civil war in the cerebral cortex

"Purity of mind and idleness are incompatible", according to Mahatma Gandhi. How about when one is preoccupied? A degree of busyness that is still manageable? Is one's mind more likely to be pure? I'm sure you will agree that one's mind is never exempt from less than ideal thoughts at any moment. Like exposure to microbes and viruses, which are constant. When we are free from disease, it means that our immune system is fully equipped with ammunition to combat the constant and insidious attacks. It doesn't mean that the microbes and viruses are absent.

Insidious and blatant exposure to bad ideas are brought about by sensorial stimuli regardless of location. The only way, I think, that we can markedly reduce exposure is to move to the mountains, or a cave in the jungle, or migrate to an inaccessible island, or go to outer space. Or find a way to strengthen our conscious mental resistance in order to avoid succumbing to thoughts and hypotheticals. When I say "succumb", I'm not even talking about leading to some form of action...I mean entertaining and replaying thoughts or going down the rabbit hole of what ifs. Including a constant battle between unguarded thoughts and our conscience. Imagine being in "locked in syndrome", and there is a civil war in your mind. Daily. Sometimes the good guys win, sometimes the baddies win. Everyday is a battle. Except that the outcome is highly dependent on which side you allow to win. 

I was today years old when I learned about scrupulosity. This just made things harder. After being aware of this phenomenon, one may slide a bit towards the opposite side of the spectrum and become lukewarm...slide further away and now you're in the realm of disobedience. Abruptly slide back far towards the opposite side and there's that small interval of a Goldilocks zone, probably where most properly religious and spiritual folks are...and then there's scrupulosity that makes one a little bit of a control freak. Like wanting to reach for the divine outside ourselves, but ending up rapidly imploding into the "me, me, me...woe is me" myopic-with-horseblinders worldview. What is the lesson here? So hard to follow you, Jesus.

How about we all pray for each other, eh? 

I think adding those few pieces of frozen avocado chunks in my morning smoothie has caused some odd dynamics in my gut microbiome, which is apparently related to brain activity. Nah. Just trying the reduce the intensity of this post. Didn't work. It still feels like an awkward and uncomfortable ending. Oh well.