Bong Chika for Junkies

Published in Bed Sheets Magazine. February, 2008.

I’m an International Secret Agent. I tear up the countryside in my fancy cars; infiltrate military satellites with my high-tech gadgets and kung-fu the baddies across the rooftops of rickety shop houses. I tickle my chin as supermodels throw their lingerie at me.

The life of a hero isn’t all bong chika bong bong wiky wiky wiky wiky. There’s a new threat to the world each second. It used to be diabolical weapons in the hands of cunning dictators, then the aliens got to us, then volcanoes, earthquakes and hurricanes. Over and over our precious ways of life were threatened and each time we were brought back from the brink of extinction all in time for the house lights to come up.

Stop. Pulse check.

“Save the cheerleader, save the world” says Hiro Nakamura in Heroes Season 1. Cheerleader saved and now it’s the virus and the villains we need to defend against. The boys and girls who make the stories that feed our brains will never run out of delicious thrills to keep us on edge—and why not? Its great money and great science.

Science? See there’s a part of your brain called the frontal lobe. It’s the part that controls your sexual behavior, self-expression, memory, creativity, motor function, problem solving and motivation among other things. It’s the part that’s evolved and differentiates us from our monkey ancestors.

Stress and shock screw up the frontal lobe. They activate our animal instincts and that’s not such a bad thing. The hunter being chased by a tiger needs that rush of oomph to kill the beast or scramble up a tree. Shocks set off our terror alert systems and give us the temporary boost necessary to fight or flee.

Oh it feels good, hella good. So good we want the rush even when there’s no emergency. The rollercoaster rides, the spanky bong-chika, the speeding down the Bangkok-Pattaya motorway at two-eighty. The TV people know we love it and they give us our fix. Over and over, night after night and we drink it. Addicts.

Problem is, we need more of it each time to outdo the previous high. Problem is, our minds and bodies use up all the backup power going into terror alert. We have little juice left for the body to do what it was designed to do: fix itself up. So we get sick. Weak. Violent. Frustrated.

The frontal lobe doesn’t develop fully until we’re 25, so many of us have spent our entire childhoods feeding our inner bitch and neglecting our spirits. “Mediate” say the mystics, and some of us heed. Get inspired, get creative and listen for the subtleties. Turn your eyes inwards and let your depths find you. Make love to the rivers, dance with the trees, kiss the sky and flirt with the bees. Philosophize, harmonize, romanticize and synchronize. Activate your third eye and let your angel fly as you open an inter-dimensional vortex and get bong chika wiky wiky with the universe.

These things feed the frontal lobe—but dude its so boring. I don’t have the time. I’ll hit the spa, there’s a new package that says it can revive my spirit. I do yoga, yoga! Isn’t that good?

It’s a start.