It’s the thinking me that I need to get away from. The doubting, questioning, incessantly narrating, expressively pointless, part of myself that I am at odds with.
Drinking does it’s job well as a social lubricant, even with the part of me that I can’t stand. I get along with him the same way I got along with all my ex’s friends. I was drunk before they showed up.
To actually be free of that monkey with an organ grinder in my skull, there are only three reliable avenues that I have found.
Utter physical exhaustion. Abject fear. And getting so immersed in a book that the author’s reality eclipses my own and for that stretch of concentration I cannot stray from well worded narrative offered up before me.
I don’t know which part of myself is the authentic one. I suppose it would depend on your ideas of spirituality, or your history, or culture.
Like them individually, or not, I’ve discovered that I rely on both of these aspects of my existence. It sort of helps to acknowledge that on those days when My Talkshow Host won’t shut the fuck up and can’t tune him out.