I cannot unhurt you
I can only walk away
I hope we find tomorrow
What we cannot give today
Everything I am
And all I’ll ever be
Connects to who you are
Connects to you and me
Bleeding in the twilight
Of a special melody
The tune that hurts and heals
Is the love you gave to me
by Richard W. Bray
Nothin’ from nothin’ leaves nothin’
—Billy Preston
There ain’t a woman who can see
All the love inside of me
Stupid two-bit loser town
Bitches try to bring me down
I need a woman sweet and pure
I’ll find my truth inside of her
I spend my cash and act a clown
Bitches try to bring me down
A million things that I could be
If only she believed in me
I could drink until I drown
Bitches try to bring me down
by Richard W. Bray
From natural selection’s point of view, the whole point of perception is to process information that has relevance to the organism’s Darwinian interests — that is, to its chances of getting its genes spread. And organisms register this relevance by assigning positive or negative values to the perceived information. We are designed to judge things and to encode those judgements in feeling.
—Robert Wright, Why Buddhism is True: The Science and Philosophy of Enlightenment
Like any paradigm, evolutionary psychology is an extreme oversimplification of our multifarious existence. Even if we accept the premise that human beings are shaped by evolutionary pressure, which I do, it does not automatically follow that everything we are is the direct result of “natural selection.” Many mutations and alterations in our genes are merely coincidental.
If, for example, a parrot with an efficient nutshell-crushing beak happens also to be blue, its descendants are likely to be blue despite the fact that their blueness does not foster their success like that marvelous beak does.
Human beings are not “designed” by evolution; we’re the product of happenstance. And nobody can say for certain what the “whole point of perception” is. But you needn’t be a natural selection determinist to appreciate Wright’s picture of human consciousness.
Wright is certainly correct to say that human beings automatically assign “positive or negative values” to “perceived information.” Every thought we have is wrapped inside a feeling. These feelings often had the benefit of keeping our Hunting Fathers alive long enough to pass along their DNA. That’s how we got here.
Determining the difference between berry and toadstool, lamb and lion, or friend and foe is an essential survival skill. Our ancestors survived and prospered thanks to the happy associations they made with the delicious berries that sustained them and the painful associations they made with frightening beasts that killed their friends and relatives.
It’s natural for human beings to constantly analyze and reevaluate the world we live in. And, as social organisms, we evaluate ourselves in relation to others. That’s why we’re forever recalibrating our opinions of one another.
How we feel about others is a function of how they make us feel about ourselves. The world is our mirror, as W.H. Auden notes:
A friend is the old, old tale of narcissus.
Severing how we feel about others from how we feel about ourselves is not possible — we don’t exist in a vacuum. But we can examine our natural tendency to “judge things and to encode those judgement in feeling.”
Jesus commands: “Judge not.” But judgement-free perception simply isn’t possible. What we can do is listen to our thoughts and examine the feelings that ignite them.
Don’t squander your precious time on Earth trying to figure out who deserves to be happy. There’s always going to be people you can point to as undeserving of the gifts life has bestowed upon them. Should it really be your task in life to figure out who’s to bless and who’s to blame? By fixating on the unfairness of it all, you’re setting yourself up for a lifetime of misery and masochism.
I’m not suggesting that we should accept the world the way it is. On the contrary, fighting injustice and trying to make the world a better place is one of the best ways to find meaning in this crazy old world.
