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Friday, September 21, 2012

Historical repetition: Cycles of humanity

I have recently thought of how often I write and try to say something about what I think people should think. Like I know the answers or something, or have some sort of idea. I thought briefly on this and realized it is probably something that makes people tired of reading what I write, because all they really want to read is some witty turn of phrase, some quick quirk of the mind relayed onto the screen for them to chuckle at for a moment.

I struggle on a day to day basis with what I 'should' write.

I know that I can write with more skill than most people, but it doesn't really help at all when you have no idea where to focus your attention. The possible subjects are numerous.

From historical fiction, which I did a large amount of research for two years ago, to a tale of my manic depressive madness and incarceration. Also I have thought about possibly turning my attention to writing non-fiction of a style that could possibly shake up the people of Aotearoa who I share native ancestry with, or even just writing non-fiction to shake up everyone in some way.

The difficult thing is deciding what it is to focus wholly upon, and then doing it.

Cutting the brain away from the body and releasing it into the tips of your fingers, relaying the feelings that you have felt and idea's that you have had onto the keyboard and meshing them together in some sort of net. A net that captures a persons attention for a time without ensnaring them for too long, so as they do not get weighed down by it.

For what use is writing that does not either entertain or inform in some way? Writing that says or provokes nothing is generally banal instruction, easily dispensed with, often hurriedly.

Thinking back to the rather tumultuous time that was my foray into the world of the mental health system and I can see there was much that would entertain people, with a few chuckles, as well as some things that would no doubt disturb. I remember enjoying a delusion that I was descended from the Pharaoh God's. A quite powerful delusion in fact, relating to the sun in many ways, the sun being something I was rather fixated on during times of psychosis, the thing about the delusion was, in my mind of minds, I knew very well it was a delusion, I just enjoyed the game, and the reaction my apparent belief in it caused in the people around me.

The energy and feeling of power a psychotic episode gives you would absolutely amaze some people, it is truly quite wonderful in many ways. Like the best drugs or sex you have had times a thousand, at times. So very hard to explain to people while you are in it and infinitely harder afterward, as it is impossible to take your mind back into it.

Of course, away from the delusions, there is also the clarity. The delusions and the clarity are two very distinctly different things. The clarity is in many ways the thing that pulled me oftentimes from the delusions.
It is a very difficult thing to explain to people that in many ways, you are in complete control of your mind in a 'psychosis', only seeing reality with unfettered perceptions.

The clarity is what also often causes you to fall back into delusion, as the sheer horror of human reality is too much too bear. It is truly maddening. When the veneer of civility is stripped from your eyes and you see things as they are. Sometimes of course you see things that ease your mind, the love of a friendship, or the care of a parent.
Though also in these moments you can see things that are really rather disturbing, the slight look of desperation in one friends face, the quick shade of anger that flits across the face of a mother. These things pale in comparison to the terror of the system though. Its mechanical maelstrom is a truly mesmerizing mindfuck.

I can recall quite clearly walking through Wellington in a state of heightened awareness, on a week day, the city bustling about me in its quaint earnestness. Quaint of course because Wellington is like the little engine that could, a 'big' city that is not that big, though of course it does make fairly bold movements at times.

I walked through with a slow jaunt, completely aware of my surroundings, and I could actually see the system at work, the traffic lights changing in their flickering computerized roundabout system, the pedestrian shuffle, slow sloping walks, to high speed sidestepping maneuvers, the beeps, grunts of bus and truck brakes, the cacophonous sounds of the city's song. The bank inhaling cash, in the form of people and their dreams, sucking in bright faces and spitting out defeated visage's.

The fake smiles, the uncaring greetings, the shallow laughter. These things can drive you into the darker parts of the human psyche quite quickly. You can see easily that humanity has very much lost control, as it is quite plain that there are very few people who are actually happy among those who inhabit the city as it works, though they be its very lifeblood, there is a dead quality to them as they flow in its paved and carpeted veins.

This of course is probably one of the most maddening things of all in many ways. You see the pain and suffering in the people as they move, the sorrow. And yet there is nothing to be done, the apathy is set. Empathy has gone. Anger has taken its place. Vengeance must be taken, on those who cause you pain, those people above you, around you, who make your life more difficult. It is a sad rat race.

