Even though you’ve been hiding, even though it seems like you haven’t come around since I got my braces off in 9th grade, even though West Coast is your “favorite child”…I’m holding out hope.

Rain, rain go away…head out to the West Coast any day…like today…they’ve passed desperation.

It’s a tired metaphor…the silver lining, the sun’ll come out tomorrow, April showers-May flowers, but brain science says it’s so.

When I was a college student, an organization I was involved in had t-shirts printed with: You are what you believe yourself to be… or something like that. I thought it was the stupidest t-shirt I’d ever seen and on principle refused to wear it.

If I believe myself to be a duck, even if I walk like a duck and quack like a duck and wear soft yellow pajamas…I am not a duck.

Obvious to you now is the fact…I can’t get that quote out of my head. It pops back again and again and I still spend a lot of time sorting out why. Why did it make me so angry? Why is it stuck to my synapses like Lolly-lolly-lolly get your adverbs here???

I didn’t know much about how the brain works then and I didn’t understand the limitations of empirical knowledge.

Our brains are sublime, mystical things. If we can convince ourselves…believe in the certainty of attaining what we want, creating what we envision…if we can remain focused on that goal or that vision…and convince ourselves  of its truth …then it will be! We will be what we believe ourselves to be! Or get a lot closer, anyway.

Before you roll your eyes and mutter about magic wands and Santa Claus…that’s just it. You’ve uncovered how belief works…you’ve discovered that belief is hard, intense, brutal work.

But…if you can do it…you will become what you believe yourself to be.

So I guess it’s a good thing I don’t really want to be a duck, though a yellow slicker and galoshes may not be a bad idea…until the sun comes back.

And I believe it will.