Resisting the pull of intellectualisation.
The plight of the over-active mind.
The desire to think away our emotions, to analyse everything, to dwell, ruminate and ponder. To not live in the moment but instead disassociate from our bodies to live solely in our heads.
Projections of ourselves, filtered and tempered through the lens of social norms and culture by our cognitive powerhouse. Presenting this sanitised version before another, longing for some kind of acceptance or acknowledgement and as a result never feeling we truly belong.
Transforming who we are in order to enhance ourselves, to be something we aren’t, for people who see a tiny microcosm of the whole and yet somehow dictate how we should feel.
A lessening of our experience of being by adding mental filters that distort the reality, turning down the contrast of the emotional range.
Dimming the light of exuberant bliss as much as dulling the stabbing knife of grief.
Conceptualisation of everything, reducing complexity into fixed fragmented concepts. No longer seeing the holistic view only ever the individual parts and then questioning why it all feels so fucking lifeless.
Idle hands and over-active minds.
Less embodiment and more time spent exploring the dark confines of our psyche, too much time in the shadows. The rise of introspection not from curiosity and wonder but instead from a place of perceived brokenness. Treating ourselves like a project, something to be finished, completed or fully actualised.
Grasping and holding onto our sense of selves even more tightly, keeping ourselves rigid and fixed in our minds. Being buffeted by the continuous and uninterruptible flow of time.
I don’t know how to do this. I have no idea.
Intellectualisation has been my protection mechanism for far too long. A type of avoidance that allows me to tuck things into neat and pretty boxes, as if I organise an inventory of my own mind, conducting some kind of psychological stock take.
Something big, overwhelming and scary happening? Emotions smashing through my entire being, threatening to overwhelm me to the point I completely shut down?
Logic becomes the hero, swooping in to extinguish the burning fire of it all.
And it costs me a lot.
It costs me presence in awe inspiring moments. The sunrise never feels quite as magical when you try to describe it.
It costs me depth of connection. Swimming in the safety of the shallow water and never feeling the duality of amazement in the deep sea that is vulnerability.
It costs me in cognitive load, the back and forth of logic. Overthinking dressed up as thoughtfulness, masquerading decision fatigue as consideration.
We are convinced that we are in some way logical and rational and treated as such by everyone and everything. Struggles of wild intricacy, reduced to choice alone.
Resisting the pull of intellectualisation in a world that is bankrolled by it is the ultimate act of rebellion.