Feelings like food

Last year around this time I was reading in order to document my current project, Heavy heart, which is based on the idea that we choose what we feel.

One might think that after last year, I would not hold on to that idea, but I do. Even more so.

Why?

Despite chosing not love someone, I still do.

The trick?

I chose to love her for a while, longer then I chose to love someone in recent years and unlike the last time when I (basically) forced myself to love someone and I was getting sick very often, this time I was only inspired. Still am. I just don’t act on that inspiration anymore.

So chosing not to love her does not come easy for a brain that got used to love her with no ill effect …except she wasn’t real and I am left now without the illusion and the fact that she is not real is undiniable.

“Imagine living happily with Penny for years and years, (…) Now imagine you wake up tomorrow and discover that it’s all gone. Not only is it gone, but it never existed. The woman you loved wasn’t real; she was a dream, created for the sole purpose of manipulating you. The children, your life, your happiness, all of it was a lie, fabricated by a being so foreign that it didn’t even hate you… you were merely a tool.”

Mageborn – Michael G. Manning

To make clear what I mean, I will compare it to food. Imagine you ate something new and for whatever reason (good company, general good mood and good health) you were feeling very well. You will attach that good feeling to the food and say you like it. Next time, you will chose that food because of the memory of the first time you ate it. To bring back some of that feeling. Let’s say that it happens again due to, again, external factors, but your brain will attach it to the food (because ain’t nobody got time to analyze their feelings/ choices this much to identify what was the exact cause. When would we actually live then? 🤷🏼‍♀️)

I have a nice story about this regarding my mum’s chocolate cake that she makes around Easter. I wasn’t going to eat it the first time she made it because it looked too much like brownies and I did not like those (🤷🏼‍♀️). So when I went out to picnic with my friends around that time and we had to bring something, I brought this cake as I want going to eat it anyway. It was the first time I smoked pot and that was the best cake I ever ate. 😂 Now the cake must have been actually good, but it wasn’t the cake I was liking (good company and general good mood – could have eaten most anything).

Therefore, your brain will like that food and it becomes a habit to have that type of food.

And bam! Something happens and you cannot eat that food anymore (usually and unfortunate event related to health which brings a great deal of other cans of worms). How hard is it to give it up?

But you chose to eat it in the first place …repeatedly.

Technically, that’s why I was against my cat eating the same food. What if we do not find it one day. We would have to face an angry cat.

Wait, what? Cats can chose what they feel? Haha, no. But they get used to what they eat and then do not eat something else.

Then, we cannot control what we feel, right? Yes, we can… Until it becomes a habit. Then …meh. A habit is a habit. Whoever bites their nails knows. Whoever smokes know. You chose to start smoking, but deciding to give it up… Ha, good joke! Biting the nails is not something you chose to do, I guess. It’s a consequence of being anxious. Being anxious and feeling anxious are two different things. Being anxious is a consequence of choosing to feel anxious repeatedly …or growing up with an anxious mother (or father, but it’s probably the mother) or a scary or authoritarian parent, but not one that would care about your habits because then you would be like Marina Abarmovic. You would sleep without wrinkling the sheets, you would not dare bite you nails.

Anyway, this post is just to justify to myself why I wrecked my brain last year because I thought I was being inconsistent, but I’m not.

So I chose to love her for about 9 months. I wonder how long I need to choose not to love her for that to fall into indiference? Still not there yet. Have been 7 months so far … 🕊️

*the example with food and pot is not coincidental. I do consider love to be a drug. And any other feeling that becomes a habit. If you wouldn’t be feeling that you would not be you.