The Skin I Live In

So, as you've probably gathered from yesterday's post, I didn't go see the Osees at Variety Playhouse last night.

Yesterday's post listed all of the rational and logical reasons not to go, and weighed the pros and cons of attending.  In the end, the cons outweighed the pros, and I wound up staying at home.

But here's the thing - to be honest, I probably didn't want to go, anyway.  I've written here before about how our subconscious elephants determine what we do, usually without our realizing it, and how our conscious, rational monkey mind then makes up reasons to justify the elephant's decisions.

Yesterday's post was entirely the monkey mind coming up with all of the rational reasons that it wasn't safe to go to that particular show on that particular night at that particular place.  But those rational reasons didn't convince the subconscious elephant to stay home.  For its own reasons, the subconscious elephant apparently didn't want to go, despite having tickets and despite not having gone to a show in nearly 20 months.  The monkey mind then came up with some reasons to justify the elephant's subconscious preference.

Had it been the other way around and the subconscious elephant had wanted to go, the monkey mind  would have found comfort in the efficacy of vaccines, the mask mandates, the vaccination requirements, and the plummeting number of covid cases in Georgia.  But as it turns out, that's not the way it happened.

The deeper question here is why I subconsciously didn't want to go out.  Have I gotten so used to the stay-at-home pandemic schedule that I now prefer to remain isolated?  Have I lost my enthusiasm at some level for going out to hear live music?  Have I fallen into depression and can't bring myself to leave home anymore?

Instead of seeing Osees at Variety Playhouse, I stayed in, played a little Hitman and Beyond Two Souls, and then watched the Almodovar movie The Skin I Live In on HBO Max.

Today is the last day of September 2021.  There are 92 days left to the year.  Today is the day for meditation on suffering, and with it, the cessation of aspiration.