At the very beginning, there was Ratopia. Then, there's ratology. In ratology, we observe whether psychotic and neurotic people could amount to something. Then came the spinal disc herniation and impingement, bringing forth the stage of physical disability. Could someone like me go anywhere or amount to anything is the question. After the official ending of the second psychotic episode lasted for five years, I am ready to move on to the next phase of Ratology- as the solutions unfold.
Perhaps, all I have had so far are but some form of masquerade...
Leaving me nothing more than the man behind the curtain... pretending I could be more than who I am and there is more than what I could actually offer...
Making believe... there could be something more out of da nothingness in life...
Luring you into considering that there could be anything, less or more, to God knows what that I could offer....
While all but the multiple representations of the same principle... simply a nut case I am.... deserving no more and no less... what I have and what I am...
How bad is that... if not for you... for myself at da point of Zerbrechen in the city of Chloe?
Two quotes that really resonate with myselves from the book "Inner Work" by Robert A. Johnson.
In Active Imagination I am not so much "talking to myself" as talking to one of my selves. p. 26 8-O lol
We are all made up of many personalities or inner "persons," coexisting within one mind and one body. We think of ourselves as one individual, with one single viewpoint on life, but actually, if we pay attention, we have to admit that it feels as though there were several people living somewhere deep inside, each pulling in a different direction. p. 45 8-O lol
Quotes I have found so far from the book "Mindfulness" by Ellen J. Langer...
Contexts control our behavior, and our mindsets determine how we interpret each context. p. 35
Without psychotherapy or a crisis as motivation, the past is rarely recategorized. We might from time to time call upon different episodes from the past to justify a present situation or grievance, but it rarely occurs to us to change the way the events or impressions were initially stored. P. 64
If exposed to patterns of stimulation that are perceived as repeated and unvarying, the sensory system often shuts down, since it is not "receiving" anything new. P. 67
Once we become mindfully aware of views other than our own, we start to realize that there are as many different views as there are different observers. P 68
Instead of living a dull, stale existence in a cell for forty-odd years, the Birdman of Alcatraz found that boredom can be just another construct of the mind, no more certain than freedom. There is always something new to notice. And he turned what might have been an absolute hell into, at the least, a fascinating, mindful purgatory. P. 74
If I have orange juice for breakfast every day, even though there are many alternatives available, chances are I am not making a meaningful choice. Meaningful choice involves some awareness of the other alternatives that have not been selected. Through this awareness we learn something about ourselves, our tastes and preferences.p. 85 (Ratprincess: What about prune juice? 8-O lol)
When we are behaving mindlessly, that is to say, relying on categories drawn in the past, endpoints to development seem fixed. We are then like projectiles moving along a predetermined course. When we are mindful, we see all sorts of choices and generate new endpoints. P. 97
"It is by logic that we prove. It is by intuition that we discover," said the mathematician Henri Poincare. p. 116
The dancer Isador Duncan, whose art is by definition motion and change, said, "If I could tell you what it meant, there would be no point in dancing it." P. 117
With one pre-set image labeled GRAND CANYON in their minds, blinding them to what lies below, they search for the one and only "right" spot to stand. In advising his audience that there is no such spot and that they could search instead for whatever was "meaningful" to them.... P. 117
Bach also spoke of the effortless flow of musical ideas. Asked how he found his melodies, he said, "The problem is not finding them, it's--- when getting up in the morning and getting out of bed--- not stepping on them." P. 118
Creating new categories, exploring multiple perspectives, and focusing on process all increase the possibility that a novel approach to a problem will be discovered. P. 139
"Take a word of advice, even from a three foot nothing. Try not to associate bodily defects with mental, my good friend, except for a solid reason." Charles Dickens, David Copperfield, P. 153 (Ratprincess: oops... what if I am both bodily defective and mental... what does it leave me with... 8-O lol)
Most of our labels for people tend to be global: genius, midget, homosexual, giant. Such labels tend to influence every other judgment of, or reaction to, the person who bears them. P. 155
Because most of us grow up and spend our time with people like ourselves, we tend to assume uniformities and commonalities. When confronted with someone who is clearly different in one specific way, we drop that assumption and instead look for more differences. P. 156
Sensory as well as physical handicaps create a series of hurdles that require mindful solutions. The deaf, blind, or wheelchair-bound person must approach simple activities, that others pursue mindlessly, in a more problem-solving frame of mind. P. 161
Ironically, the greater mindfulness generated by a handicap, or other difference, can create yet one more way in which the person differs from the majority. Greater mindfulness may lead to original perceptions that others may view as bizarre..... In combating prejudice, then, the issue is not simply how we might teach the majority to be less judgmental, but also how we might all learn to value a "disabled" or "deviant" person's more creative perceptions. P. 161-162 (Ratprincess: Thank you Langer... since I am both deviant and disabled, you have classified me as one of da group with creative perceptions. And... no wonder I am even to bizarre for myself... 8-O lol)
To be "deviant" means that one does not belong to this so-called "normal" group. In itself, the notion of deviance has no meaning. P. 167 (Ratprincess: so one of my prof said in the class of Phenomenology--- 偏見, 偏見, 有偏才有見... the English Translation is something like... bias bias... how could you see without bias... just like how do you see normal without the contrast of abnormal-- and the matter of the fact is that much of what we know about normal is through them abnormal...)
