Who's running this show, anyway?

Traumatic events lock a part of us away. That part forms a snapshot of our adaptation to the pressures we were facing at the time. They accumulate. We collect and organize them, mostly without thinking. Then boom! you're all grown up and that family album of snapshots has become a force so close to you it's nearly invisible. It's the you that figured out how to survive at five, or seven, or ten, when the world came up to your sense of innocence and took a big bite out of it.

Trauma's always aimed at the heart. We react instinctively to defend her. What's being defended, though: the heart or the family album? The adult or the ten-year-old?

Be a scientist. Examine where your feelings are coming from. Spell it out for yourself and see if it's as convincing on paper as it is in your head. You aren't a car doomed to be driven by the terrified one inside all that armor. You can choose to take the wheel yourself. You've got that right.

Is this thing on?

Keep screaming. Someone's bound to hear you eventually. Right?

VROOM.

Nobody says you need to stay flat-footed on Earth.



Nobody worth listening to, anyway. Flying is the sort of thing dreamers do. Never take that for granted.

Boy, you're gonna carry that weight.

...really? You sure about that?

I swear you don't have to.

Hello?

Is there anybody out there? No?




Better stay inside where it's safe. Ignore the teeth. They mean you no harm. Most of the time, anyway.

Bullethead.

Looks like that hurts, fellah.



...maybe you should consider letting all that stuff go?

Just a thought.

Incoming....

Some days you're the artillery. Other days you're the one getting shelled.

BLAMMO.

Here's another. Man I love those Pigma Micron pens.

Too Much Silence.

It's way past time for some art.



You break a limb, you get it fixed. Then comes the physical therapy, getting the soggy muscles to behave as they should. The analogy for a mental injury is proportionate (if a little less concrete, most of the time). So dig. The deeper you dig, the more thoroughly you face the injuries, the greater the likelihood you'll come out the other end in much better shape.

I know venting has an allure of its own. Self-analysis can become self-indulgence. Part of the virtue of the journey is learning how to tell the two apart.

We get to choose more than we sometimes are willing to admit.

Honestly, now.

They say (whoever "they" are; have you ever met "they"? I keep hearing about 'em but still haven't encountered 'em after 40 years) "when life hands you lemons, make lemonade."



I say when Life knocks you down, give Life the finger. Then get back up and give Life utter hell.

Hunting Hearts.

Watch out for those things that want your heart for breakfast.

Uh huh. Keep on talking.

I hate this guy. I mean really hate, with the passion burning inside the hearts of a million white-hot suns. Somehow he became a part of me, a tapeworm, a botfly larva, a dreaded candiru lodged where no fish should be. I wasn't aware of it at the time. Funny thing is, he's part of a mechanism that protected me for years, ages even, but he's the worst part. The most overt part. The part I'd most like to whip until he was a liquid and pour down the drain.



There is one thing I know about personal demons, though, and it's a big secret. It's gremlin-shattering stuff. Demons do not want to be drawn. Ever. Ev-ver. They don't like the light, you see. Their power is greatest when they're safely behind the curtains, pulling all the strings. Bring them out into the open and--you might--just--

--Deal with them.

Heaven knows what would happen after that.

Nope, on second thought it's too dangerous. Just pretend I never wrote Yeah-But's Big Secret. You can keep a secret, right?