text: I’ve started to write something. I don’t really know what I’m writing, but I’d like to spill my stream of consciousness out onto a page, grasping my thoughts, before they drift away again. I don’t know where they drift off to, there’s nowhere they could physically go, but they do. It seems to be important to acknowledge all these thoughts, accept them, but don’t dwell on them. I spend far too much time thinking, overthinking, arguing with the voice in my brain, so I thought I’d give that voice in my brain another task. That voice in my brain is now typing out this, and at least it stops him arguing with myself. I find that if I keep that voice adequately occupied, it prevents us squabbling, and that way I can live peacefully. I’ve never tried meditation- to me it’s like a mixed martial arts, training myself mentally against the annoying voice- but I’ve never done it. It’s probably the annoying voice that has convinced me not to, outsmarting me in a way, so that I cannot defeat him. I’m speaking of this other voice as though it isn’t really me, but it is, and it seems that everybody has another annoying voice. If not, we’d all walk around completely content with ourselves- not afraid to speak to girls, to large groups of people and just being happy to be alive. This annoying voice spends far too much time regretting what I haven’t done in a day and why I’ve been staring at my phone for multiple hours. Without it, I think I’d be happy just surviving. After all, we’re only here to survive, so why aren’t I happy just doing this? There’s something special about humans. Our quest for surviving has evolved as we have. We no longer just search for twigs, to light a fire, to keep ourselves warm, to cook food, to stay alive, to have children. We also have that annoying voice, which perhaps isn’t so annoying. It makes us curious, it makes us do stuff and that’s what makes us better as a race. Without that voice, I would not be wandering aimlessly in my thoughts right now. I seem to be fighting that voice right now, desperately trying to add some structure to these thoughts, to develop a storyline, and almost an argument for this piece of writing. But I shouldn’t need to, I want to let that voice do the talking. The voice is probably the reason why we are surviving now, and is setting is up for success as we colonise other planets- instead of sitting here waiting for the next existential threat. It tells you to get off your arse, but it also makes your mind wander and ask questions. The voice will keep asking those questions, badgering away and being “annoying” until we find the answers. At which point, it will ask another question and the cycle continues. But we have bettered ourselves in this time, we now understand about the depths of the universe, we can speak to someone thousands of miles away, we can manipulate energy into many forms and we can keep ourselves free from disease and illness quite effectively. So maybe the annoying voice isn’t so bad after all. Its incessant nagging can get tedious at times, but it’s remarkable ability to take me places, without going anywhere, and tell me to doing something, without actually saying anything, is very special. However, we still know very little about how that voice operates, in a location we have named “the brain”, the most complex organism in the universe. I think, that instead of trying to train the annoying voice, I should let the voice train me, let it ask those questions and I’ll seek the answers, riding out the misery it does sometimes inflict. Because maybe one day, once we’ve answered all of the questions, the annoying voice will tell us a bit about itself. We will have mastered the brain. I think I’ll try to befriend the annoying voice.