"Is there a split between mind and body, and if so, which is it better to have?" Woody Allen, Getting Even P. 171 (Ratprincess: now I know... I prefer both... 8-O lol)
From earliest childhood we learn to see mind and body as separate and unquestioningly to regard the body as more important. We learn that "sticks and stones may break your bones, but words can never hurt you."" If something is wrong with our bodies we go to one kind of doctor, while with a "mental problem" we go to another. Long before we have any reason to question it, the split is ingrained into us in endless ways. It is one of our strongest mindsets, a dangerous premature cognitive commitment. P. 171
If the lion is fear-provoking in one context and not in another, then before fear can be experienced, one has to supply the fearful context. P. 175
Contexts are learned. Thus most of what provokes emotion is learned. P. 175
Emotions rest upon premature cognitive commitments. We experience them without an awareness that they could be otherwise, without an awareness that this is the way we, albeit passively, constructed the experience. P. 175 (Ratprincess: schema etc and automaticity)
Without looking closely and noticing that the same stimulus in different contexts is a different stimulus, we become victims of the associations we ourselves constructed. P. 176
Our thoughts create the context which determines our feelings. P. 176
Robert Ulrich reported that gall-bladder-surgery patients who had been assigned to hospital rooms with windows facing brilliantly colored fall trees had shorter postoperative stays and took fewer pain reliever than those assigned to rooms that faced a brick wall. P. 179
"I can resist everything except temptations." Says a character in Oscar Wilde's Lady Windermere's Fan.
When patients are given a placebo and then get well, the illness is considered to be "Only psychological." (Here we see the old mind/body dualism, alive and well.) It is interesting that no one tests the effectiveness of active drug by telling patients that "this is only a placebo." (Is this implicit recognition of the power of the mind to change the effect of the drug?) P. 189
Placebo effects are real and powerful. Who is doing the healing when one takes a placebo? Why can't we just say to our minds, "Repair this ailing body"? Why must we fool our minds in order to enlist our own powers of self-healing? P. 190
The study about warts... P. 192
One reason mindfulness may seem effortful is because of the pain of negative thouhts. When thoughts are uncomfortable, people often struggle to erase them. The pain, however, does not come from mindful awareness of these thoughts, but from a single-minded understanding of the painful event. P. 202
The story about the hermits and the professor.... "In the lab of the hermits, no one noticed that the monkeys could talk." P. 204
Another thought deRatprincess at this point.... it seems like mindset in my languae is mental model or script etc while mindfulness is about the multiple interpretations of the same artifact following da constructivist kinda principles...
In the last book I finished... inner work... the whole them in the book surrounds the concept of self...
In the book I am trying to finish, the whole book, so far as I could see, surrounds the concept of our worldview... or mindsets in the writer's language...
Guess this is the reason why, last night, I pondered about Why....
And, such reminds me of a previous posting I made... 空: 反觀諸己..... for, in a selfish state... shall all things "happen" are but probabilities until being observed and interpreted... it does take no less and no more than our "selves" to construe the world... at least... a lot of times...
Found this quote as a quote in this book I am starting to read.... sort of reminding of what I thought of in Perfect game ....
The intellectual life of man consists almost wholly in his substitution of conceptual order for the perceptual order in which his experience originally comes from.
William James, "The World We Live In"
The burden of the intellectuals..... I guess.... too much of them complications...
Nun merk' ich erst, wie müd' ich bin, Da ich zur Ruh' mich lege: Das Wandern hielt mich munter hin Auf unwirtbarem Wege. Die Füße frugen nicht nach Rast, Es war zu kalt zum Stehen; Der Rücken fühlte keine Last, Der Sturm half fort mich wehen.
In eines Köhlers engem Haus Hab' Obdach ich gefunden; Doch meine Glieder ruh'n nicht aus: So brennen ihre Wunden. Auch du, mein Herz, in Kampf und Sturm So wild und so verwegen, Fühlst in der Still' erst deinen Wurm Mit heißem Stich sich regen!
English Translation
Now I first notice how weary I am As I lie down to rest; Wandering had sustained me As I walked a desolate road. My feet do not ask for rest, It was too cold to stand still; My back felt no burden, The storm helped me blow along.
In a coal-burner's narrow hut I have found shelter. Still, my limbs cannot rest, So fiercely my wounds burn. You too, my heart, in struggles and storm So wild and so bold, Only now in the quiet do you feel the sharp sting of the worm that lives within you!
I go back to read my writing only once in a blue moon...
Recently, I have gone back to repost my old writings to the Down with Meds blog... because.... since I have to go back to them posting to figure out how to analyze the contents, I might as well get them reposted as well... two birds, one stone... I guess..
So when I do go back, it never ceases to amaze me how them strange things would have come out of my mouth....
Shall them writings be the verbal diarrhea of my unconsciousness...
I gotta say that... like this me... my unconscious is a fairly strange bird as well.... and maybe this is why 99.99999 % of the time I have no idea what the hell I am talking about.... 8-O lol
I woke up from this dream this morning.... although only could recollect the last part...
