Albýn and I. I and Albýn

And our great relationship




I was thinking about my book...
You mean daydreaming about finishing it and becoming famous because of it, right?
Yes, exactly.
And how close are you to finishing at this moment?
Oh, shut up. I said before I finish college.
Which you were supposed to do in two years, but now you decided not to continue with studying, so you might not ever finish it, right?
Fuck off.

The point is that I got an idea of using two names, two authors for the book. One would be my official name and the other one would be Albýn. Partially because I use the multiple personalities in the book and because it's a long joke about my writing. Then I realized something more interesting.

When writing, Albýn writes all the weird, stupid and insane things.He's the one with unusual, to put it mildly, ideas about the world. He's the one killing, torturing my characters and putting them into uncomfortable situations. He's the one who argues, the one has to go against the crowd. He makes jokes and tries to offend others.
That's how he came to be and that's his purpose.

I, on the other hand, am fairly normal. I am the one calming Albýn down, the one who wants to continue with the story, and who wants it to be logical.

The cooperation usually works very nicely. He brings the ideas, I write about them in a readable, understandable way and along the way he adds all the of jokes, offenses and the "radicality".

That is how the writing is done. I don't want to talk about my co-living with him, but I still want to take the idea of another personality to real life.


Most people think that they are their brain. They would never say it that way but that's really how it is. Most people take whatever their brain comes up with seriously. A surprising amount of people can't stay alone with their thoughts because they are scared or bored. Another big group of people has thoughts that can create anxiety and depression for them. The issue with all this is when you take all these thoughts seriously.
What else can I do? That's just me.
Well is it? How many people like to have anxiety and feel depressed? How many people want to be scared of their own thoughts?
But if you don't want them then why do you have them? I mean it's you! It's your brain!
There is something people need to fully realize. We are not in control of our brains. We are the mind.
We are the awareness. I think this is a big difference that needs to be stressed out.
Brains are chemical and electrical machines. Very complicated but basically just a machine.
Mind on the other hand is us. It's something we can control. Something that can be directed.
You can affect the brain with your mind but not much. The brains are always functioning, they are always doing millions of things at one time we are not aware of, so thinking we control it is naive.
Minds are doing a lot but very little compared to the brain. We are aware of what is going on in our minds but since the brains affect the mind, we are not always in control.
Brain is the unconsciousness.
Mind is the consciousness.

Let's be honest. There is very little you can do to change your brain. Very little compared to all the functions brains have. These changes can affect your whole life, they can make it awesome or terrible, but most of the functions of the brain are already set up without you having any idea they are even there. The brain can also be changed only through the mind. For our purposes at least. There are ways to change the brain directly through surgery or electroshock but in general, the changes are done by your behavior.


The problem is interconnection and interaction between the mind, which is your "real self" and the brain. The brain does affect the mind. Most of the things that are in your mind are made up by your brain. Most people live their lives unconsciously without fully knowing what they do or why because they let their brains be in charge. They do have the potential though and the smartest, most accomplished and "successful" people are the ones who act through their mind. That doesn't mean that being conscious will necessarily make you successful but I think it is the only way. You can be fully conscious but your brain itself could have limitations. Or you can be simply using your mind the wrong way.
The point is that there is a two-way interaction. The brain is the chemical and electrical machine and the mind can be seen as a part of that machine, and while this part still acts as a machine it can also be directed through conscious, voluntary action of the awareness, of the "real you".
We have a brain that does all sorts of things, of which small portion of can be affected by the mind, and we have a mind that is usually mostly controlled by the brain.

Put together, we established that you are not your brain and you can't really do much about what your brains does. From that, it should be clear that you also shouldn't worry too much about what your brain does or, in another way, thinks. Simply because it's not your business and you can't affect it.

I don't get it. That makes no sense.
Then let's connect it to the beginning of the article. Almost all my writing is done by two personalities. By Albýn who provides the ideas, the jokes, and all the weird stuff and by me who provides the clarity and understandability.
The connection should be obvious by now. Albýn is the brain here and I am the mind.
Albýn has a lot of ideas, most of which are stupid or insane.My job is to find the good ones that can be turned into something useful and together we put them together to create something.
I'm not sure what Albýn does most of the time and I don't really know how he works. But I don't need to. All I need to do is listen to him. Not take him seriously, not take his views as mine simply because they appear in my head. I just need to be aware of him and his ideas, I need to take them into account, think about them and decide what to do with them.
I can discuss those ideas with Albýn and I can influence him in some ways but I think it works better if I let him do what he wants if he doesn't try to affect me too much. I listen to him, I sometimes even let him do whatever he wants but I am always there. I am always watching him and judging him. It's not that I necessarily distrust him, I'm just careful because I know him. I know he has no limits and no constraints.
We've had some issue with the past. It took some time before we managed to live together and It's probably not ideal but I don't think it's causing many issues.

I just learned that we're different. We're two different personalities and we both want different things and we use various ways to achieve them. A lot of times we agree but when we don't I can deal with it. That doesn't mean I'm always right, it happened before that my brain gave me ideas and I chose the wrong one. I learned one important thing, though. I learned to listen to my brain. I try to listen to other people when they disagree with me and even when I fight with them, I do listen and I learn from their opinions. And I do the same with my brain. I have to because I feel like I have no other choice. Why should I ignore or blindly believe what someone else is telling me? Why not listen and evaluate myself?

I just don't accept everything my brain does. I am there observing. I am aware of my brain doing all sorts of things but I know they are not me. I know those are not my thoughts. I know I don't want to create anxiety for myself so even if I don't stop my brain from worrying and stressing, I don't let it affect me.

How I did it? No clue! Honestly, I wish I could help with that but I can't.
What could help? Meditation and mindfulness are obvious choices. Reading books from Eckhart Tolle is a good way to start I think. I personally prefer New Earth despite the name, but Power of Now seems to be the more popular and probably better for most people.




And to push it a little bit more, The whole metaphor of Albýn=brain and I=mind, is in reality, wrong. It works very well I think for the purpose of this article and it should be enough for most people but for the ones who are interested, we can also ask: if the mind is part of the brain how can it be separate from it? How can it be something else than the brain? How can they both interact when they are the same thing?
For more information or questions feel free to comment below or write me personally. I hope to write another article about this but I'm not really sure how to explain it properly yet.