Sunday, November 30, 2008

String theory

As I was hanging out last night, someone mentioned to me String theory when seeing the book I am currently reading about quantum reality...

As Einstein might put it... does God play dice?

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/elegant/program.html

or

Check Spelling

Them strings as wiggling energies reminds the low-latent-inhibition me about the concept of Xi, Qi, or 氣.... some unobservable and obscure thing that made up my body...

Saturday, November 29, 2008

Cold Fusion: BS or Promise?

Not my kind of Cold Fusion... the scripting kinda programming language... but, the anti-paradim low energy nuclear reactions...

Part 1:

Part 2:

Part 3:

"The problem is there are far too many theories which purports to describe the same set of observations. And no more than one of these theories could be right."
"The lack of a theoretical framework..." (because there are too many competing theories.)
Part 4:

"Everything is done (in physics). Just shut up and learn..."

Them squirrels

So, yesterday afternoon, another squirrel must have spent about 5 minutes examining the path ahead with my coffee and bag sort of blocking its way....

It must have looked really attentively at the blockage while, at times, checking me out...

After some long deliberations (in my interpretation, of course), that squirrel finally decided to run past my stuffs and move forward.... instead of running towards the other direction or jumping off the concrete fence...

So I started to think...

What is wrong with them squirrels?

Could it be such is but some common occurrences except for it had never occurred to me before?

Or, could it be that, after swinging around in the park for the last few months, now the squirrels have come to know me and start to feel comfortable moving around me?

In any case, it is starting to be sort of normal to see them squirrels walking around my stuffs nowaday....

Then, this morning, as I was again exercising by the Riverside Park...

This squirrel stared at me while I stared back at it... curiously...

At some time, it came looking up at me right next to my left foot... less than a feet away from me... with me looking back at it...

I don't know whether this is the same one or not...

A bit later, there came this squirrel that stood right next to my right foot... while it stared at me, I, again, looked back at it with extreme sense of curiosity...

Then, all of a sudden, it rose its right hand and grabbed my pants.... thereafter, ran speedily away towards the other direction... leaving me all bewildered... thinking...

Did that squirrel just try to pull my leg, if not my pants? Did it just happened to me? 8-O lol

Friday, November 28, 2008

OCD

After my last posting, I realized this inclination of mine for obsessive compulsive disorder about... did it help...

I guess, based on my limited life experiences so far, many things we have to go through are just a big chunk of elegant waste...

Guess this is why my voices kept on telling me to look outside of myself...

It is because, if some part of my life could resonate with that of the others and lead to some kind of reaction.... bit by bit... some part of the meaninglessness gets dissolved...

Call it the collectivist mindset if you want to... and self-centered...

Sometimes, it is the betterment of someone else's' life that makes our own life beautiful and wonderful...

Such also reminds me of this funny concept of entanglements in life... the interconnectedness in our minds and live experiences...

Shall such a construct hold true... the best thing I could do is to always try to look at the bright side of life... to help others help me see more of the brighter sides... and ending each every statement with a big thank you... to solicit more of them moments of the "big thank you"s.... in my worlds... imaginary or not...

For, I swear to God... I could be locking myself up tearing my hair off trying to figure out the meaning of my having to be sick in the head and body... (even though when I was locked up in the psychiatric ward using a walker, I still felt that I was healthy like a cow... 8-O lol) and, despite of my presumed propensity for low latent inhibition, meaning could I still conceive not...

Or... the social construction of meaning... I am speaking of...

Wonderful life

At times, this thought would come up to me.... a life as such... what a waste of the limited resources on this planet...

Other times, I would think... there is something that I could contribute...

So... as I was speaking with my family tonight through skype... mama told me some stories about how my miserable being is being used to motivate others to engage in their own healing...

Essentially, my doctor in Taiwan would show the clips of my miserable state of being to other patients and ask them this question...

"Are you in a conditon worse than this.... walking like this and in pain all over the places?"



Many people, apparently, find it inspirational since they find themselves in a less agonizing kind of state...

Some even called my mama up only to say...

"Is that your daughter..."

And, something like, thanks for helping us to find a sense of hope....

While it is me who should be feeling thankful to them because it is them who help me to find a sense of contribution in that prolonged state of being, classified, by myself, as absolute uselessness...

So I think... isn't life wonderful when even the optimal wastefulness could render some helpfulness...