I was supposed to be going somewhere while not knowing both where I was and where I was going....
A mirror scenario of something that happened on my first backpacking trip in Europe the summer of my freshman year...
I was staying in a small town with a family where even the local train doesn't stop... to get to this town from the train station, one has to pass a forest, moved further on before making a right turn and a few more turns before I could see the light in front of their house.
I arrived at their place in the night and didn't really get a good look at the road.
When I decided to go to Lucern 2 days after, I was so very excited about the whole thing.. I was not even paying attention about how I was going to come back....
So I spent a good day touring in Lucern...
So I was getting back from Lucern so that I could make it "home" to join this family to have some "horse meat".... except for, after I got off from the express train coming from Lucern and at this station from which I needed to catch the local train.... I forgot where I was supposed to go...
I had no recollection about the name of the town I was staying at or the name of the town where the train would arrive.... worse of all, I did not have their telephone number with me, I had no idea where I was, I might have even forgotten their name, and, my passport was in my backpack in the safety of their house... 8-O
I remember that the day kept on getting darker and darker... more and more strange people started to gather around that train station...
I looked diligently into the train schedule but simply could not recall anything about the name of the town where I have to go....
I locked myself in the telephone booth... flipping through one page after another.... wishing miracle would happen and I could find the contact number of da family...
It must have been 2 hours since this young Asian girl in the suburb of Lucern locked herself in the telephone booth and, with one hand, holding on to da Swiss army knife in her pocket... also... must be looking anxiously lost...
Then, this man on the bike approached me...
I had tried to ignore him at the beginning...
Then, he revealed to me that he was once in Asian or maybe in Taiwan... Then, he asked me what I was looking for and where I was going...
I told him about my dilemma...
The two of us, then, looked into the schedule and try to get the destination figured out.... to no avail...
Then, the guy working for the station joined our venture....
I forgot how exactly and eventually we figured out where I needed to go... and the next train to arrive was some time around 8 o'clock....
When the train arrived, I kept on walking from one cart to the other... all carts seemed so empty... so I kept on walking until I found a seat not to far from an older lady...
After I arrived safely at the designated station, I got off the train.... into the dark...
There was no one by the station and it was already sometime past 9 in the evening...
In my head, I must have thought... how am I gonna get pass the forest this hour in the night in total darkness when having no idea at all how to get back to that family...
So, gripping to da knife in my pocket, I moved around in red alert....
At some time, I saw a car in the distance....
I was thrilled... thinking... maybe it is this family that had come to fetch me...
I walked closer and closer only to find out that... it was not them...
It was a man with his car...
What shall I do... so I must have thought to myself...
So, still clinging to da knife in my pocket, I walked to his window... trying to explain to that man about my problem...
The man stopped me and said something like, "I am here to pick up my daughter. She could speak better English..."
So the daughter arrived, we spoke, they put me into their car, and, we drove on...
The next problem we had to face was...
Although the town is neither small nor big.... where exact was I going?
I tried to recollect myself...
I thought of something that might be or might not be useful... a landmark that might be or might not be a landmark...
I said, "I remember a building with the word 'Floral' writing across."
So, all three of us, in the dark, and, perhaps, in rain, riding in the car... cross the dark forest... looking for Floral....
We kept on driving but did not spot it... and we kept on driving till we reached the next town...
So we turned around... with them accompanying me patiently looking all over again for Floral....
So we found that building and I asked them to drop me at the entry of the driveway towards the residential area... for I thought... I have troubled them enough...
So they dropped me there...
So I walked on... not even sure whether that was the place to be dropped off while trying to recall the turns they might have made the day they brought me to their house....
So, with my "peripheral" memory, I made one turn, two turns, and far more turns until the final turn when I was supposed to see something like a red light.... and so I saw....
I rang the bell...
The daughter answered...
The parents were still out having their horse feast...
I sat down on my sofa bed...
I was, for the first time during the whole 9 yards, in shock... 8-O lol
So she brought me a bottle of red wine.... I must have down it like there was no tomorrow...
I crashed...
In the middle of the night I woke up again... still in shock and not understanding how I made it back....
So, just when I started to type out what I really experienced in reality, I came to realize that... far more scarier is reality to life.... 8-O lol
By the way, at some point in the dream, I remember myself worrying about them three doggies not on leash might go wondering around and get lost...
How you might have this piece analyze... so they say... it is up to the device of your own mind....
For me, perhaps, the message is that... even in the most impossible situation... follow your intuition and trust the goodness in people... for when we look for the goodness in the others... even more goodness will be revealed.... even though, the goodness of people could only carry you so far... the last mile is yours to walk...
Also, expect not all under the Myst to be uncovered at once... rather... look for one resolution at a time...
At the same time... did I get lost? To be honest, I did not really get lost for... how could one get lost when one doesn't know anything about the place at all? 8-O lol
Then, I thought of da forest... I thought of this quote from Dante's Divine Comedy that I read earlier today...
