My Brain Explained

Okay folks, big day today and lots of stuff to cover.  So I am forewarning you to go pee, grab your beverage of choice, (pack a cooler if you wish) and get prepared to read.  I am going to explain how my brain works and I will do so with examples so that you will also get a written diagram as to how it works.  I will also be explaining exactly how I got there, hence the forewarning.

Most of this happened from the time I woke up and read a text and before I went to work.  Extra stuff got added while driving the bus today. Here is what I will explain: I figured out 5 new core values I hold today: Efficiency, Time, Logic, Reason, and Fun. Add those to Truth and Beauty, which I figured out before I started the blog and we now have 7.  I will start with a brief bit of background, then jump into this morning’s text that prompted this whole process.

First and foremost, I am very much of a “whole-picture” type of person. I don’t understand a lot of stuff until all of the details are filled in and I ask a zillion questions to reach that place of understanding. Turns out this drives people nuts, but it also drives me nuts not knowing. This is why History is such a difficult subject for me. Not grade-wise, I can memorize stuff, but contextually. I really need the whole story. ‘R and Ram (‘R’s most awesome wife) were over for pizza last week and I explained to them the reason I suck at History is because I need to start at the very beginning to understand why the next thing happened. They laughed and suggested I just dismiss History and focus on something else. Yeah, I agree, that would take forever!

Okay, so I need to introduce this new person anyway, so I might as well do it now.  G-7 is a former professor of mine at Purdue. (he picked his own pseudonym, and yes, I planned ahead because I knew he would enter.) G-7 will have his whole entire post soon as a person of great importance to me by explaining something HUGE to me in terms I could understand, but for now he enters because over the past week we have discussed my blog.  I told him my goal was to write something every day. To which he replied basically (I am summarizing for time’s sake), “Don’t force it, let it develop.” To which I responded, “Great advice will keep that in mind. Patience is indeed a problem for me.”

We are getting close, hold on. So last night ‘R and I were having a discussion, (the content doesn’t matter) and he was not answering my questions directly.  He was actually making more questions for me and confusing me.  Turns out he was doing his own experiment of some sort, go figure, that’s why I love him, and it ended up wearing ME out.  Bottom line was, I couldn’t figure out why he wasn’t answering my question(s) so I wasted all of my energy on that, concluding that most likely I pissed him off. (turns out I was completely wrong, but was worn out and went to sleep.)

So this morning I wake up and see that ‘R sent me a text last night like 30 minutes after I went to bed and he stated exactly what I had said that bothered him and why. THANK YOU! Problem was, I still thought he was pissed.  So slight backtrack, a similar thing happened with ‘Z a couple weeks ago, but we got it quickly straightened out with him explaining to me that what I was doing was annoying him.  What I was doing was questioning him to death.  Hell, I was having fun, but it was annoying the shit out of him. So I thanked him for telling me and explained that in person I can usually tell, but at this point we were texting and unless you state I am annoying you, then I don’t know!  We came up with a code word to use and now I know when to stop.  All is good with ‘Z and problem solved with a good night’s sleep and an apology text to him in the morning explaining that I know I annoy people with questions, just tell me when to stop. I also told him, that I wished I could explain my brain to him so he would understand me better. Guess what? Doing it now.  Might take awhile, but if you want to know then read on. . .

Okay, so at this point my context is that I have pissed off two of my best friends in two weeks.  What am I doing wrong?  Both times I have been questioning them about something. . . Okay, so why do I ask so many questions? Because I want to know the answers. Why do I want to know the answers? So I can understand.  Why do I get frustrated when I don’t get them? Then G-7 and my conversation with him popped up and it is because I am impatient. I want the answer now, not later, because then I will obsess about all of the possible answers and waste my energy when you could have just told me to begin with. Okay, got my part figured out. Now why does this annoy them and why don’t they just tell me the truth? Okay, I came up with a TON of reasons why and just to hit a few: it’s none of my business, it’s personal, they are tired, they want to have sex, they want to watch tv and relax.  Okay, total point taken. I need to work on that aspect badly in my ability to realize that people’s willingness to share at the moment trumps my curiosity.  Will you all just do me one small favor though? Will you tell me WHY you don’t want to discuss it?  It would really save me a lot of energy.  In this particular instance, I don’t even care if you lie, just throw me a bone so I am not wasting my energy trying to decipher it. Tell me the truth later, I’ll most definitely forgive you.

Now we are finally getting to the meaty stuff.  I know it took awhile, but all of that needed to be said for context.  Why does not knowing cause me grief?  Quite simply, because I value efficiency. Answer my question and we can move on.  But you see, I value EFFICIENCY in EVERYTHING. Yep, just defined a core value! How fucking cool is that! Okay, I have to have a sidebar for my mom because I just used the word we discussed the other night. Mom, I know you expressed your concerns over my usage of “Fuck” in all various forms, but I have decided to continue using it as I see fit.  You will be happy to know that today I discovered WHY I use it.  Rough numbers only and I will not be wasting my time after today analyzing this any further: 85% of the time I use some form of fuck in frustration, the other 15% is spread amongst excitement, surprise, and emphasis. Okay, we good?

So why do I value efficiency? Because it saves TIME. Yep, another one.  Why do I want to save time? Laziness? Nope, the exact opposite. I want to get more done.  There are things that must be done and no one likes to do them, well some people do, but anyway, there are things I don’t like to do and the quicker they get done the better.  Why? Because I want that shit out of the way so I can have fun.  Why? Because when you have FUN it feels good.  Why is feeling “good” good? Because it is way better than feeling like shit.  Okay, finally got that figured out. Explains a lot to me about why I look at things differently than other people and why I enjoy the things I do. I will follow with some examples to explain some of these intersections. . .

