The brain is a nifty little organ, with an amazing capacity for creativity, logic, and problem solving. But it’s also a complete asshole. And if you let it, it can completely take over your life. Don’t let it, my friends! Read on to learn more!

Your brain is inherently good. It helps you move your meat suit around efficiently, is responsible for flashes of brilliance, and occasionally entertains you with random bits of memory from 1982 and songs you haven’t heard, um, ever.

But your brain can also be bad. It can put Billy Ocean in your head on repeat, but refuse to relinquish the password to your email account. It can wake you up in the middle of the night in cold sweats from dreams involving blue-skinned nuns herding antelopes. And, devastatingly for us creative types, it can refuse to cooperate when you need that flash of brilliance.

Most of us are unknowingly yet irrevocably beholden to this bad brain, the evil twin of all evil twins. We are our bad brain’s bitch, and our creativity, daily work and general sanity suffer as a result. How can you tell if you’re being bitch slapped?

Procrastination Reigns.
Your bad brain is in control when you’re facing down a deadline, or a project you want to work on, and all you can think about is how fun it would be to give the toilet a deep scrub. Paying work? No, no, no, my friend, what really must be accomplished is a thorough review of the hairs growing from the nose, and the commencement of a careful trim. The work that represents even a hint of a challenge must be subsumed behind your overwhelming need to find the lyrics to that song, that one song you loved in 8th grade, oh gosh, what is that song?? Bad brain is the name, procrastination is the game.

Insecurity is in Control.
You think you can write? What the fuck do you know? You’re nothing. More than nothing, you’re a poseur. And every time you sit down to do anything creative, or even anything that will keep money coming in, your bad brain will remind you of it. Hey, hey, remember the time you peed your pants in school? Or the horrible humiliation of your first break up? Or the time you got drunk and broke/vomited on/defiled your best friend’s/parents’/significant other’s [insert favorite upon favorite item here]? Oh yeah. That’s what your brain is going to replay over and over when you even start to have a hint of confidence. It will have you sniveling and reduced to fetal-positioned goo before it’s done. Cus that’s what it does, just for kicks, and to school all the other brains.

Inspiration: Still Waiting.
You know all that talk about inspiration? Muses? Creative sparks? Yeah, well, your bad brain has too. And that little monster uses it against you. You think you have writer’s block, that your inspiration has run dry, that your muse is flipping you off as she takes a hike. So you wait for that creativity to come running back. You’ve been had, son. That little rat bastard of a brain will have you waiting and waiting and waiting some more, never actually doing anything in favor of, well, waiting.

Hibernating Hermit.
It’s so easy, so comfortable for freelancers to stay inside and never venture out all day. Or for a few days. To eschew exercise, or, you know, movement. To mindlessly chug down the caffeine and cheetos. You know there’s a world outside, and actual humans to converse with, and bodily health to maintain, but it all feels so distant, so unnecessary. That bad brain of yours will keep encouraging the hermitage until you’re in full-on Howard Hughes-in-a-fat-suit territory. Because we don’t need anyone! Anything! Anywhere! Just us, and our work, and our brains that will never harm us, never leave us…

The brain is a terrible thing to waste. But if you’ve got bad-brain syndrome, then wasting that motherfrakker is a to-do. Evil twin, begone! So how do you do it? That, my friends, is better left to smarter folks than me, who have defied their bad brains and lived to tell the tale. Some linkage to break the bitch cycle:

Why It’s So Damned Hard to Stop Procrastinating
How to Stifle a Good Idea
How to be a Freelancer (And Still Respect Yourself in the Morning) [Hehhehheh, see how I slipped that in there?]

Got other links? Thoughts? Diatribes? Tales of bitch woe? Tell us about it in the comments!

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