Facing the Demon Inside/CoDe-mon! Best outcome: I choose you!
Lately, I have come to what feels like the edges of me. That place inside which demands radical severance from that which serves to take away my power to run better code. This radical severance or shift must occur in the heart and DNA – in the deepest and original parts of us – before it can happen in the mind. The heart and the DNA are where the code is found; the mind is just the server than runs it.
The code I have been running could be mirrored in any person; those which serve comfort and familiarity, manifested through established patterns of behaviour, are those which we tend to run as a conditioned ‘go to’.
Repetition works.
Whatever wills me will be coded in me. Whatever will be will be coded in me. I will to will thy will. Whose will? Who is running this code that has become established as the ‘go to’? Conditioning is commanding. It is so entrenched – seemingly merged with radical counter intuition – that it can even cause behaviour that serves to severe one from one’s actual Self.
At this point, I have to ask: What if the code is inferior?
I am in pain. Still nursing an injury, and the system is down. I cannot run the code. I cannot train the sweet science.
How do I respond? This is just a test, right? It’s all a big metaphor.
I do what is in me to do.
I connect with that which serves to release me from the pain. And indeed, it takes what feels like supernatural determination to do so.
I am used to being able to train very hard, for long periods of time. But I have had to find other ways to address the pain, the demons, the inferior code. Meditation and box breathing are of great service to me, but sometimes, the slow process amplifies the pain.
Doing something differently – especially something good – is like calling a showdown with the inferior coding.
What if my code is inferior?
We’re talking about me, right?
My demons are just psychological metaphors representing my internal, old patterns right? They’re not external representations of projected enforcers, sent to make me feel defeated and confused. Question mark?
I am in pain. My healthy ‘go to’ outlets plugged.
How do I respond? I don’t always feel apt to run better code.
Sometimes, I eat my feelings, especially when I cannot train like I am used to.
I ‘go to’ that quick sugar fix into a false but reliable sense of comfort and familiarity – even when I know it’s bad for me. The pull of what has been conditioned as acceptable – that which is immediately gratifying – provokes and promotes a feeling of escape, from the fight inside, and it requires no determination. Addicted to the need to feel comfort and security. Too torn sometimes to see that my ‘sugar fix’ is short term and causes long term damage, and through repetition, reinforces the coding of old conditioning.
We are programmed to survive, and to do so as comfortably as possible serves to make the experience more than just about survival. It adds a soft element to a hard truth.
But what if the code is inferior?
‘Go to’ outlets becoming unplugged. The fight you fight is for an unknown…and it’s perhaps beyond you to code a new program.
Here: Eat and repeat.
The determination to both literally and metaphorically stand up from the table and simply walk away escapes me sometimes. These old programs which run perhaps the simplest code are undeniably reliable, but they are serving not me, but poor outcomes.
So why do I run them?
So many labels we are given for standing up from the table, and stating clearly – if only to ourselves – that we are done dining with the demons of bad conditioning and inferior coding.
What if the code is inferior?
The code I witness, day in and day out in life, business, medicine, communication, politics and society in general, is most definitely in need of a reboot. We need to care about this. About each other. About our Selves.
This code of conduct, remaining seated at the table with bad patterns resulting from bad conditioning, dishonors the fact that you are willing and capable of wrestling with this fact.
Remaining seated with your demons, while they grow weak and tired of you, and you of them, is both foolish and brilliant. Foolish in that sitting with them – the inferior code – the ‘bad wolf’ inside – provides food data to the feedback loop of habit, ego and immediate gratification; and brilliant in that, if patient and thoughtful, we can make them tire of our persistent presence and our good wolf question: “Is this really the best we can do?”
The running script is so elegant. It’s almost impossible to permeate it because the illusion is all encompassing, and not all bad. And it undeniably includes us; both sides. All sides. Both wolves. All wolves.
What if the code is inferior?
Feedback tells me that the inheritance of ability and power to write better code will not be revealed until ‘bad conditioned behaviour’ has been abandoned. It’s like an archetypal/archeological dig into DNA; into the code itself.
And for me, to do anything else is the only thing that is impossible, because so long as I am alive, I will be curious. I am curious to understand why such ‘flagrant system failures’, keep running, over and over again. So I seek to decode and rewrite the code. To abandon that which no longer serves the system, so that the ‘servers’ can enhance efficiency across the system. To run better code; so that we can all do more than just survive.
How?
By facing the demon inside. To summon, write and run better code. To wake up the D(emo)N A? – by yes – addressing it appropriately. Choosing inferior CoDe-mon is easy and deeply embedded, but it also dishonors what existence is, and reinforces the idea that this is just a game.
And I call it all out.
Not to fight.
But to find out who is really willing and able to contribute not to better arguments or rhetoric, but to better coding. To discover who I truly am.
Thank you for reading.
Photo Credit
Photo by Mary Rose – All Rights Reserved
I was traumatically abused as a child by my Stepmother, physically, emotionally and mentally, I’ve been told by numerous family members and friends to write my Story, they claim it will help me heal as I’ve turned my pain inwards and turned to Alcoholism and Drugs! I started writing my Story while incarcerated and had only gotten to the age of 16 ! The Librarian whom I worked under in Prison asked if she could take it home through Thanksgiving Holiday, and I said yes! When she returned after the Holidays she told me I was Insane, then said wow you are a very strong person, she said my Story had made her and her Daughters cry , she said that she had worked as a phycologist at FSP for 6 years where all the Lifers are and had never ever heard my Story. She said I met the criteria of a Serial Killer or Rapist and that’s why she claimed I am a strong person for never turning into that. I still battle Alcoholism today at 52 and still hurt inside so bad and I don’t believe it’s Self – Pity ! Would you recommend me to write my Story ?