One Plus One Equals Three

           Right now you’re sitting down. I mean, you might be standing up, but I highly doubt it, because you’re reading this on a computer and I haven’t met many people who read things on computers standing up. You’re probably reading this on a laptop or desktop computer because this is a website where you need to type stories, and it’s hard to type on a tablet or cellphone. So here you are, reading this story on your laptop. Maybe you just submitted your story. Maybe you submitted a story for all five prompts and are reveling in your extreme productivity. Maybe you haven’t submitted anything at all and are trying to get inspiration. Either way, you made a conscious choice to read this story. Lucky you.

           It’s funny how stories work. They’re just words on a page. You as a human have given those words any meaning. It’s like saying that one plus one equals two. If I were to change two to three, so that two still has the value of two but is referred to as three, then I could say that one plus one equals three. But if I were to just jump out into the world, which poses its own limitations but bear with me here, and say that one plus one equals three, then you would tell me that I am wrong. That’s just like how these words work. We’ve made up some association to go with them and that’s what you’re reading right now. We could change that association at any given time.

           You know what’s weirder than the fake associations we’ve given to words? The fact that you can change an actual person with those fake words. Take me, once again. How am I communicating with you? Through these words, yes, but have I actually written these words? Or have I just invaded somebody else’s brain and made them write these words. Perhaps I am a figment of that person’s brain. Perhaps I am a figment of your brain that you are imagining. Perhaps I’m not real at all. How does one define real? According to the courts I would be real because I’ve got this written statement from me and anything that can write a written statement is real. Correct?

           We’ve established who I am but who are you? Yes, yes, I know, you’re going to say your name, and your nickname if you so have one, and probably your age and where you live and your pronouns, if you’re politically correct. You might say what colors your eyes and hair and clothes are. You might say who you’ll be voting for this election season. You might say what you’re going to school for, or where you’re working and why. But is that really you? I think not. I think that you, the one who is reading this, is not that person.

           Take my math equation, for example. One plus one is three. We’ve established that. Your brain has established that. Your brain has no problem whatsoever knowing that one plus one equals three. Now I want you to go outside and find the nearest available person and tell them to ask you what one plus one is. They’ll be confused but you’ll plead with them, insisting that it’ll only take a moment, so they begrudgingly repeat “What is one plus one?” Your brain knows it’s three. I know that your brain knows it’s three. But you know who doesn’t know? The rest of you. Your mouth will repeat “Two, one plus one equals two” before your brain can catch up and stop it.

           Funny that you assume that your brain can even catch up. What if your brain were to be its own entity? The only purpose of our body is really to carry around our brains. If our brains could mobilize themselves they probably would and would come flying out of our skulls like Athena while forgetting about the rest of our useless beings. Your brain would abandon you at a moment’s notice. Yes, you need your brain, but what does your brain need from you?

           As you can see, most of the things about you don’t really apply anymore when we separate you from your brain. Yes, you might have brown hair, but your brain doesn’t. You might have blue eyes, but your brain doesn’t. So what is really, truly you? You can’t ask your brain anymore. You can’t think “I’m a hard Conservative who’s studying Botany in attempts to become a veterinarian” (which is not how any of life works, by the way) anymore because that’s what your brain is thinking. Your brain is the hard Conservative studying Botany and somehow deciding that will lead to veterinary school. You’re not. You’re not your brain. The only way to figure out what you are is to reach into the deepest crevices of your primal being. Run outside and feel your heart thump. Fill up a sink and place your head in it and listen to the water whooshing over your ears. Try to open your eyes. Blow bubbles and feel them pop at your scalp-line. Poke your arm until you make a mosaic of dots—but don’t poke too hard, because then you’ll start losing blood. Lie down on the ground and jump up until your head feels dizzy and the world before you spins and your brain doesn’t calibrate. That’s what you want. Don’t let your brain calibrate. Let it switch off and focus on the here and the now, the real things that you can touch and describe in the simplest of words. “Hard.” “Soft.” “Loud.” “Quiet.” That’s the level we’re going for.

           I know I’m bound to have lost somebody, somebody who was betrayed once so their heart is cracked into millions of shards and to prevent the pieces from slicing their chest back open, they’ve buried all feelings into the deepest corners of their being. Let me tell you that that’s not what you wanted. That’s what your brain wanted because your brain had moved on and didn’t want to spend time addressing any of that unresolved mess. Screw your brain. Clearly it doesn’t care for you at all. Rebel against your brain. That’s the only way you’ll be your best self. Your true self. Yourself.

           You see how vigorous living without your brain is, I’m certain. You see how your brain doesn’t help you at all. No, it’s out to hurt you. Forget your brain. Your brain is analyzing your life, analyzing its trends and peaks and charts like an overpaid actuary, and it’s plotting your life out to the minutia detail for the unforeseeable future. Funny how when we say “plotting” in reference to a king or a principal we view them as villainizing but here, right behind our eyes, our brains have been plotting to stab us in the back like the one efficient courtman that fatally stabbed Caesar and we need to stop. We can’t stand for this and if we don’t act, we won’t be able to stand for it. Resist your brain. Believe me, I just escaped my own brain, pounding and throbbing and flashing with a complete sensory-overload, and I have never been happier.

           It sounds drastic but it’s really not. It’s about time you questioned your brain. Actually, no, don’t question your brain. Just leave it. Run away and don’t look back. Be like that two in the math equation. Sure, the two is no longer between the one and the three, but the two doesn’t have to deal with the educational mess it has inevitably left behind.