Mind Game

So there was this time when I mocked the very idea of decaf. What’s the point, I wondered, of coffee that doesn’t keep you awake? It’s like non-alcoholic beer or a cheap Mercedes Benz – a pointless exercise that completely defeats its own purpose.

Or so I thought.

You see, of late, coffee has been keeping me awake. No, let me rephrase that. Coffee has been keeping me awake at night when I have no intention of staying awake. I’ll feel a yawn coming up around 3 in the afternoon, have a half-cup of coffee and that’s it – I’m left tossing and turning well past 2 at night. Which, naturally, leaves me all drowsy and incapable of telling my arse from my elbow come morning time. So then I do the logical thing – have more coffee. You’re smart, you see where this is heading, don’t you?

Now, if there’s one thing I’ve learned after four years of studying psychology (apart from the fact that there’s a disturbingly large variety of disturbed people out there), it’s that the human mind is complicated. And also, fairly easy to fool.

Decaf is what I’ve been using to make a total and complete ass of my own mind. It tastes the same as regular coffee (at least Nescafe Gold decaf does), tells my brain that I’ve had something that tastes like coffee in the afternoon and still, doesn’t stop me from hitting the sheets like a sack of overworked potatoes. Which means that my extremely clever, I.Q.-of-145 mind can’t even tell when I of all people, am playing silly buggers with it.

Deplorable, isn’t it?

Ah well, like they say, whatever helps you sleep at night…