Why I love my job: Because I get to earn money doing something that makes perfect sense to me and I can think the whole day while doing it. Routes, schedules, people getting where they need to go.  I could go on, but I won’t.

Why I love overtime: It is not because of the money (that is an added bonus that saves all kinds of time and energy) but because you get paid 50% more for doing the same thing you would do any other day.  See above, I love my job to begin with and have all kinds of fun. Seriously, OT is like bonus money, not a chore.

In reverse here:

Guilt about calling in sick or being late.  I also value other people’s time and when I do one of these I feel completely bad. Why? Because now someone else has to do what I should have been doing in the first place. Plus, the person having to cover it, waking up the person’s spouse with the phone call. Tons of reasons.

Same goes with littering. I am throwing out my mess and then someone else has to clean it up.

On frustration:

Perfect example this morning. I leave early because I want to make sure I have enough cigarettes for the day and stop at the pre-chosen gas station that I will be turning right into and right out of when I leave. (major peeve of mine, unnecessary left-hand turns across traffic, especially when there is a light to utilize) Anyway, I leave the gas station and my freaking lighter doesn’t work.  So I said out loud to myself, “Are you fucking kidding me?”  Why? Because I had just left the perfect place to buy one, but didn’t know it was dead. So then I had to ask a co-worker for one to use for the rest of the day. Wasteful, I tell you!  (On many levels I know, but we’ll save that for later! And yes, I am aware of it.)

Okay, for any of you exhausted, this would be the perfect stopping point. Because now there is yet another big question on why I think the way I do: Genetic or Learned?  (FYI, I am taking a break too!)  Shit, I am wearing myself out!

Okay, so how do I get a representative sample that characterizes both genetic and learned?  I didn’t think too long on this because I needed both sides of my family for genetics and both sides of my family for learned.  Since this is only me, we don’t need any others.  Within a minute, our mother-daughter trips came to my brain.  Let me explain. Two summers ago, we had a duo mother-daughter trip to Virginia wine country. By that I mean, me and my mom, along with my Grandma (my dad’s mom) and my Aunt “JuJu” (my dad’s sister). So both sides of the family and all of us in unfamiliar territory. Should be a pretty good analysis of how we act/react/interact.

Now, let’s break down the trip. . .

Let’s start with pre-planning.  First, none of us knew where we wanted to go, but wanted it to be relatively inexpensive and also be someplace that none of us had been. Score. Mom nailed Virginia wine country and we all agreed.  Here, we could all get something we wanted: wine-tasting, historical sites visited, beautiful scenery, and most important just being together and sharing it.  Details hammered out and my responsibilities were getting snacks at Sam’s, driving, and being there on time for departure. (The other three handled details like the best way to get there (through a truck-driver that knows the best ways ever), what we would go see (through the 3 of them looking online and reading books and generally, researching), where we would stay (through trading time-shares and such), what we were driving (New tires, oil change, etc. and we took Polo’s truck.)  🙂

Actual drive to Virginia:  I drove most of the way because I am good at it and do it for a living.  One minor snafu that turned out to be a blessing (not for JuJu) was that I was “navigator” and we missed a major turn.  Once we all realized this, my suggestion was to pull of at a rest stop and look at the map. (They always have a map with the arrow that says “you are here”) I figured out where we were and mapped a new way to the airport and also drove.  Cool thing was, we saw tons of great scenery and I got a “feel” for the geography of the area.  Sorry JuJu, we were late, but it saved us time later!  (and we truly enjoyed the scenic route to the airport!)

Drive to where we stayed: totally scenic and it was a battle between “Tom Tom” and “Waze” (not sure if the latter is spelled right, but she won, and is a free app for your phone)

Where we stayed: Totally awesome and this is where all of the details got hammered out. Seriously, I have never seen so many brochures in my life between these other three.  Good gig though, let them figure it out, I’m going outside and smoking and drinking beer while you all figure out the details. Had my crossword puzzle and phone for pics. . . It was all good.

Actual Tours/planned activities: They got all of that hammered out, I was just along for the driving/experience portion of it.  I’m just going to highlight this so I can conclude.  One day involved 3 tours all included on one ticket. (Money-saving thing) So managed to get to hit first two by lunch, where they actually served lunch, then proceeded to third. Third guy ticket-puncher says to us, well you need to hang on to these because there are two more tours on here. Basically, in unison we all said “Already been there!” and the guy said, “Already?”. And we all just basically said, “Yep”, can we go now?

I am going to stop here with our trip rendition because you should all get the point by now.  I have no way of knowing whether this is genetic or learned.  My ENTIRE family is this way, so do we keep passing it on through behavior or is it passed genetically?  And now, I don’t even care. Maybe I’ll get some more information later that will finally explain it to me.  But until then, I am good with this.

Closing thoughts: My other core values came up through this and when I took my break and visited with friends, I remembered that I forgot that ORDER was one of them.  So, I guess now I have 8 officially.  Shit, I have worn myself out.

Love you all and sorry I couldn’t find the words before now to explain myself.  Really, I just “outed” my own brain.  Who does that?  Holy shit!  Completely hilarious if you think about it!  Seriously though, I should have been more clear earlier.  Hopefully, all of you that know me will get tons of good laughs and now understand me. Those of you that don’t know me, re-read the blogs in context and you’ll get what my peeps have gone thru forever.  Quite funny from my viewpoint!