long it's been since I've known where I'm going next. And I don't care anywhere near as much as I once would have thought, because the story gets written richer here somehow, things come together when I'm not left-braining my life to death.

I can't see any pattern though. I can't see how all these disparate elements that are my life will come together. I can't see where my life is heading. It feels like a total bloody mess, to be honest. Looking in at it from the outside, it totally looks worse than it did 10 years ago. I feel like more and more I march to a different drummer's beat than many of those around me. Often I can barely hear it. Sometimes I forget there is a song. But it's such a beautiful one, like a pied piper rat I just keep moving towards it, you know?

Next Monday, continuing on my "going straight to hell, do not collect $200" version of practising Christianity I am going to a shamanistic healing session, where people will beat drums over me and Satan shall enter into my soul, causing me to go and have wild uninhibited sex with men I don't know and a couple of goats on a hill, where afterwards I shall drink the blood of a sacrificed dog. Or something. Whatever happens, it should make for an interesting blog post :)

Disclaimer: I have just drunk a can of Bundy and Coke overproof. I don't drink anymore, not really. I'm a two-can screamer at the best of times. If this post doesn't make sense, that's why :)