In mezzo del camin di nostra vita
Mi ritrovai per una selva oscura
Che la diritta via era smarrita
E quanto a dir qualera e cosa dura
Questa selva selvaggia
In the midpoint of this journey that is our life
I found myself passing through a dark forest,
The right path through which had disappeared
And what a hard thing it is to speak of that savage forest
And, of course, me da professional lost soul in limbo.... except for... what did I lose, what have I lost and how am I supposed to prepare myself for the future?
I have been working very hard on trying to catch up with my class readings... and finally got done with this book titled Inner Work.
It was not like I had preferred to be playing scrabble night and day whenever I had free time rather than doing my reading...
Rather, some part of me had told me that it was not yet time and I have to put these books down until the time is ready for the contents of these reading might get my alternative selves to much room to roam....
Then, it was about 2-3 weeks ago when I got the OK from... what you might call intuition or even delusions to start reading the Art of Possibility....
Then, afterwards, I started to go through the chapters in this book titled Inner Work... a book about using dreams and active imaginations to tap ourselves into the unconscious...
While reading this book, especially the part about Active Imaginations, I couldn't help but wonder... how on earth would people try to put themselves into a state that I could escape not...
For me, what is being described in them scenarios are synonymous to my delusions and hallucinations...
At the same time, the concept of having multiple selves residing in one is one I have long pondering about....
Regarding listening to the unconscious speak... didn't I postpone the readings all the way up till 2-3 weeks ago when my voices told me that it is time to start doing so?
Then, I realized... perhaps, it is a gift... in disguise... while others, presumably, have to try so hard to tap into their unconscious thought, my delusions and hallucinations simply spring up left and right on their own schedule .... 8-O lol
Geez... now I understand why the Cellist Gaspar Cassado would say to his students, "I'm so sorry for you; your lives have been so easy. You can't play great music unless your heart's been broken."
And... why Zander felt secretly delighted when this student of his was in dire straights because he lost his girlfriend.... "Now he would be able to fully express the heartrending passion of the song in Schubert's Die Winterreise about the loss of the beloved"..... (The Art of possibility, p. 31)
8-O lol
Can't stop wondering though... did anyone ever feel it cut like a knife for losing me? 8-O
And, who needs a heart when a heart can be broken?
Gotten home, I turned on the TV.... found "12 Angry Guys" being played on Channel 13.... while logging on to my email to see whether that old jackass of mine responded to my email... to make it a posthoc Proper breakup.... 8-O lol
Nope... my email might have gone into the ether of the Internet like before....
While, funny enough, the first time he tried to contact me back long after our relationship went into the ether was the night when I went with this friend of mine to see "12 Angry Men" on Broadway....
Regardless, past is past and present is present...
However tempting it might sound... the whole getting things processed thing... I supposed... just like how stocked up my room is... there is always space for more....
Another one of da 99% phenomena....
"I don't know what this song is about. When I was writing this I was going through a divorce. And the only thing I can say about it is that it's obviously in anger. It's the angry side, or the bitter side of a separation. So what makes it even more comical is when I hear these stories which started many years ago, particularly in America, of someone come up to me and say, 'Did you really see someone drowning?' I said, 'No, wrong'. And then every time I go back to America the story gets Chinese whispers, it gets more and more elaborate. It's so frustrating, 'cos this is one song out of all the songs probably that I've ever written that I really don't know what it's about, you know."- Phil Collins
Before I got out today, I was told something like....
"You should have cleaned up your room before you go out because you might be able to pick up a guy at the bar tonight..."
I responded....
"Nobody gonna be coming to my place the way it is.... It would have to be me going to his place...." 8-O lol
So, I spent some time at the bar, doing the regular not doing to much kinda thing... and forgot all about the picking guys up kinda thing....
Back home I came... and saw that friend of mine who made the comment of the picking up thing...
I looked at him and said, "Where was the guy who was supposed to pick me up?"
"Maybe you are looking for the wrong guy to pick you up..." So I was told...
"Maybe the guys is at a wrong bar..." So I might have replied....
Then, I thought to myself....
I am a professional bar girl.... How come I never encounter guys who want to pick me up at the bars? See... nobody ever said to me... "Hi, there... here comes my pick up line...." 8-O lol
Or... could there have been guys who tried to pick me up just I had no idea that they were trying, me, to pick up unless them media have depicted the concept of picking people up in the bar wrong? 8-O lol
Then, I thought... interesting question.... how does one ever know that someone is trying to pick him or her up?
So... after my exercise in the park last night... as I was walking back to Broadway... this thought occurred to me... perfect game...
What the whole project on the ancient yet expensive Microsoft software programs represents is a perfect game....
It is as purposeful and as meaningless as any other transaction I have ever conducted except for, consciously or unconsciously, I chose to blow up the meaningless part of its features... without ever going back to check my assumptions...
While meaning... logo... a product of abstraction granted to my human fellow.... all interpretations are real and unreal....
What is real? The constipation brought forth by the 600 mg Seroquel... that is real....
By the way, I heard from some source that if one doesn't poop in the morning, one could be carry about 6 bls worth of shit load the whole day... this is why, I guess, I am so very... full of shit... 8-O lol (Just don't ask me how they came up with the estimation.... lol)
When my mental health condition was starting to go down south back a couple weeks ago, my shrink suggested me to keep track of the occurrences and severity of my psychotic symptoms, for instance, the auditory hallucinations, the delusions, and the bodily kinda hallucinations such as involuntary kinda movements.