Thursday, November 27, 2008

Seeing hawks

So I pondered...

How interesting the dominal effects of all things coming together that led to seeing hawks...

Red-tail hawks

After I exercised by the Riverside Park this afternoon, I sat down on a bench... staring at the tree in front of me that stubbornly would not give up its leaves...

I thought of the bare branches...

I thought of that strange short-tailed squirrel that walked past by my bag earlier on twice in a roll...

And, I simply stared at the tree thinking of nothing at all... just staring at it...

Then, I saw this hawk coming down from the sky...

I took out the camera that I brought out with me today for reasons unknown...

I decided to record a clip for the red-tail hawk flying sky high....





Only to realize that right above my head, rested the hawk's nest...

In no time, there came another hawk resting above...

So I thought...

Never know there is actually more than one of them until the day I chose to sit right below their nest... guarded by hawks... 8-O lol

(sorry if the images aren't clear enough... the tree was tall and, like many things else, the camera was once-upon-a-time state of the art technologies as well... 8-O lol)

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Speed

On my way to meet up with two friends of mine for a night's feast in sea food buffet... I walked down the 33rd street from Pen Station towards the Empire State Building...

Beautiful street scene and lively city.... a nice short stroll...

I felt happy and still do... being able to walk down the blocks like any other human being that I encountered along the way.

It was somewhere along this trip did this thought come to me again...

I had no idea what was to unfold then...

I still have no idea what is to unfold in the future...

One thing I do know is that...

Looking back to the point when I found myself on the ground with a piece of Raisin Brant cookie in hand to this date... almost a year and a half later...

I would say... it's been an interesting journey....

More specifically, "speed" is what makes this trip most interesting....

While I was operating on two speeds: slow and stop, it was as if I was on a train carrying me through all minor inconveniences on express track...

As I look back, I am sort of in awe how I could have just glide through them inconveniences in one piece and how much it entails... my quota... 8-O lol

So I ask myself this question...

Would I have preferred to have them minor inconveniences dripping down here and there on and off? Or would it be more to my taste to have it pour down like a storm so that I could get done with them in a shorter time frame?

The answer... a no-brainer...

Hit me as hard as you want to for as long as I could withstand it...

For, I know... when I am done with my share, the sky will be cleared... paving me a brighter path to move on...

And, I pondered... could it be that it is the coexisting speed of slow and fast that balance all things out and result in the disappearing sense of time.. time and again....

Thank God...

I am reading this really interesting book called "Entangled mind" recently... with psi phenomena the topic in concern...

At some point, I encountered the following passages concerning the concept of latent inhibition. Essentially, latent inhibition is about our unconscious mental process to pay no mind to things that were inconsequential in the past...
  1. Low latent inhibition has been studied extensively in schizophrenic patients because a key symptom of that disease is perceiving meaningful relationships everywhere, even when there aren't any. P. 50
  2. .. low latent inhibition is associated with the personality trait "open to experience" which is in turn associated with divergent thinking and creativity. Of course not al creative people are psychotic... 8-O lol P.l 50
  3. ... high-creativity group had significantly lower latent inhibition scores than the low-creativity group... greater access to more of what the world presents, and high intelligence helps one successfully navigate through this flood of perception. By contrast, those with low intelligence struggle in vain, and the result may lead to psychosis.

As I read through the writing all the way down to point #3, I could not stop laughing to myself...

No wonder my voices told me to stay put and be a parsifal... for, I just can't shake the habit of being psychotic... In addition, assuming a membership in low intelligence does make life absolutely wonderful; it is because... since I am low in intelligence, why do I need to bother trying to make myself a higher achiever? Thank God... Thank God... and thank them experts for completing my excuse... 8-O lol 8-X lol

For my dumb dumb existence... your song...

I hope you don't mind

I hope you don't mind that I put down in words

How wonderful life is when I am dumb.... 8-O lol


Monday, November 24, 2008

Bitch from Hell

At some point today, I made a comment about someone and said...

"She is such a bitch from hell..."

This comment led me to realize that...

Man... my mental health condition has gotten really improved!

Now I could finally be a bitch from hell calling someone a bitch from hell without reservation!!!

This reminds me of this jackass of mine from Arizona...

It was at some point when my condition had gotten better and I was getting off Depakote...

