Mind waves

It is becoming more and more apparent that most of my everyday experiences are re-enactments of things from the past. Events that appear to be happening on the outside are actually coming from the inside. Voices on the street are echoes from high school, saying things like: what’s the matter with him ..his hair’s too long ..what a loser. When I’ve been out partying all night ..I still hear my mother’s voice, cold as ice, saying: have you looked at yourself in the mirror lately ..what will the neighbors think. Any kind of financial setback ..and I hear my father's voice telling me to act more responsibly ..making me feel like a child who hasn't quite caught on. When I get stuck in traffic ..I panic ..re-enacting feelings of childhood helplessness. When I approach an attractive woman, I hear the echoes of little Suzy from the third grade going: ‘euwww ..get away’. Just looking at a woman makes my ex-wife appear ..driving by the place we first met brings me to tears ..the place we were married ..more tears. A police siren ..and I hear my Miranda rights. A new movie .. and symptoms of my dysfunctional family appear (I recently saw ‘Little Miss Sunshine’). Science tells us that these everyday experiences are the product of ‘sensory events’ interacting with ‘episodes in memory’. They say that interpretation occurs awfully fast ..beginning somewhere around 250 milliseconds into the sensory event (that’s a quarter of a second). I don't stand a chance of seeing things the way they really are ..it's like I'm looking into mirrors all the time. No wonder I keep going around in circles.