Poem: "Debugging the Brain"

[ysabetwordsmith]

This poem came out of the March 6, 2018 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired by prompts from janetmiles , we_are_spc (Isaiah), and rix_scaedu. It also fills the "understanding" square in my 1-31-18 You Are card for the Valentines Bingo fest. This poem has been sponsored by janetmiles.


"Debugging the Brain"


The mind is a complicated thing,
a program with myriad subroutines
always running in the subconscious.

Bad tape and bad habits, desires
and addictions corrupt the data.

Foibles and phobias gobble up
bandwidth, slow down processing,
spread through your head like viruses,
and pop up at inopportune times.

They are the cruft that accrues
over the course of a lifetime.

Understanding is the key to healing.

Only when you know what is happening
inside your head can you change it.

What can be programmed,
can also be reprogrammed.

There are ways to debug your brain.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
excels at identifying distorted thoughts
and straightening them out again.

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing
defuses volatile emotions so they don't explode
and reduce your life to smoking rubble.

Positive Affirmations replace bad tape
with good tape, allowing you to choose
the programs that you load into your brain.

Computers are all about hardware and software,
while human beings are all about wetware.

Live. Breathe. Think. These are
the actions that shape our personalities,
and they are within our control.

For every fear, there is
a line of logic to reduce it.

For every addiction, there are
some unmet needs that could be
met in more constructive ways.

For every savage calumny,
there is a compassionate truth.

The tools are there, waiting,
like the gleaming steel devices
that lie inside an engineer's kit.

With these, you can create
the personality you dream of.

So think it through:

You can be an end user,
at the mercy of programs
you didn't put in your head
and don't want to have there.

Or you can learn to code
and become a wizard,
hack your head so that
it holds what you want.

Debug wetware now:
Yes / No / Maybe?

* * *

Notes:

Cruft is leftover code from earlier editions of software that make later editions run poorly.

Therapy can help people overcome personal difficulties. Know the hallmarks of good therapy. Learn how to choose the right kind of therapy and the right therapist for you.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) teaches people to recognize and overcome cognitive distortions. However, a known failure mode of CBT that often appears in worksheet examples is replacing one distorted thought with another, because it's very tempting to replace a negative distortion with a more pleasant but equally fictitious one. You really have to concentrate on sticking to objective facts.

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing Therapy (EMDR) uses gaze and tapping to relieve stress. It goes through a set of phases to deliver its benefits. Where CBT deals in logic, EMDR deals in emotion. It eases difficult feelings so that they stop causing problems.

Positive Affirmations offer a way to reprogram your mind. Once the bad tape is out, you can put good tape in to replace it. Remember that bad tape has to be replaced the same way it went in: one line at a time. This takes patience to achieve results, but it does work. Explore how to write good affirmations and use them effectively. Here are some examples to get you started, sorted by topic.

Comments

[acelightning]

I just want to defrag the damn thing!

Well ...

[ysabetwordsmith]

That's what sleep is for. When you sleep, your brain collates and stores memory from that day, organizing it more concisely than the first rough-sort while you're awake. If you're not getting good enough results from that, try yoga nidra, a discipline designed for more efficient and mystical sleep. Other forms of meditation may also help.

The basics:
https://www.yogajournal.com/meditation/your-brain-on-yoga-nidra

Where it says "set an intention" just fill in "defrag wetware."
https://www.yogajournal.com/meditation/10-steps-of-yoga-nidra

Guided meditation:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7H0FKzeuVVs

Re: Well ...

[acelightning]

Thanks - I needed a new one! Of course, I learned all sorts of meditation and relaxation techniques, as part of my Priestess training (and was amused when the natural-childbirth coaches taught exactly the same procedures). But any given meditation loses its effectiveness after a while, and the one I'd been using had just plain worn out. Now I've got a nice sparkly new one, and I thank you!

[thnidu]

AhA. On first reading I thought you'd written "defrog", as opposed to "debug". Ribbit!

[acelightning]

Why would I want to do that? I have no problem with Kermit! :-)

[siliconshaman]

*sigh*

Personally, I'd like some upgrades.. hardware, wetware and software. Although a little more downtime to defrag and recompile would be nice too..

Amen, Brother!

[dialecticdreamer]

If I could have any superpower, ever, I'd install the ultra-language processor that I want. I go NUTS when I notice things like a mismatch between the spoken Spanish and the English subtitles, but I can't seem to gain enough FLUENCY.... Mumblegrumble, mumblegrumble.

