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Several years ago an organization called Partnership for a Drug Free America launched a nationwide television campaign that showed a quick and simple video of a man holding a skillet that he identified as drugs. He then held up an egg and said "this is your brain." Next he cracked the egg and dropped it into the skillet he had paced on a gas burner of a stove and as it began to pop and sizzle in the pan he said "This is your brain on drugs." Then he looked into the camera and asked "any questions?"
The message was so clear that I needn't go any further to explain it, but this post isn't about what has happened to a lot of people's brains because of what they have put theirs through by abusing or merely using drugs for recreational purposes. I believe that alcohol has a similar effect on millions of people every day but I won't go beyond where I have so far about that either except to say that any malfunctions my brain may experience cannot be attributed to too much stimulation caused by drugs or alcohol. Drugs never was an issue for me except during my years as a street cop when my job mandated that I deal with people who did dabble with them outside of what the Ohio Revised Code allowed.
As for alcohol, if you were to pour all I have drank over the past thirty years you couldn't fill a gallon jug so I can say with confidence that the muscle in my head isn't pickled and that if you and I ever have a conversation with one another you can be assured it isn't the alcohol talking and that none of what I say to you comes from a mind that has been altered or slowed by anything I have done in my past. I happen to believe that my mind is very sharp most of the time, except for those few minutes when I first awake from sleep or when I am trying to maneuver through a day with a splitting headache. Those headaches are more frequent than I wish they were but I have grown used to expecting to have one several times a week. It isn't something new, in fact I cannot remember a time in my life when it wasn't a problem; I grew up with this plague, but aside from that I have always been a pretty healthy guy; I rarely get sick and I usually feel pretty good, the usual muscle aches and pains of growing older notwithstanding.
At 62 years of age my body isn't as strong as it was at 32 but the upside of being this age is that life has a way of compensating us for what we lose physically if we have paid attention all of our lives to everyone we ever encountered and if we at least tried to learn from our experiences. My compensation for having a slower body is having a quicker mind than I ever had in my life. My brain is my most dangerous weapon now and little by little those who have been around me for a good long time as well as anyone I meet for the first time are finding that out. I am in a pretty good place in life and believe me when I tell you I take none of that for granted.
I am well aware that losing one's mind may be the most crippling disease of all and I am saddened when I learn of anyone who either suffers from or are in the early stages of Alzheimer Disease; I can think of nothing worse, not even dying. As a scholar said to me recently as he was describing the pain of watching his wife as she goes through this stage; "it is like a very long goodbye." To live with someone he has known and has relied on to be his partner and best friend for more than two-thirds of their lives and watch her struggle with remembering people and simple tasks, and knowing there is no cure would be like that.
I have heard something like that is likely to catch up with all of us if we live long enough; that as we age we begin to forget a lot of things or just give up trying to make sense of the people and the world around us. Maybe it happens because the world around us gives up on us when we get so old that we no longer matter as much as we did. But whatever lies down the road for me hasn't yet shown itself and before it does I intend to keep learning new things and apply what I do learn to what I already know. The best defense against allowing our brain to falter is to keep it as active as we are able and I intend to that. When it comes to competing for my rightful place in the scheme of my surroundings I have an advantage that some don't; I don't take instructions from anyone anymore because I don't have to, everything I do and say comes from what my brain believes is right for me, not from anyone elses.
When I write, the topics are what I choose them to be and how I impart my thoughts comes simply from how I would talk to anyone, either one-on-one or in a group setting. My words can be as impolite as I deem necessary to make my point or as gentle as I think they should be to soothe the reader or the listener if I choose to do that. I am no literary scholar nor do I consider myself an expert at anything besides living a life that is best for me. I only know enough to qualify for that one, not enough about everything else, so I know when or when not to weigh-in on most subjects.
That too makes me a dangerous man to anyone hoping to outsmart me or take something from me that I want to keep. I have joked that I have been wandering through herds of sheep most of my life; sheep who seemingly need someone to follow to get where they either want to be, think they need to be or where someone tells them to go. I wander through the herd to find the man or woman who believes they are the shepherd and then I ask them to either pick up their pace or get out of my way. I always expect that person to take offense and ask me who I think I am and then I tell them. It hasn't always worked in my favor but I am here now doing whatever I want to do every day of my life; I am happy with how I lived it and I have never been more mentally relaxed. Some of those shepherd's are still out there walking about, either still leading a herd or looking for another one that will follow them.
So do I think I am a pretty smart guy? Well, here is where I explain the photo I posted on this page. That car is a 1969 Mercury Cyclone-Cale Yarborough Special that is powered by a 428 cubic inch motor that develops more than 400 horsepower. The Ford Motor Company built only a few of them. Most of the Cyclone's from that year reside in climate-controlled garages and museums now and for a lot of us Ford guys it is the ultimate muscle car. If challenged by anything else that was around in 1969 when it was on the streets of America it would certainly go beyond merely holding its own. I believe it still could. And like that Mercury I was on the streets in 1969 and I felt as cocky then as that car looks.
Today I feel even cockier. So if I were to try to show an image of what I think my brain looks like now compared to what it looked like in 1969 I have done it here. Because like that muscle car, the muscle in my head only got better with time. That one is pristine, it is completely original, no one tried to change it in any way, it looked like it does here when it left the factory. I don't look as good as I did in 1969 and I am not as fast as I was then but that motor in my my head has never been tinkered with and it remains as strong as that 428 under that long sleek hood.
But unlike that one mine will continue to rev up everyday it is able to and it will keep moving the body it is in as fast as it is able to through my work as a writer and as a broadcaster in internet radio. I invite you to follow my progress here and on the Live 365 Worldwide Internet Radio Network, I am there most nights after 9:00. You can find the documentation that what I have said here is still true in my work as an author because I don't merely write stories from the heart, I collect the words and phrases I share with others from a life I regard as one well lived by someone who has held onto a lot of it. My brain is like a warehouse full of it all and you can judge for yourself by clicking on this link;
Or you can join me nightly on a radio station called "Heartlites" by going here;
Is this blog project another effort to sell my work? Come on, could there be any doubt? But it really is that other thing I just described also; another way to make that brain of mine keep working. While some people my age may find a television the best and easiest way to relax or make it through their idle time I have my own method; I don't want someone else clouding my thoughts with what they want me to think, I go this route and hope someone else can be inspired to never lose what they had and to take a look at themselves and consider what they can do to stay competitive in a world that may find a way to leave them behind. I hope me and that Mercury will always have something in common.
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