"These voices have not proven themselves to be infallible."

The voices in my head aren't really voices and aren't actually in my head. They might be more like a Nth felt sense with no physical location, no actual language, no sound. They might be more like long wave electromagnet radiation, far beyond the other five senses' ability to register or interpret and yet still subtly influencing me. I sense when it kicks in as a faint presence, like a hardly audible whisper, as if I intuit its presence. I figure it works like a Homing beacon, radiating signals intending to inform me without my actually knowing how, or even exactly what it's saying. Walking into that hobbit hut-like coffee house in Prague, I immediately "felt" at home. How could that be? Perhaps it was inherited DNA resonating familiarity, like the sensation I received when The Muse and I entered my father's family's ancestral village.

I swear that I'm not clinically schizophrenic, voices in my head notwithstanding. I suspect that everyone experiences similar tingles, though I also suspect that anyone can tune them out or feel so otherwise distracted that they never receive the signal. I think of these "voices" as a great gift, as great a gift as they remain a great mystery to me. I suspect that their wavelength might measure in hundreds or thousands of miles and that they emanate at some cock-eyed angle such that I only ever receive a small percentage of those broadcast. Receiving them usually seems profound, as if I'm suddenly connected to some mysterious force, though I admit that this force might be nothing more than an overwhelming self-delusion. I figure that self-delusion holds one of the under-appreciated keys to success and satisfaction.

I pay attention to these voices that aren't quite voices. I could not translate their message into any language, though they seem to readily translate into a confident certainty. I seem more sensitive to bullshit when those voices kick in, readily recognizing when I'm being mislead. I nod my head as if signaling deferential compliance, then head off to chart a slightly different course out of eyesight of the overseer. A "Danger, Will Robinson!" signal passes through my head and I'm instantly deflecting, protecting myself. My life's most significant course corrections each followed a nudge from those voices which are not exactly voices in my head.

These voices have not proven themselves to be infallible. They have shown an ability to mislead and misrepresent, resulting in curious avoidance rituals which doubtless have kept me safe but also probably unnecessarily so. I will not drive on Interstate 25, not normally, not without coercion. This avoidance protects me from the almost certain perils there, but also insists that I must take the long way around instead. These same voices in my head won't allow me to drink soda pop in any form, shop at Walmart, or invest in lottery tickets. I suspect that similar voices (which aren't really voices) encourage anti-vaxxers, white supremacists, and gun rights advocates. There's no solid science behind their convictions, just convictions wholly supported by some voices (which aren't really voices) in the supporter's heads. There not a lick of science behind my assertion, though several scientific breakthroughs seem to have resulted from some disembodied whispering in some searching scientist's ear. Later, rigorous validation might have proven the intuition correct, but the hint first visited as a simple signal, as if HomingIn on a recalcitrant resolution.

©2019 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

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