Defrag and recompile are urgent tasks, but the other thing I need is regular parity checking for errors that are starting to sneak in!

Re: Amen, Brother!

[siliconshaman]

I'd like a new maths co-processor.. the old one broke and the work-around using non-optimised CPU hardware to fill in doesn't really work very well. Ditto on the language processor, I've got an old chip-set where the firmware is for Old Norse and it doesn't much like running the default Eng-Uk much less any other modern languages.

Some more I/O ports would be useful too... ethernet or even USB-C would be good, wifi would be great. But those are not supported on this platform. Yet.

Re: Amen, Brother!

[siliconshaman]

Oh.. and that's why the the Pirates Parrot kept saying "Pieces of seven, pieces of seven" .. parroty error.

Re: Amen, Brother!

[ysabetwordsmith]

Error checking would be so useful. One thing that I struggle with is trying to distinguish between biological errors and technological errors. Is the problem I'm having because a product was poorly built or is breaking down? Or is it because my body is clunky or wearing out?

[we_are_spc]

Yaaaayyy!

(Isaiah's going ot be a happy boy. :d)

...

And 2 days before our body's birthday too! :d (We are one of these confusing systems where not every member shares the body's birthday-Jays is at the end of March, for instance, and me personally (Fallon)...my brother Rillin and I were born in September.)

Reading this through a second time is yea, too. :)

-Fallon~

Thank you!

[ysabetwordsmith]

>> Yaaaayyy!

(Isaiah's going ot be a happy boy. :d) <<

I'm glad to hear that.

>> And 2 days before our body's birthday too! <<

Happy body-birthday!

[technoshaman]

*smacks the "YES" button so hard he nearly breaks the mouse*

(metaphorically)

And this is the point where the debugger pops up and I realise I'm gonna need a LOT of screen real estate for all the man(ual) pages... (The Unix/Linux command for "display the manual page for this" is "man", thus the quasi-contraction...)

Right. This ain't gonna fly before work. :) *shoves the whole environment on the stack for later...*

Your timing, once again, is exquisite...

Buddy system

[dialecticdreamer]

Since you're working with MUCH better base knowledge, can I offer cheering and other support while 'watching' your system progress?

Thank you!

[ysabetwordsmith]

I'm glad you found this so moving, and timely.

[redsixwing]

I really like this one.

And +1 to the comments on your timing; it is good.

Thank you!

[ysabetwordsmith]

I'm glad it worked for you.

[oldtoadwoman]

I need to tack this on my wall.

Thank you!

[ysabetwordsmith]

I am flattered. If hanging it on your wall would help, by all means do so.

[antisocialite_forum]

Adding to your notes on timing. I was talking about something similar with a friend last night.

Most of my meatware problems are physical. Low energy, high fatigue, high refractory period when it comes to doing anything. Those all follow me here.

This body has its own set of wetware problems - it's taking its time to adapt to being passed around to different users. Ideally it would be an empty vessel with built in user-support. What it is now is pretty buggy, and it's terrible at integrating whatever new software a user is supplying.
The body has a memory of what it feels like without a user - a lot of base instinct and psychic pain. It's reasonably well-known what users are *dealing* with, but most people are too worried about making it worse to try to go through a backdoor to fix it.

(Brief reminder to prevent a potential problem, body isn't plural. Compare apartment complex (plural group/multiple system) to one-person rental home (visitors using the body))

- Dimitri

Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith]

That sounds really frustrating. Like Air B&B for souls. 0_o

[scrubjayspeaks]

*flappy hands* Best metaphor is best! I love the sense of positivity and power in this, the hope inherent in all DIY, including when the project is repairing one's mental system.

Thank you!

[ysabetwordsmith]

>> *flappy hands* Best metaphor is best! <<

I'm glad this worked for you.

>> I love the sense of positivity and power in this, the hope inherent in all DIY, including when the project is repairing one's mental system. <<

I am a staunch supporter of person-centered therapy, the point of which is to give you access to the source code of your wetware and sysadmin authority to fix it. Some people just need a few new modules or bit of debugging. Some people have viruses eating up all their processing power that will take ages to clear out. But once you're in there, you can do something to make matters better.

It's your head. You decide what happens to it.

[acelightning]

I really like the poem! (And I'm amused by the way the comments play out...)

Thank you!

[ysabetwordsmith]

I'm glad you liked this.