On The Days When Your Brain Is Made Of Soup

We're not machines, as much as we sometimes wish we were (or maybe that's just me). What do we do as creators when our brains and bodies fail us?

Hi. I’m Sarah and I’m a human being.

Sometimes I wish I weren’t.

Sometimes I wish I were mechanical more than organic, that I could function automatically, reliably, when I needed to. Flip the switch, get to work, do exactly what I need to do when I need to do it.

Instead, I sit down at 6:00 a.m. (unless I oversleep) and sip my coffee (unless I have bad acid reflux) and start scribbling words onto the page (unless I’m typing instead) and hope that sometime during this process, my brain will turn on, like a cold car engine that finally warms up enough to catch.

Now, I’m sure there’s a trade-off — that I wouldn’t really want to be mechanical because, like the Tin Man, I’d have no heart or empathy or passion, blah blah blah — but wow, does it seem appealing, especially on days like today, when it feels like my brain is made of non-functional soup, or perhaps crusted-over, dried-out oatmeal.

I want there to be an override switch, something that allows me to wring brilliance from this dry sponge until the world knows that today, too, I have worth.

But there’s not. (I mean, okay, that’s what people use coffee for, but sadly, it’s not a perfect solution.)

I spoke with my friend Alex recently, who shared a similar sentiment — if something’s not working, they said, “scoop it out and trash it. Let me become a cyborg.”

When I was 16, I had scoliosis so severe that a team of doctors rebuilt my spine with titanium rods and a bunch of bone grafts from my hips. And suddenly, my spine went from contorted pain-source to smoothly functional body part. (I lost my ability to do a somersault, but I didn’t have a sparkling future as a gymnast anyway.)

I get impatient now, when medical issues or faults in my physical form get in the way of what I want to be doing. When my brain doesn’t seem to want to cooperate.

Part of this might stem from some kind of cruel, internalized version of the Protestant work ethic — you know, the thing that says we have no value if we are not in a constant state of production. The thing that tells us that we must continuously prove our worth, that rest and joy are luxuries we must work hard to earn, that idle hands are the devil’s workshop, etc.

But part of it is, too, that I KNOW THIS IS MY CALLING. I find my heart and my self and my purpose in writing, and it’s really frustrating to have that all wrenched away by something outside of my control.

I spent last week dealing with a medical issue that left me feeling tired, worn out, and listless. That and multiple doctor’s visits and took away a huge portion of my writing time and energy. My wordcount flatlined (even though I’m doing rewrites, so I wasn’t going to have a huge net gain of words anyway, but that’s not the point).

I know that in such times, we should probably give ourselves a bit of grace. I know that we should cultivate patience and understanding with ourselves, and remember that we’re human, and that our bodies are big weird organic bags of electrochemical meat that don’t always function reliably. (And in fact, it’s kind of a miracle that they function at all.)

But that doesn’t appease the anxiety. It doesn’t assuage the fear that I’m going to die before I create/complete something meaningful, something good, something that I’m proud of, something that tells the world, “Hey, Sarah wasn’t just a huge waste of space after all — and here’s the proof.”

It doesn’t stop me from wanting to bonk my head against my desk, and silently beg my brain to please just come up with something brilliant already.

But our brains don’t work that way (or at least, mine doesn’t). No matter what the productivity hackers and rise-and-shine influencers would have us think, we’re not machines, and our human flaws and foibles and mind-fogs can’t be fixed with the twist of a wrench or a 4:30 a.m. wakeup routine that has us doing shots of apple cider vinegar.

I’ve never been good at acceptance, though, and the idea of making peace with today’s soup-brain and hoping for a better day tomorrow feels like giving up (or at least, it does to my internal productivity demons).

So instead:

• I play music in hopes that the lyrics will fill my brain with inspiration, or at least words that make sense

• I go for a walk (when there’s not 10 feet of snow outside)

• I work on something that doesn’t require creativity (e.g., taxes, other business stuff) so that I can still feel a sense of accomplishment in my day

• I take a break, refill my well by reading or giving myself permission to watch a well-written movie, and move my writing shift to later that afternoon/evening

• I crab to my fellow writer-friends and realize that they are going through, if not the exact same thing, then something very similar

• I try to remember that maybe it’s a miracle that I’m alive and functioning at all, especially with a brain made of soup

I’d love to be able to scoop out my brain and replace it with a reliably functional piece of machinery, to know that there would never be another day where I felt doubtful of my worth or unable to create.

But maybe this is why the things we do end up creating have such meaning — because we’re all just electrochemical meat-bags with soup for brains, and it’s kind of amazing that we can create anything at all.

Words & warmth,

Sarah

P.S. My friend Kate often reminds me of my worth by texting me the simple words, “You matter.” I hope you have someone who does something like this for you. And if you don’t, please allow me to remind you right now: You matter. Yes, even when your brain is made of soup.

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