At that point, one day, he was posing himself as an expert and trying to convince me that it would be for the good of Taiwan for Taiwan to "join China."

Oh.. Oh... that was a no no... yet, he just went on and on and on....... with his expert opinions...

So I started to tell him to shut up with all that nonsense... with mucho mucho emotions...

And, at some point, he suggested me to get back on Depakote.... 8-O lol

Ya... so I think... angel bin ich nicht... angel in disguise more likely if anyone, for reason unknown, ever wants to insist on placing me into that category.... In addition, shall I ever have the inclination to be insanely nice, understanding and empathic, that would be the side effects of my paranoia coupled with delusions... not me... for fairness is my modus operandi and I am pretty talented in mirroring... 8-O lol



Oops... a bit too bloody... 8-O lol

And, as I was typing da posting about Microsoft... so I thought... even if I really had married him or any other ex-s, we might have gotten bloody divorced by now... and be single... speaking of perfect games...

Microsoft

I am finally done with that marriage with Microsoft last Monday, I think...

I could sense that there are still many of them somewhere out there... however, those have been located are finally done... adios...

The whole Microsoft business kept on bringing me back to the delusions I had at the onset of my acute psychotic episode...

The delusional contents involved were much different in that episode than those ones I have or had later on...

Unlike the ones I have or started to have from the second acute episode on, where, annoyingly, death would pop up left and right everywhere, those delusions were mostly perfectly grandiose in nature and I don't recall the theme of death involved in them at all.

One name kept on popping up then was... Microsoft...

Microsoft was going to give me a job, sponsor my green card and pay for my tuition...

For the longest time, I thought that all those were promises that were never to be materialized until recently... at work, when I was plowing through them microsoft...

And, I realize that...

Those delusions were materialized just in a different form...

I did get a job with "Microsoft"....

My job did pay off mucho mucho of my tuition... and I did get a grant to pay for my dissertation study....

With green card? I don't know... perhaps the link sent by my boss for the green card lottery could help me get that carte de green of mine... 8-O lol

In any case, finally, while Microsoft has no idea at all that it actually married me, I am finally divorced... and, single...... or, reborn as symbolized by them deadly visions and thoughts?! 8-O lol sigh



Or, better yet, could it bring forth my divorce with my psychotic self? 8-O

Sunday, November 23, 2008

The tunnel

Something told me to get back and visit some of the old clips I took....

Then, I reencountered the end of tunnel... a clip taken in January, 2007, played at 3.3 times of the original speed where the stop was marked as light on the other side...

How funny it feels now to be looking back at that time... for... almost 2 years later... it feels as if I have finally arriving at the other side... at two speed: slow and stop... 8-O lol sigh...

Saturday, November 22, 2008

Incidence

When we were cleaning up at the Flea Market today, I realized that this lady who got some of my stuffs left the bag behind...

I felt really bad about it...

She had left the bag with me but forgot to reclaim it...

There is no way I could get in contact with her and the only thing I could was to leave the bag with the front desk with the wishful thinking that... perhaps, tomorrow, the lady would come over to reclaim her belongings...

Then, just when I was thinking that it was because of the lady that I felt bad... it occurred to me that...

I actually was also feeling bad for all the ribbons and rubber stamps that she purchased... for... in my mind, at the point when the ownership changed hand, they were on their way to make the best use of their potentials...

The sick and the disabled

The day started quite all right.... I got waken up by my friend because we have to start setting things up for the flea market thing for the day... in her apartment with a gorgeous view overlooking Hudson river and the GW bridge...

We started our day as independent and self-sufficient modern women... preparing for our day's venture in the flea market...

Being a disabled who can't carry much weight, my primary duty was to be sitting there being a watch dog... when she and her friends moved boxes and boxes of stuffs to be sold...

The time went by and finally it was almost 5... closing time...

It was not until then did we realize...

She started to get sick and I am disabled... while her other friends were gone..

Oops... how are we going to move all the boxes from the basement to the ground floor when there is no elevator and there is no other people to help?

At some point, this friend of mine was so sick that she was laying on the ground while yours disabled was trying to move stuffs... sort of like 2-3 bls at a time.... if not 1 and less...

Thank, God, there is this nice strong guy on duty and who helped us moving all them stuffs out of the building...

And, eventually, she got much of her stuff stacked into her trunk and we got the extras wheeled back to her building... and called it the day...

