Options of escape, rejected.

I have mentioned a few times in posts about how great the human mind is at simulation. I have help this view from very young and have had an active imagination since I can remember. I never had an imaginary friend or pretended to be fighting dragons. I imagined what could happen.

I even remember some of these things from when I was quite young such as: I was maybe seven and was home with my 80 year old Grandad. I am really not sure who was babysitting who. There was an old electricity meter inside that would tick loudly from time to time but this is the first time I really noticed it. To me, it sounded like a bomb timer.

I sat there, my grandad asleep in his chair in front of the fire place, listening to this tick. The trigger could go off at anytime. I should mention, the house I grew up in was a very large, old farm house that is the scariest place I have ever been (And we lived 100 meters from an old cemetery we would play in at night). The stories I have of that place. Where the ticking was coming from was dark and even though there were lights I could have put on, I didn't.

I sat, scared and so still and silent, I could hear my own bones creak. I imagined who put the bomb there and why. I thought about what it would look like as it exploded. I stared at my grandad and felt the agony of losing him, a person I loved, in such a way and then, thought how I would likely be killed also. I thought what it may feel like or whether it would happen so fast it wouldn't feel at all. I thought about what my parents would look like when they saw the house burning and then discovered what had happened. I thought what my siblings would do. I wondered if anyone would miss me.

I then thought, what I could do about the bomb. Maybe I could defuse it by cutting the wires like in the movies. What would happen if I couldn't find something to cut the wires though. I could maybe move it away somewhere safe. I may not make it but my grandad may. What if I woke my grandad as he might know what to do. Maybe I couldn't wake him in time though. It is up to me...

I questioned this way on and on for what must have been an hour while my grandad softly snored in the chair with the worn gold fabric. At some point, the lights from my parents car lit the walls as they entered the long driveway and when they finally walked in and my grandad stirred, my mum asked if everything went okay. And I replied, yes, fine.

But why did I do it? Why didn't I turn on a light. Why imagine such things when there is no need?

This is something I still do. Not only with bombs of course. I trap myself. I put myself in an imaginary situation and keep removing loopholes until there is no way out I observe at each point. The little successes when I find a loophole and the small loss as I remove it again. When I am trapped, no move to make, that is when I am the most aware and the most calm. No more success or failure. Acceptance. This is a meditation I guess. An observing of the self. Some of the scenarios I imagine are horrific beyond belief. Yet, there I am trapped inside.

This is the power of the mind. It can simulate these things without it ever becoming a reality. It can build itself and repair itself with no more than a thought. Or a lack of one as the case may be. Too often, when faced with difficult thinking areas, we look for and take the loopholes. We avoid the psychological discomforts of the mind. We have been trained to do be this way, to find the right answer and then stop and glow in the success and triumph.

As I see it, the world we live in is unpredictable and we never truly know what we will face. We also do not know where the answers to a problem may lay. If it happens to be in a place that we will not even entertain in mental simulation, the chances of us venturing there in the real world drop significantly. Unless forced.

This training stretches my mind, prepares it to move. Just in case. Remaining calm in adversity is a skill and it is one that we should all build as who knows what can happen in the volatility of a lifetime. Sometimes, I think myself a little bit of a freak for doing this kind of activity but at the same time, when there have been situations that have progressed fast, required immediate action and the clearest thinking possible. at those times I am the most calm. I can pull things together and push through fears to do what is necessary. Perhaps it was the training.

Sun Tzu said something about never trapping an enemy into a corner because it is from there that they will fight the hardest. Always leave an easier way out. He also said that when your army has crossed the water you should burn the boats and bridges taking the option of retreat away from your soldiers.

This to me means that I should burn the psychological loopholes so there is no way out, and see what animal lies within. And then I tame that animal and teach it to act on my command.

Taraz
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