According to Hofmann: Mind over gray matter
I must say, as a non-believer in the phenomenon of mind over matter, a recent experience has led me to believe there may be something to it.
Before I get into my experience, I want to tell you what mind over matter is exactly, if you don鈥檛 mind and if it does matter to you, of course.
Mind over matter is the philosophy that brain power can overcome physical obstacles or problems, help defy limitations, give the willpower to achieve things beyond our capabilities, the power of the mind to heal the body, ignore pain and even do the impossible like telekinesis or picking the perfect bracket for March Madness.
Pish-posh, right? I know. That蘑菇视频 what I used to think 鈥� or not think.
You see, I鈥檓 perfectly comfortable admitting that I鈥檓 an idiot and part of my disbelief of mind over matter was simply the fact that I wasn鈥檛 smart enough to achieve it.
Turns out, that was the wrong approach because I had to be tricked for it to work.
Now to my story.
My wife Amber and I were out to dinner one night at a restaurant new to us. I ordered a burger, and she ordered wings as she loves eating wings. I like eating wings, but rarely order them because Amber normally eats half her order and then abandons them to me so I can scarf them up 鈥� I mean, at this point, a dozen wings is roughly the same value as a brick of gold, so I鈥檓 not letting them go to waste.
Anyway, the restaurant蘑菇视频 menu had a drawing of a thermometer next to the wing-sauce selection with the hotter sauces listed at the red-hot-top of the thermometer drawing along with drawings of fire, devils, fire trucks, legal waivers, etc.
Like all literature I read, I tend to concentrate on the drawings rather than the words, so I paid little attention to the menu, only looking back when Amber said she wanted to get spicy garlic wings. They were placed in the middle of the thermometer. Sure enough, the color of the thermometer was orange and on the cusp of yellow, so it seemed safe for her to eat.
When the food arrived, I ripped into my burger as Amber delicately started peeling the skin and meat away from her wings and dipping them in her bleu cheese dressing.
While our waiter was giving me the Heimlich maneuver, I noticed through the enclosing darkness of my vision that Amber put down a wing she was eating and appeared uncomfortable. I figured that must have been from the wings because she蘑菇视频 used to seeing waiters dislodge food from my throat.
After the paramedics left, I asked her what was wrong, and she said the wings were way too hot for her and she couldn鈥檛 eat more than two.
So I stepped up 鈥� well, not really 鈥渟tepping up鈥� as I just reached across the table for her food 鈥� and started eating her wings, figuring she was overreacting about the heat, much like when I start bonfires in the living room.
While I have eaten hotter wings, I did find the wings to have a tingle, burn and sting on my lips, mouth and throat to the point where I started sweating, all the while thinking that if this sauce was in the middle of the hot scale, I wouldn鈥檛 touch anything above it 鈥� I mean, literally, I wouldn鈥檛 touch it in fear of sustaining a chemical burn.
After I finished eating the remainder of the wings and wondered what kind of a sadistic chef classified those wings as mild, Amber informed me that the wings were actually made with the third-hottest sauce on the menu and that she read the wrong combination on the menu.
I looked over the menu to see she was correct, that there was a 鈥渟picy鈥� and a 鈥済arlic鈥� in the middle of the menu, and the 鈥渟picy-garlic鈥� sauce was the third hottest, mainly because it was the second-hottest sauce mixed with garlic.
Learning that, I realized that mind over matter (or, in my case, mind stumbling over matter) is legit because, if I knew Amber ordered the third-hottest wing sauce, I would have felt the effects of the sauce quicker and magnified to a greater degree, and maybe I wouldn鈥檛 have even finished them 鈥� of course, the fact that I鈥檓 cheap may have factored into me eating all the wings.
But the moral of the story is that mind over matter is something real. Knowing we all have this ability or that we can be tricked into the ability can cause us all to come together and make the world a better place and we can reach for the stars and perhaps beyond.
That is, if you don鈥檛 mind; if not, well, I guess it really doesn鈥檛 matter.
According to Hofmann is written by staff reporter Mark Hofmann of Rostraver Township. His books, 鈥淕ood Mourning! A Guide to Biting the Big One 鈥� and Dying, Too鈥� and 鈥淪tupid Brain,鈥� are available on Amazon.com.