At that point, I must have stared into his eyes and said something like...
"But it is just the chi moving...."
There goes the bodily kinda hallucinations out of the checklist....
Speaking of mental models.... 8-O lol
So I lived on for a couple more of weeks... doing that letting the body move itself kinda exercise whenever I could find time and taking my 600 mg Seroquel nightly like a good girl...
Recovery takes its toll in time and seldom did I screw myself up like before... (at least that is what I thought...)
Yet, I guess... sort of like familiarity builds contempt... comforts begets them doings wrong...
So I got to work yesterday morning....
Since I was the only person there and since I knew there were laptops to be set up for the afternoon class, I slowly started the process of setting them equipments.... which I haven't done for the longest time....
Did I ask for help?
Nope..
I thought I could do it... as long as I take it slow....
After all was set... I sat down monkied around for a bit before I went back to this project involving filing the Microsoft software programs...
The task was absolutely simple and straight forward....
Inputting the software info into the database and put the physical copies of them in order....
Shortly after I started, I somehow stepped on the surge protector and shut all equipments down.
"Idiot!"
So I must have cursed out while turning all things back on...
Not much longer again...
Damned... how did I step again on that surge protector again and screwed how I have had the computer set up again!
"Idiot!"
Again, so I must have, to myself, cursed out...
It was a long and tedious process... that has been going on since last week...
Filing them expensive old original Microsoft software all the way back in the 1990's.... 8-O
Then, I started finding myself getting more and more impatient....
I started murmuring to myself....
"This has to be the last set of old Microsoft to be found. If I see more Microsoft, I am gonna kill myself....."
Them old Microsoft Select in Burgundy, Blue, Orange.....
I saw no meaning to it.... no one is going to get them patches for Window 98...
I saw no purpose in it... what is the point of reorganizing them all to be put to shelf?
Gradually, the sense of discontent started to build up and build up and escalated like there was no tomorrow...
Until, finally, my coworker got in... and, to her, I exploded...
"How did you have not given me all the Microsoft that you found that are unfiled? Don't you know how hard it is for me to finally got them all done only to find.... bla bla bla bla bla bla... bla bla bla bla bla..."
She tried to speak... I put her to a stop...
She came back from inside of the office after a while... I was still all edgy with my mind set that she is all that to be blamed...
I found myself about to explode about working so hard on the greatest of nothingness of all....
It was then when I said...
"I gotta step out for a smoke..."
Finally I got to the outside and lit that cigarette of mine...
Only to find that...
The body was moving at a pattern far different than them leisure movements of smoking time...
So I stood under the sun, right by the sidewalk, letting the chi guiding the bodily movement..... while coming to a realization that....
How did I, again, miss them signals?
The past had me taught that, when I go over the capacity of my body, the circulation of chi started from getting disturbed in the body and eventually leads to the disturbance of flow in the head.... and this is the time when I get myself into conflicts for no good cause!
The past had me taught and I have generously let go of the lessons learned...
I stood there letting the body move itself some more.... and....
I saw clearer and clearer how I had mistakenly using my coworker as the target to vent the fiery chi rather than swinging them out of my body.....
I saw clearer and clearer how it had nothing really to do with them software programs, Microsoft or not....
It was simply... the chi built up and where it tends to get stuck got stuck... and to me... it is the whole back and the head.... 8-O lol sigh...
Then, I walked back to the office... in a hurry...
Before I even sat back down to my coworker, I apologized to my poor baby girl for my venting on her... absolutely uncallful... and we talked it over--- issue resolved...
It was not much later did I come to the realization that...
Now my head is clear...
Now the chi is starting flowing....
And, now the nerve pains are back....
And, now the whole back hurt.... the same way it hurt all those times before...
So I took an Alleve and it sent me walking in the cloud.... and it allowed me to stay till the end of the working day till I was able to finally make it back to the park to do them exercises of mine...
The trip between the office and the park was not too much of a pleasant one...
I went back to the way I was....
I had to come to a stop whenever the spasm hit and the pains aggravated... so I walked and stopped... revisiting the usual ritual....
Arriving at the park, I let the body do its own thing and let it reset my bodily condition at its own pace.....
Over an hour later, as I was getting out of the park, already was I feeling much better though da stopping routine remained needed....
So I thought to myself again....
Now I have the mental model about how it works...
Why is it so hard for me to catch myself so that the whole cycle doesn't recapitulate itself?
At the same time, I pondered... how might have the others interpreted what had happened based on their mental models? In their eyes, how did the stories unfold?
I missed the free shuttle at 1:40 that goes from Columbia University to the medical campus this afternoon by 1 minute....
In order for me to get to see my shrink on time... a logical alternative would be for me to take either the subway or the bus... if not... taxi...
Yet, I took it to the road... for... 50 something blocks... nowadays... I could walk... in addition to saving me the 2 dollars bus fare in the era of global economic down turn... (8-O lol)
So I walked... sometimes uphills, other times downhills and, at times, on flat road... from 116th to 168th street... a total of at least 52 Manhattan blocks.... took me a good hour or so...
