J.R. Johnson

I have this funny thing I do where I associate certain visuals with a functional emotion. 

(By associate I mean I pull it out of the old memory bank when I run into a situation that makes me feel a certain way. And by functional I mean that this visual helps me shift to a more useful mindset.)

You know that feeling you get when you’re lying in bed worrying about that weird pain just above your right eyebrow? Or imagining fingernails on a chalkboard or what it would feel like if a sentient Matrix probed your belly button? 

That feeling? I counter it with a shimmering green shield surrounding my body like a superhero suit. Sure, no one else can see it, but it works.

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Or when it’s Monday morning and my mind is chock full of random crap, to do lists, things I should have said, things I shouldn’t have said, questions that need to be asked and answered, etc. etc. etc. ad freaking nauseam.

I do a superhero landing complete with dramatic cloud of mental chaff blasting away from the point of impact.

Not really, of course. That sort of thing is hard on the knees.

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Just the act of imagining either of these things helps defuse the mental pile-on.

Of course it’s not real. Despite decades of absorbing scifi via bio-ocular interface, I cannot actually will a force field into being. But my worries are all in my head. Why can’t the solutions be there too?

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