Its talons lie deep in people though, forcing them about their business. Of course there are many who in many moments enjoy the day to day reality of it, I my self being one, the vigor of work does stir you in many ways toward a type of happiness, though in many ways it is a happiness that is fleeting. The urge to anesthetize comes on strong at the end of the working week, regardless of the profession in most cases.

For me, on many occasions, safely ensconced in the psychiatric ward, looking out at the city and the meanderings and goings on, it was easy to see in certain moments that myself and the people who were with me, were in fact, the sane ones. We had had enough and needed to be shut away, as the system had irked us so severely that we could not trudge along in it.

Is it not odd that people who laugh and dance provoke people to mention madness so easily? And cynicism and sneering behaviour is looked upon as normal?

All we really want is to be loved and to love. To be free. These things have become so difficult in the reality of the system that owns us from birth. The system that is beyond human control. People talk about groups of individuals who control the masses. Secret cabals, shady foundations. To me this is just a strange sort of hope. To me humanity has lost control, we are in the grip of a power that is inhuman, a mechanical monster of our own creation that has enslaved great masses of the worlds population to a creed that is based on greed and power.

People who do not wish to hear such things say that there is happiness in the modern world, though they are quick to brush over the cold hard fact that billions of people fight tooth and nail every day for mere survival.

We live in a beautiful world, as Coldplay so beautifully put to music in one of my favorite tunes. It is a cold hard world as well, with dashes of joy and goodness. May we all try harder to alleviate the suffering of the masses of humanity who live in fear of the calamity tomorrow may bring. May we rediscover our spirit and redefine human existence. It is never too late. Empathy over apathy. Create love and eliminate hate. Peace.








Saturday, September 8, 2012

Possibilities that may exist

Take a step into the future. Where humanity will be in one thousand years. Impossible, and foolhardy. I see around me intense fixation on the past. Entire branches of the media devoted to relaying the boring events of the last few hours. Further back though, with these books of 'god', written by men? Haha, someone is having a laugh.

Living the strange lie of realizing what the world is about in many deep and odd ways, it is often hard to find anyone with which to talk about this with. Such a facade in the workplace, the image of the person is given to the work associates and perfected over time according to design.

Humanity is dysfunctional on a level where people are sick of hearing it. They don't care anymore, apathy prevails as people give into brutal biological reckonings of what humanity is, immediately giving people the defense of 'their animal nature' prompting them. May we engage our cognitive powers more willingly in the future, instead of wasting them as we do on television, video games and other such fanciful pastimes. Humanity is stalled, and needs to push through the mayhem and solidify a plan in a more meaningful and all encompassing manner.

The notion of any sort of division according to nationality is something that needs to be left behind. The struggle is and will be those in power and those not, no matter your race or even religion in the end. 'Race' and 'Religion' should and hopefully will, become merely reference topics for a guide to redundant follies.

There is much we have learned. And much we will. I pretend to know something sometimes, but most of the time I have not arrived anywhere in terms of a solid philosophy. It just becomes so severely taxing when you regard the world at a slight angle on occasion. It is often then that you realize you are taking it too easily, the deranged makeup of modern society is terribly inefficient and causes many deaths in the general populace. The distribution of money is completely warped in favour of groups and people who waste it on frivolities and great economic ventures, losing millions on the stock market and having fiendishly over the top extravagant parties while millions starve.

The horror of that is so cliched now though. The image should not be though, that of a small child emaciated and feverish fading away into death because there is no food while western families throw away tonnes of good food a year. Does this not seem odd?

To me, yes,it does, terribly negligent really, as this situation is not new. It could have been cleared up years ago by a more functional United Nations with more power and clearer goals. And essentially, a higher ratio of scientists and artists in these councils also. There is no reason why it is not so when you really get down to brass tacks. Lawyers and economists run the govt? How functionally prepared can you be for skulduggery. The other branches of science and the arts are where balance could finally be achieved in some way that could provide a more reliable reflection of the desires of the greater community. On the back of course of a far better funded education system.

All the world should implement large scale education programs across their countries, it should be a United Nations initiative, 'educate the world'.

Possibilities that may exist.