While moving steadily on my two feet... jaywalking at times when opportunities knock... the memories of the past came flashing back....
How many times did I miss the closing hours of the New York Public Library while attempting to hurry to no avail across the street?
How long did it last for a Manhattan block to take me 4-5 minutes to cover--- perhaps much longer shall there be hills involved?
Then, to the never ending moments of memories flashing back I thought...
Such shall be the indication of my physical disability invoked PTSD....
So they sang...
Last thing I remember, I was Running for the door I had to find the passage back To the place I was before 'Relax,' said the night man, 'We are programmed to receive. You can check-out any time you like, But you can never leave!'
When I went hanging out at the bar last night, I bumped into this lady who I have met a few times at the joint...
I listened to her story and tried to approximate her dasein by drawing references from my own past...
In essence, the story is about breaking up from a relationship....
At some point, this question I asked....
"Why are you still so angry when you don't want to take him back?"
Hearing these words out of my own mouth, I came to the realization that..... the question is no more directing to her than to myself....
So I sat there staring aimlessly at the happy people....
So I, myself, asked.....
"Is anger still eating me alive?"
"How would I know?"
"Why would I still be in anger if I don't want him back?"
So, I stared towards the direction where this ex of mine and I once were... the space was now occupied by two young girls sipping their beers...
Yet, in my mind, I saw da J from Hell and I drinking Apple Martini celebrating... sort of... our engagement....
Were we happy?
Ya, we were...
Were we mesmerized?
Absolutely....
I also vaguely recalled how the bartender then told us how something was supposed to be done in a certain way otherwise it would be bad luck.... perhaps... how the other thing she prepared for us was supposed to be drunken.... though I don't quite remember...
I ordered an Apple Martini before stepping down to have a smoke... aside from where we once stood... when he told me never to doubt his love and affection....
Then, I looked away...
Somewhere there.... he kneed down in the middle of the road... to me, proposed...
So, I let the old movie play.... watching the memories of the past replayed... wondering how all these might have made an impact on the future thereafter which has, so far, unfolded....
Back to the bar, I sat there pondering about the visions of the past...
I stared at the green fluid occupying the large glass....
I took a sip.... and the following quote emerging in my mind....
The Hindu saint Sri Aurobindo once said, "Why is it that when people begin to relinquish the world, the first thing they relinquish is common sense?" Inner Works P. 109
From then on, no longer was I staring at these two girls a la bar...
I was staring into the past....
And... I thought again to myself...
Am I still angry?
What would I do shall he be right in front of me?
The imaginations spoke in a far succinct fashion then words....
So I saw...
Slap him in the face and slap some more... kick him in the balls and once more... doing a few more of them Tai Quan Do kinda side, front, and back kicking some more.... (oops... loving intention... zen moments... 8-O lol)
To myself I thought...
I guess I am still angry...
Then, I pondered again....
Why am I still in anger even though I don't want him back?
And... like what the acquaintance had put it... why do I continue to feel the pain although I no longer want that once-upon-a-time the object of affection?
Could it be that I am but addicted to da sense of emotional arousal resulting from the suffering?
Could this be a simple demonstration of operant conditioning?
Or, could it be that... he just disappeared from my life and I just lived on as if he never existed though the unprocessed past holds their original space which I have been carrying on my back unwittingly all these times?
So, waking up this morning and after all these years, I sent him an email with something like...
"I realized that we never broke up properly"....
Only to be questioned by a friend of mine later that... what accounts for a proper breakup?
.... while waiting for a reply stating.... "we broke up years back" from a man to whom I will not go back....
Perfect games remain to be a strange concept to me.... because it takes our sitting through all these moments of nothing happening all the way towards the end before we know the game is perfect in some sense.
This reminds me of the fact that... so many a day... I won't know why exactly a day unfolds until the morning after....
Then, I set it up so that the clips of my swinging activities show on one corner of the screen while the other corner, clips of them classic music....
Paying no mind to either of them, I continued to read through this book I have to catch up with titled... "Inner work".... going through the chapters concerning dream analyses and the uncovering of the unconsciousness...
And... I tried to draw references from the texts to understand the dreams I woke up from this morning...
As I took a break and went to the John...
This voice to me spoke...
"Go cook your dinner...." oop... 8-O lol
So the voice commend... so I went to cook myself some asparagus and meat.... 8-O lol
When I was back in Taiwan, my doctor told me that the simple act of leaving the clips running on the computer (without paying attention to it) could help the chi to circulate better....
This is an idea that has been lingering in the back of my mind but I never made myself leaving the clips running until today...
So, I was at work and decided to start doing the leaving my swinging videos running thing...
Could the benefits be realize?
I have no idea.... since there is only one me....
Even if there is another me in the parallel universes, it might be sort of difficult for us to exchange information about the outcomes of running and not-running the video clips in the background..... 8-O lol
They say it is never a good thing to be feeling negative....
Guess this is why I feel like to strangle people who makes me wanting to strangle them... oops... only human and can't helping being a b from hell... oops... zen moment... loving intentions... 8-O lol 8-X
Following is a clip about the outcome of exposing water to messages with positive and negative connotations... something I learn in class...
