3/11/17

When I was eight I obtained a head injury at the park.  My uncle and I were playing around, and, if I remember correctly, he picked me up and slipped on some ice, and I fell on my head.  Afterwards my uncle took me to my grandparents’ house, where I lied on the sofa in the living room, waiting for my Dad to come back from wherever he had been- I think he was at the hardware store.  I went home and I think I remember my mom trying to tell me not to fall asleep.  She gave me some medicine and I threw it up, and at that point my parents called 9-11, and an ambulance came and picked me up and took me to the hospital.  A paramedic called it horseplay.  I needed to have an MRI or CAT scan to see if I would be ok, and after that, when the results came out, the doctor said that I had a tumor in my brain, that I or no one had known about before.  It was benign and inoperable. 

Ever since I found out that I had a tumor, I began to wonder what the side effects would be.  It was benign, so that meant I could still live with it inside of me, but what were the consequence of having a tumor?  Does my brain work differently than other people’s?  Having a tumor can mean having super human powers, can’t it?  If you have ever seen the movie Phenomenon, you know what I am talking about.  I often wonder if I am in the same situation as the main character, who had an extraordinary brain, because of an abnormal brain. But I don’t think I am.  The only thing about me that I think I can relate to having superpowers because of a tumor is how I often shock myself with electricity after feeling emotions intensely.  I remember one time I was in bed and the lights were off and I scraped my hand against the sheets/blanket of my bed and I saw a green light that kind of reminded me of the light that glowworms emit; the bugs that me and my fellow campers saw in the dark on a night hike in Girl Scout camp.  But I don’t think this applies to the possibility of having superpowers.  Sorry Hitler- I know you would be proud if I was like you- a super human.

Wondering what it would be like to have superpowers makes me also wonder what it would be like to have less brain activity than a normal person.  I have often contemplated what it would be like to be in such a situation.  In a Humanities class at the first community college I attended, the teacher offered up the possibility that we are actually all just brains in jars, and that there is some other (in my perception- evil/higher- I can't remember how she explained the other being exactly) being that controls us.  I think, after learning of such a situation, I always imagined the person in charge of the brains in jars as a mad scientist, or the devil, or the ultimate devil. 

After considering this, while writing, I have come to wonder what it would be like to have to deal with the consequences of having a lobotomy.  That would be the ultimate hell, because you would be screwed for the rest of your life.  I think such an operation should never have been permitted, ever, because to me, it would be like losing your soul.  It would be just like in the Harry Potter movies: those creatures that suck out your happiness.  I think that I can relate lobotomies to the mad scientist in charge of brains in jars, because the mad scientist would be the one to control you and your happiness.  What if the mad scientist had beef with you from a past life, before you were a brain in a jar?  What if you didn’t actually have a lobotomy, but the mad scientist/devil wanted to take everything away from you that you know as holy and happiness; what if you went through some traumatic experience where you lost whatever state of mind you had before, so it made it seem like you lost your normal state of mind, and the mad scientist/devil wanted to screw you by making others believe that you had a lobotomy, just to hate on you because the mad scientist/devil knew that you would be happy without him? 

After writing this I have come to realize that people may have different types of brains, physically, but what happens/goes on around you also affects the wellbeing/state of your brain.  Just coming to this conclusion makes me feel superhuman, with the pride that comes with it, but it also makes me feel inferior/lobotomy bound, because I doubt anyone would feel the same way/come to the same conclusions as me.