The Brain is a Dick
Not literally.
But, yes the brain can be a metaphorical dick. Out of all the organs in our body, we seem to give the brain the most credit. After all, the brain holds our conscience, the very foundation of who we are. The brain is supposed to be smart. It’s supposed to tell all the other organs what to do. Right?
Actually, I don’t really fucking know how it all works.
Look at the other organs… They are for the most part, self healing. How smart is that!
How about the skin? I read somewhere that the skin is the biggest organ. That’s basically the extent of my knowledge of medicine. The internet!
I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve accidentally cut myself or scraped a knee and apparently the red blood cells all rush into action. Then, like magic, in a few days the wound is healed!
A nervous tick I have, involves me picking away at the skin around my fingernails. Sometimes, I’ll look down at my hands and realize I’m bleeding. Self induced bleeding for no reason.
What the hell is my brain doing?
Shovelling snow this winter I fell off the porch, spraining my ankle and tearing a muscle in my arm… I think. Sounds good anyway. I could barely walk on my ankle or bend my arm a certain way. Then sure enough, a few weeks later, my limp is now gone and my arm is back to normal. Amazing.
What about the lungs? Look at all the shit we breath in on a daily basis for years and the lungs, if we’re lucky, still manage to keep us going for the better part of a century. We can inhale literal poison over and over again for decades! Yet, lung function will noticeably improve within weeks of quitting smoking.
Again, thank you internet!
You want to talk about filtering out poison? The liver! The friggin’ powerhouse of the body. It filters out all the shit we shove down our throats. Not only that, it’s apparently the only organ that can regenerate itself. Are you kidding me?! That’s a sci-fi movie going on inside our bodies.
Of course, these organs are all “self-healing” to an extent. If we constantly beat them up without giving them a break, they give out and we die. You know who doesn’t give a shit?
THE BRAIN.
The liver of an alcoholic can be crying out for help and the brain goes… “ahh have another drink! YOLO!” The lungs of a chain smoker could be shrivelled up like a raisin and the brain still sends that signal —
“Nicotine! I need it, damn it!”
I’ve dealt with depression and overeating for the better part of my life and after finally losing 100 pounds in my early thirties, I feel alive once again. Why didn’t my brain crave exercise instead of a number 6 from Wendy’s at midnight?
Oh God, the spicy chicken…
Hey, the heart wants what the heart wants right? No! The heart pumps blood through our incredible bodies to keep us alive. That’s what it does. Why do we blame our hopeless love lives on the heart? That’s the brain tricking us! The brain is literally tricking itself and blaming another organ for its failings!
What a dick.
Of course, I could be wrong. Maybe it’s just my brain that’s a dick. I mean, I look around everyday and see successful happy people who are clearly better than me and I’ll be a miserable failure foreve— wait no! That’s the brain tricking me again, damn it! That sneaky bastard.
Or maybe…
Maybe the brain is just another organ as innocent as the rest of them. Maybe there’s another culprit.
The Mind.
The mind is such a mystery. It isn’t tangible. We can’t see it or touch it. We conflate it with the brain all the time, but maybe it’s not as simple as that. I mean, we’ve heard countless stories of people retraining their brain. Anything from bad habits to past horrific trauma. So who’s in control of the mind?
Well, it’s us!
Our very conscience is the mind. Our whole damn being. If we suffer from addiction, depression or other diseases of the mind, the brain doesn’t have a choice but to fall in line.
I guess if I’ve learned anything from going through my weight loss journey, other than loathing people who call it a “journey,” it’s that small actions lead to big change. Replacing a Wendy’s number 6 with something from the menu of a restaurant that doesn’t reduce their food to a number, was a literal life changer.
When I feel depression creeping up behind me, even as a write this, I know that simply getting outside and going for a walk has the potential to greatly improve my mood. Of course, it’s not always that simple and it doesn’t mean we don’t need to seek outside help.
Modern medicine, while not the be-all end-all, is a wonderful tool that’s improved countless lives and is constantly getting better. I benefitted greatly from seeing a psychiatrist for a few years, even though it still took me a while to realize it.
It’s an ongoing process.
So, I guess the real takeaway here is that it doesn’t do us any good to blame others for our own situation. Even other organs. At the end of the day, it’s our own mind that’s in control of us.
We are the dicks. If we choose to be.