Positive & Negative Energy Effects on Water Crystals
Mozart "Eine Kleine Nachtmusik" Beethoven "Symphany No. 9" Dvorak "From the New World"
While watching the animation, I could not stop seeing myself as the circle.... remember how it used to drive me crazy about the body moving itself kinda thing (e.g., Belief )? 8-O lol
In class this week, we watched a video titled "What the bleep do we know."
This movie is supposed to have something to do with spirituality and quantum mechanics....
Unfortunately, slow as I am.... I couldn't quite understand the key points of the movie after I watched it for the first time....
Quantum mechanics itself... for instance... was something I learned over a decade ago and must have returned what I learned back to the teachers long long time ago.... 8-O lol
Then, I sat through the legendary Dr. Hans Bethe's three lectures online....
I got the quantum physics part of the ideas but could still not figure out how anything about quantum physics could have anything to do with the message they try to deliver through the movie...
Then, through youtube, I found a redux of 3 movies, including segments of the movie "What the bleep do we know"......
I watched over the redux again and had the feeling that... I am getting a bit closer to understand what the bleep is what the bleep.... 8-O lol
After class this morning, I went down to the park to do of my exercises....
10 minutes or so after I started, I found the moments stalled... something told me that I had to make the remaining 20 minutes to go get myself something to eat before starting to work....
I guess, to the parts of my body and mind that I have no control over, food is more important than exercise.... 8-O lol
Food... food... food...
So many a time these past few weeks if not months has the word "food" be the pronouncing auditory hallucination that won't stop repeating itself until I finally put food in my mouth....
So many a time, I would have to tell that auditory hallucination that....
"Do me a favor... can you please stop repeating yourself like a broken record? I have gotten our food and I just need to get back to the office." 8-O lol
Does it work or not... can't quite recall.... will try though for next time to see whether it works... lol
Then, today, after I got home, I did some "cooking."
For the longest time and for all these years, when I cooked, what I do essentially is to use my hands to break veges into smaller pieces, sometimes adding noodles and a egg.... Ending the process by putting all ingredients together into a pot of water and let all boil together... 8-O lol
After I got back from Taiwan, it remained to be the one and only cooking technique until when my body and mind started to tell me that... time to be psychotic again.... or time for my mental health condition to start deteriorate again...
I guess, this time, my body and mind decided to let me go through the process on the outside.... other than giving me the instruction to up the dosage of Seroquel all the way up to 500 and 600 mg from 200 mg... my body and mind made a point of making me eating well on the outside...
So there has to be protein... so I would be told to eat meat if not fish...
So there has to be veges... a whole range of veges I have to eat in addition to collard green...
So there has to be Vitamin C... so there has to be something included from the fruit family...
So there has to be at least 2 meals for at times I might miss breakfast when in a hurry.
So I ate guided by the order given by my auditory hallucinations and delusions.... 8-O lol
In addition, like what I said to my psychiatrist one time, I tried to match my diet as close to the food they provide in the hospital as possible.... for the amount of food and drug I consumed seem to mark the primary differences between being in the outside and the inside.
So, tonight, I decided to make things more fancy...
I stirred fried my collard green and asparagus with smashed fresh garlic... and I even used a knigh to cut the garlic open and to deskin it....
Thereafter, I cooked a piece of Salmon and beef with Teriyaki source.
And... I ate.... ate with a extreme sense of pride.... although both the fish and meat are blackened or "burnt" because...
Ya... as of yesterday, I could simply put veges, fish and meet all together in the pan... if not putting all in the same pot...
Today marks the first time in my life to be cooking a meal that involves more than one step and using Teriyaki source for myself....
Today, I cooked them separately.....
Then, I thought... what a benchmark in my life it is...
Then, I thought... how wonderful me a Parsifal to be.... to be so very genuinely proud of something--- to the others, nicht.... 8-O lol
And, I thought... didn't seem to be so much more work... why did not take all these years for me to come to this stage? 8-O lol
Recently, I start to listen to some of them things called classical music.... something I have the least idea about... 8-O lol
Well... I have heard quite a bit of arias in various opera during my party era at an opera joint....
The remaining of them classical music thing.... when comparing with the Lion King... I guess I chose to see the Lion King.... 8-O lol
Then, this friend of mine took me to a concert featuring a program starting from the creation and ending with Apocalypse....
Then, this book I am reading is written by a conductor and his ex-wife.... which mentioned many a piece of classical music...
So... on youtube, I was able to locate many of them pieces that are classical.... and eventually landed on the following clip when browsing through the work of the late master cellist "Rostropovich" whom I had never heard of until I arrived at page 124 in the book titled the Art of Possibility....
The title of the 21-second-long clip was "Rostropovich Screws Up Beethoven Sonata"....
So, the first time I played it....
I went....
first... "Where did he screw up?"
And... "What exactly does it sound like 'Beethoven Sonata'?"
After I played the clip many more times, I gave up trying to understand where exactly Master Slava made a boo boo.... for it is really difficult to pick up the wrongs in unknown.... 8-O lol
Then, I decided to go check out the comments people made about the clip..... among them, I found someone else asking the same question.....
