OUR MENTAL COLONIZATION

On some level we are what we have been taught. When my son Julian was just a tiny baby I realized that virtually everything I did and said was absorbed by him like a sponge. What a tremendous responsibility it is to be a parent.

I've spent most of my adult life trying to decolonize my mind. Between my own Republican military family's influences and living behind the barbed-wire gates of military bases, watching the airshows and parades all through my youth, I have a lot of militarism inside of me to sift through.

My own father's alcoholism and violent explosions gave me more to deal with. Climbing under desks, preparing for the nuclear attack from the Soviet Union that never came filled my little brain with more distorted images.

Corporate branding has to be washed away. How can I ever forget watching my Saturday baseball games on TV as a kid and having the beer commercials drummed into my head - from the land of sky blue waters........

Or how about the book series I read as a kid - the We Were There series of patriotic American warrior stories. We Were There at Lexington and Concord, The Alamo, The Battle of the Bulge. And then John Wayne movies, The Rifleman, Combat, Gunsmoke, and other TV shows filling my eager and half empty vessel with violent and imperialistic images of America saving the world from the Nazis and Communism. And today kids are learning that in order to fight the evils of terrorism we must take extraordinary security steps here at home to ensure our protection - even if they shred the constitution.

So I have created an image for myself to explain how it happened - lift the lid on the head, pour, close the lid. The mind is now open for colonization. Please come right in and have a seat and make yourself at home.

So what is the reverse image for me? Lift the lid, stand on my head and drain the mind? Dig into the dusty file cabinets and corners of my brain and dental floss out all unwanted images? What about the hard to find mental plaque that is tough to get out? Is there a mind wash, like a mouth wash, that I can just use to rinse and cleanse my mind?

The bottom line is that I want my mind back. The corporate society might control everything around me but at least I can own my own mind. So I continue with my effort to decolonize my mind. It's a long rocky road home. I'm trying to enjoy the walk as best I can.