by Richard W. Bray
it’s ok not to talk
it’s ok not to listen
it’s alright to stand apart
investigate what’s in your heart
it’s ok not to talk
it’s ok not to listen
it’s alright to find your space
silence is a friendly place
it’s ok not to talk
it’s ok not to listen
it’s alright to disconnect
and energize your intellect
it’s ok not to talk
it’s ok not to listen
it’s alright to find your sphere
and take some time to disappear
by Richard W. Bray
took all the pennies
saving in my jar
daddy go bye bye in a car
mama say daddy
drinking in a bar
daddy go bye bye in a car
daddy took his things
and drove real far
daddy go bye bye in a car
daddy real mad
dont love us anymore
daddy go bye bye in a car
by Richard W. Bray
Fixating fixater
Frightened of yourself
Never stop talking
About everybody else
Fixating Fixater
Hanging by a thread
Neurotic fabrications
Stuck inside your head
Fixating fixater
Yackity yap yap
Pointing all your fingers
And talking loads of crap
Fixating fixater
Hiding from the pain
Take a slow breath
And look inside your brain
by Richard W. Bray
Metacognition means thinking about thinking. You can do this by listening to the words you say aloud, and more importantly, by listening to the words you silently tell yourself. That’s where the real action is — inside your head.
Self-awareness begins by examining the words and phrases your mind creates and then asking yourself if it would make sense for someone in your position to say such a thing.
Any sentence that begins with the words “I don’t care” is probably a lie you’re telling yourself to protect your feelings. Here are some examples of the types of ego-preserving lies we tell ourselves and one another all the time:
“I don’t care that dad abandoned us when I was four.”
“I don’t care who she’s going out with.”
“I really don’t care if he ever loved me or not.”
Here’s another example: Whenever you hear yourself say, “He’s just_______,” “She’s just_________,” or “It’s just________,” it’s probably because someone or something has hurt you and made you feel bad about yourself. And now you want to diminish someone or something to make the hurt go away. It never works, but our brains are designed to do it anyway.
For example: Let’s say that Walter is bragging to the guys about his hot date with Gladys. Poor Alex secretly adores Gladys, but he never quite got up the nerve to ask her out. Now his brain is cascaded with defensive outrage and denial:
“Walter is just a stupid, arrogant, spoiled asshole.”
“She doesn’t really like him. She’s just going out with him because he’s tall, good-looking, and his parents are rich.”
“She’s just a dumb little bitch for going out with that guy”
We often talk about thoughts and feelings as though they were in competition with one another. “Don’t let your feelings get in the way of your decision,” is a common refrain. But there is no such battle occurring in our souls between thinking and feeling. Thoughts and feelings are inseparable. Thoughts don’t exist in opposition to feelings — thoughts are better understood as the residue of feelings. “We think by feeling,” is how the great American poet Theodore Roethke put it. This observation has been confirmed by a whole body of modern brain research.
Scottish philosopher David Hume figured this all out over two hundred years ago without the benefit modern fMRI machines that tell us which parts of the brain are involved in the decision-making process. Hume was one seriously smart and reflective dude.
Socrates said that the unexamined life isn’t worth living, but it’s also been noted that ignorance is bliss. So what should you do? Who knows? Metacognition is both painful and enlightening. The question is: Can you handle the truth?
By Richard W. Bray
i’ve been sniffing all the flowers
i’ve been dancing on the dew
you’ve been giving the impression
there could be a me and u
dont wanna play no 20 questions
just wanna spend some time with u
already know enough about ya
from the things that u do
let’s go walking in the park
it’ll just be me and u
we can get to know each other
we can woopty doopty doo
we can talk about the weather
we can sing a little tune
we can listen to the starlight
in the magic of the moon
by Richard W. Bray
Love don’t do the dishes
Love won’t tie your shoes
Love didn’t cook your dinner
Love can’t change a fuse
Love will not protect us
Love cannot atone
Love don’t stop our leaders
From dropping all those drones
Love don’t bomb no babies
Love don’t start no wars
We do a trillion ugly things
Love ain’t keeping score
Love won’t fix the shower
Love can’t brush your hair
The only thing it’s good for
Is making people care
by Richard W. Bray
They wanna count you, classify you
Stamp a number on your head
Aggravate you, allocate you
Every day until you’re dead
They sanitize and organize you
Till you fit in the machine
Hypnotize you, terrorize you
Till you’re lonely scared and mean
Indoctrinate you, fill-with-hate you
And nourish you with lies
Calibrate you, automate you
And march you off to die
by Richard W. Bray
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