WuShell: where exactly is the error? poinkinha: i didn't get whts the error o___o and, whtever it is, it didn't screwed up, huh? nazhiitoxx: hear from 0.9 to 0.12 and you will see the mistake, but is very very little
cgd147: where did he go wrong? tcornellvln: around :12/:13
So I went back again focusing on what went on between 9-13 seconds.... and I realized that he did sort of stopped at some point...
Guess that was where he went wrong.... while, when focusing on figuring out the wrong of the unknown, I finally got to see the plausible wrong but the Sonata remains, to me, unknown.... 8-O lol
Great lesson to myself, I thought... owing it to the mastro...
At the same time, to myself I thought.... the burden of people who know the music a bit too well to be catching that 1 second..... 8-O lol
No wonder... my ignorance is a bless... and so I pray to God.... may you Parsifal be fully covered.... 8-O lol
One thing I learned so far about my disordered thoughts is that...
I am my own worst enemy because it takes me to construct an imaginary world about unfounded expectations.... no one else to blame... unfortunately...
As I have mentioned before.... such an imaginary world does have an impact in real life... such as the full time position that I had at hand which I lost.... because I thought I told the president of the school that I could not make it to work "telepathically" while I didn't realize until much later that.... the message apparently was lost somewhere in the ether.... 8-O lol sigh...
In addition, I just could not shake this unfounded feeling that, somehow, some people are accessing my private blog without me granting them the access.... Crazy does crazy does... I guess... 8-O lol
A quote from the Art of Possibility by Zander & Zander 'Nature makes no judgment. Human do. And while our willingness to distinguish good and evil may be one of our most enhancing attributes, it is important to realize that “good” and “bad” are categories we impose on the world--- they are not of the world itself.' P. 105
Mendelssohn 'Italian' Symphony No.4 - 1st mvt. p. 143-145
Today marks the first day I got back to Time Square in my own usual way since over a year ago....
It doesn't mean that I have not stepped into Time Square since my accident last June.
The matter of the fact is that.... every time I go hanging out with this friend of mine, we would start our night of bar or restaurant hopping on the East Side and gradually move towards the West side where we say night night....
What I meant is that....
I walked around like all other people and could even walk pass other pedestrians in Time Square so as to catch one of them Broadway shows....
It must have been at least an year and half ago when I last visited Time Square my ordinary way... hopping from one box office to the next looking for them discounted tickets... standing or sitting...
And, believe me, through out the time when I was busy managing my pains and struggle to move more steps without coming to a stop.... the last thing I had in mind was to attend any events unnecessary to my daily living....
So, with the discounted tickets I got through the school, I finally got to see the Lion King....
So I saw the lions, the lionesses, the giraffes, the birds, the hyenas, the warthog, the meekest and the monkey.... dancing and singing....
Coming out from the show and as I was waiting for M 104 to arrive, to myself I thought... them hyenas are nasty....
And... one more thing done for my return to New York.... visiting Time Square the way I was and had Lion King watched....
Then, as I continued to move through the chapters in "The Art of Possibility"... I landed today on the passages concerning "Being with the way things are."
"Being with the way things are calls for an expansion of ourselves. We start from what is, not from what should be; we encompass contradictions, painful feelings, fear and imaginations and--- without fleeing, blaming or attempting correction..... We learn to soar, like the far-seeing hawk over the whole landscape" P. 111
How true is it...
At the end of the day, nothing grander than simply being with the way things are....
I am a psychotic Parsifal still sort of physically disabled....
When winds from all directions blow... swing with it and, with its departure, forget the dasein moments and move on...
And, it is almost time for me to move on and come out of a state exclusively for recovering purposes...
And, yes, so I feel.... it is almost time from me to come out of the shell...
Don't know how much longer it is going to take... yet... the time is almost there....
When I went to see my shrink today, I said it.... something that has been lingering in my mind all these times...
How selfish I am....
Living a life focusing on nothing more but the healing of my self....
Seeing nothing grander than putting my self together... in all capacity.
Operating not on what is expected of me (or the shoulds) but what I could do to patch myself together back in one piece...
What about a career or wealth that could bring forth contributions to... say... people who me care such as my family?
But, nope...
Like what I heard when going to bed the other day....
The voice said... "Take care of your health" for there is nothing grander than being in good health and nothing could worth all that much without health....
My daily goal in practice.... getting my health together in all capacity....
All else.... forgotten in split seconds...
Guilty... am I.... perhaps, for being so selfish....
Whit
-
Whit sounds like wit and according to dictionary.com, it means
a particle; bit; jot (used especially in negative phrases).
I have changed not a whit. I do...
A dream: Backpacking
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On my way back from NYC to Taipei in April, I managed to get myself an
extended layover (over 2 weeks) in Japan, landing at and exiting from the
Narita Air...
Ratprincess in Technology not lost?
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Given my sick-in-the-headness, sometimes it's hard to trust my LTM. Did
Ratprincess in Technology really exist or was it my false memory?
As I was marv...
Traces of the past
-
A link I found that has been live online from the Down with Meds age.
Apparently, the past has always been there whether I knew it or not.
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