On the Brain as a Tool

It still amazes me how, at times, I play in practice — loose, free, inspired… tennis, let’s say. But the moment I step onto the court against a real opponent, the whole thing falls apart. I start losing not to him, but to myself, even when his level is objectively lower than mine. The errors pile up, one after another. And all because I start playing “too hard.” I switch my head on right where I should be letting go of control and letting the instincts I’ve already trained do their job: intuition, memory, lightness, reaction speed.

This isn’t something only athletes know. We identify ourselves with our mind and our body far too often, forgetting that the “true self” can’t be reduced to either of them. In Freud’s model the mind is just the tip of the iceberg, and beneath it hides the unconscious. Flip the usual paradigm of thinking on its head, and you see it: the brain is merely a tool, not a dictator running the show.

And like any tool, it can be handled in different ways. With an axe you can build a house, or you can smash everything around you to splinters. The brain is the same — it can create or destroy, depending on who is using it and how.

It’s within our power to rise to the level of an outside observer — to look at ourselves and our thoughts as if from the side. To decide where it’s worth “thinking” and where it’s better to leave room for the body, the feelings, the intuition. To choose when and why we call on the mind, what the goal is, what task it’s meant to solve. To watch thoughts come and go, to notice them and check: do they match the images of the reality we want to live in, or do they pull us off course, stirring up fear and anxiety — at times in a closed loop, no less.

The trouble is that the brain often seizes power. It starts giving orders where it should be serving. And in that moment we stop being the masters of ourselves and our identity, handing the controls to an inner autopilot programmed by rational settings, a good part of which were installed from the outside.

We are not our brain. We are not our body. We are not our ego. All of it is just tools, to be used with awareness. Real mastery is keeping them under control — not becoming their prisoner.

Here’s to treating our brain as a powerful tool, but one that answers to us: to steer it, not to obey it! 😎