Isn't it funny how our brains, generally so superbly capable, can get things so surprisingly wrong?
I was talking with a friend about dreams yesterday. Sometimes I wake up from dreams so vivid I struggle to distinguish what is reality. I have gone to work grumpy with a colleague who offended me in a dream, and who then had to suffer me being cross with him...on account of something that had happened in my subconscious.
A week or two ago I was out for a run (well, OK, a wheezy shuffle), and I saw my friend Sarah run past the end of the street I was approaching. I decided to catch her up and run with her awhile. Off I galumphed. I saw her glance back and pick up the pace. Hmph I thought. So I picked up my own pace. Soon I was thundering down the street, but she just kept running faster and faster. Eventually my resolve faltered so I let her go, puffing and wheezing I watched her long pony tail swinging off into the distance. Then my brain caught up and reminded me that Sarah has short hair. I don't know who I'd been chasing, but the poor lady must have been scared half to death.
Similarly, my unreliable grey matter has led me to believe absolute truths, and defend them vehemently to others, which are entirely imagined.
I believed for years that moose were bovine. Big cows. Then one day, in my thirties, years of misconceptions came tumbling down with a quick google search. Cervine. Big deer. Seriously? Next they will be telling me that hippos aren't giant pigs.
Sarah (she who lacks a pony-tail), calls it Turnbull Logic. I am glad to have a term for it. For me it started young. Mishearing my father, I came to the unshakable belief that his horse was a "Power Board horse". Dad had actually said he was piebald (the horse was actually skewbald, but that is not important right now), but not knowing what that meant, my resourceful little brain filled in the gaps with something more familiar. When inquiring adults wondered why on earth the Power Board would have need for a horse, I thought nothing of it, why wouldn't they need one?
So the moral is that it doesn't hurt to stop and check the information that comes pouring out of our brains from time to time, just in case a little bit of misinformation has clouded the water a little bit.
So until next time, make sure you heat that teapot before you brew the tea.
love
Ironmaiden
