All Hail Monkey Brain The Mighty

 You are all very, very familiar I am sure with the Monkey Brain. You may not call it that. You might call it your sub-conscious. You might just think it is you being you. It is that voice in your head that never, NEVER stops going on and on and on about all the things you should be worried about, concerned about, haven't considered enough about, haven't planned enough about. 

In Yoga, the Monkey Brain is one of the aspects of the play of consciousness that makes us feel separated from the universe. It makes us feel small rather than expanded. Insignificant rather that great. We spend A LOT of time on the yogic path trying to develop the discrimination to just let the Monkey Brain ramble on and not give it energy by focusing attention on it. If you want to know one thing that will disturb your peace-of-mind, it is letting yourself get caught up in the pedantic rantings of your Monkey Brain. 

I am happy to say that after many decades of hard spiritual practice that my Monkey Brain is still able to throw moves at me and take me down out of a state of peace. The sages tell us not to let this bother us too much but because the influence of the Monkey Brain is actually one of the hardest of all things to overcome. It is still depressing though after so much work. 

My Monkey Brain has found the perfect, I mean the PERFECT foil to lever me out of internal peace...Traveling Internationally During Covid Times Where Testing (and other things) Are Needed to Get On Planes! Ah yes, what better food for Monkey Brain then having to get a variety of tests and other paperwork done just days before you leave AND hope they show you are not infected.

I just got into Ghana again on Thursday. This is my fourth trip to Ghana since the pandemic. Each one has had its own set of issues associated with getting the testing and paper work write. If you remember last trip, they added a step requiring you to upload your Covid test results to the African CDC and get  QPR code or they wouldn't let you on the plane. This trip's Monkey Brain food was over the Covid Test itself.

First, it took forever to find a resource where I could get the test within the 72 hour period as it was the Labor Day weekend. That got Mr. (or Ms.) Monkey Brain started. I finally got a test at Walgreens that was a 24 hour turnaround which was wonderful. And in fact I got the results back in just a few hours. What I didn't pay close attention to was the specific name of the type of test. If I had, I would have noticed the test was a NAAT test, not the PCR test that is required. Now the Walgreens site says this rapid test is a PCR test. So why it is titled differently, I don't know. The important thing is I don't really pay attention to this until after I am already in route.  

My money saving itinerary has me flying on a domestic ticket to Houston, staying overnight there, and then getting on my international flight which is on a different ticket. I spend a number of hours at the hotel researching what is a NAAT test? What is a PCR test? I find that the PCR uses the NAAT methodology. So a PCR test is a NAAT test. But are all NAAT tests PCR's. Clearly not. Nonetheless I save these pages of discussion to show at the airport if I'm called out on this. Then I find a place only 10 minutes from the airport that does drop in PCR 1 hour result testing. Great, this is my back up plan. IN THE MEANTIME, Monkey Brain is going crazy ranting on all the permutations and all the things that can go wrong, blah, blah, blah.

I get to the airport early in case I am going to have to run out and do the testing again. It is very crowded. A harried agent, dealing with many different flights and requirements, looks at my requirements. He picks out two, neither of which are the Covid test. I have those. He checks me in. What the &@#!*.

I get to Washington Dulles where I get my Ghana flight. I show my docs. He barely glances at the Covid test and sees "NEGATIVE" and that's that.

Thanks Monkey Brain. Thanks for showing me how far I have to go in my spiritual development...which I suppose is just another aspect of Monkey Brain.