From the utilities of 英英美代子: Happiness and fear

I walked out the doctor’s office very happy the other day…

Not only could I not control the smile on my face while mildly limping along a bit… I was so happy that I even burst out laughing for no good reason on the street…

It is as if happiness was overflowing to the extent of getting out of control….

It felt as if happiness has originated from my heart, radiating through my body and released into the air… while what I meant by the heart is about the location that you might call the chest—the same place where the air comes out when you sigh.

Nothing special really…

I had not won a lottery.

Miracle did not happen so as to take all my conditions away—physically or mentally.

It was not about what I had gained. Rather, it was about what I could give.

Sometime during the meeting with my doctor, the doctor asked for my permission to bring in three other doctors whom he might be supervising.

So, the five of us sat in the small room—including me, the case, we watched some of the videos I took and my conditions were discussed (speaking of the useless doctoral degree I got in Instructional Technology.... apparently, could come handy somehow in some capacities? 8-O lol)

For instance, I showed them one of the clips I took on the day of 大暑 or the Great Heat, one of 24 Chinese 節氣.

After my walk along the main street 忠孝東路 in Taipei (see On Pain for more information), the swinging activities I engaged in has become milder and milder. However, the movements my body around 6-7 o’clock in the afternoon on the day of the Great Heat were back to be of great intensity.



One of the questions asked by the doctor was, “Have you learned to dance before?”

My answer was, “Nope. It is just the body’s own movement.”

Back to the topic of happiness…

How does the sideway story have anything to do with the topic of happiness?

Ya… so I walked out of the doctor’s office-- realizing that I have become one of the case study for these residence doctors….

It occurred to me….

Speaking of the utilities of the everyday thing….

Speaking of the meanings of my conditions…

Now I know that there are educational implications to the path I have traversed, be it pain, disability or else not classified.

It reminded me of my last institutionalization in the New York Psychiatric Institution….

For all these years, I kept my blog and tried to see whether there is a way for the psychiatric experts to make use of my mental health condition. Unfortunately, case studies can’t quite be accounted as scientifically sound research. My level of functionality also doesn’t make me, representative, the psychiatric population they want to study (based on what I was once told).

Then, finally, this year in February, right after I took down the original Down with Meds: Ratology blog, I was institutionalized again.

One day, my doctor who was in residence came to me and asked me whether I could be a case for their studies.

When the time came, he escorted me to a room in the back, sat me in front of the group, and interviewed by a quest speaker-- a topnotch psychoanalyst in the world.

What did I talk about? I don’t quite recall now…

What could they learn from my case? Only they could know…

Yet, even if my blog could be of no help to no one (double-negative), at least… having been a case for the medical experts in training to study… there are educational implications to my mental health conditions.

Guess this is why, again, Ratology had to go down….

Guess this is why Ratology was and is reloaded…

No longer does it have to do with what I could prove to you whether a sojourner could amount to anything.

The load has been shifted… not mine solely to carry.

I have carried what I could carry for a long enough time… perhaps, only to gather enough phenomena with you to share.

The moment I walked out of the rooms… I knew I have given what I could give and what could be used is dependent on the receivers individually.

This is why I am happy, still, and, perhaps, because the happiness originating from giving or the eventual finding of outlets to give bears no fear of being lost... (sort of like the state in which this video in a previous posting represents-- on pain)

How could one fear losing something whose sole purpose is to be given unconditionally?

(And, I did walk even better after coming out from the doctor's office. I authorize you to psychopathologize it all that you might want to... for it might really have something to do with the state of my 心理 or psychology... lol)