Arriving at her apartment, both of us very much crashed...

She was really sick and had to lay down to rest...

My body was not to happy... the right side all spasmic and I was limping along when trying to fix something for her to eat...

So there we are... the disabled trying to take care of the sick... 8-O lol

So said the disabled at some point and so agreed the sick...

Time to find a man to take care of ourselves...

And now...

Thank God I have enough meds to last me for one more day because, forget about the original plan of taking me back home tonight.... the sick is already in bed....

And, the disabled, regardless how much of that chi exercise she does, finds herself not quite capable at moving again... and thinks...

"Funny how life always has a way of slapping me in the face whenever I start to feel that no longer am I so much a disabled..." 8-O lol 8-X lol

Serenading disability... 8-O lol

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Happy picture

Thought I should draw myself a happy picture....

Ok... should be looking for a job but what I did for myself today...



Sort of like... changes will arrive... in the meanwhile, with all the nice things in my life... happy... though not perfect... as manifested by the stain on the paper.... (didn't I tell you all these times that I am sick in the head with disordered thoughts? 8-O lol 8-X)

Change or no change

Then I thought...

I won't really change anything at all.... other than... SES... 8-O lol

Butterfly effect

Was checking my balance... 8-O lol oops... (ok... gotta seriously consider quitting smoking... 8-O lol)

and

had this thought....

What if I could have foreseen how I am today years back...

2 years?

3 years?

4 years?

11 years?

14 years?

17 years ago when I could have chosen to go into medical school?

Or, even further back?

What would I have done differently and how far back would I go?

Would anything done differently make any difference?

Or, would all alternative decisions I make still let to similar path after all?

This reminds me again a movie I saw way back.... Butterfly Effect

Sunday, November 16, 2008

Relative

I have been accused of being a relativist before.... and I was told that my relativistic worldview is a result of me being too much influenced by my psychosis....

This thought came back to me after I attended the talk on the use of CBT on psychotics yesterday afternoon....

First of all, let's take a look at the second part of the sentence...

I was told that my relativistic worldview is a result of me being too much influenced by my psychosis....

One thing I would say is that... whoever has the tendency to make a comment like this is very lucky because he or she still doesn't get the idea of what it means to be psychotic at all (and please don't get me wrong... it really is wonderful for one not to get it at all).

Voices are not only voices... when a voice is "heard", the process is done for the signal to be attended to, to be perceived and for some preliminarily interpretation to be drawn. What that "react not" kinda thing I have been trying to do does nothing more than putting a stop to further elaboration on interpretations.

Concerning that delusion kinda phenomena... essentially, the delusions we have are but the externalizations of the "disordered" worldview... be it the script or mental model we operate on. And, there is a reason why it is disordered... regardless how hard we try, when the time is bad, you could be as logical and see as many plausibly interpretations as possible, however, that default and biased worldview remains to have the dominant impacts on how interpretations are drawn and how reactions are generated.

For instance, back in September and October, I was leading a life equivalent to that of Jackle and Hyde... for as the night falls, I would be engulfed by the delusional dasein moments captured in an earlier posting concerning Fear and Harm... Essentially, I would think and fear that others were coming to harm both me and the people I care about while, at the same time, although I know those are delusional thoughts and hallucinations, I had very little input in changing how I felt in them dasein moments.

It is only when the condition gets more stabilized and when things are not as bad can we really start talking about using cognition to will ourselves out of the disordered thinking processes and their consequences. Now I am at a state when I could see the "multiple interpretations of the same artifact" or to entertain the notion that there are more interpretations than the default one I am granted on the "observation" I made.

For instance, on my way to see my shrink Friday afternoon and as I was going to catch the subway, I saw people and their facial expressions.

The first thing that came into my mind was...

"They knew that I am on my way to see my shrink and I am going to suggest "terror" as the topic of discussion. This is why they are looking at me so strangely."

Then, the corrective mechanism kicked in...

"Psychotic and self-inflated."

So I thought to myself and I moved on... (and to what? 8-O lol sigh)

Another example would be my attending the meeting about psychotherapy for the psychotics.

So, I arrived at the meeting and sat down quietly. However, there is this feeling inside that I could not fight... some people knew that you are that Ratprincess and some people might consider me as a psychotic trying to get into their head... 8-O lol

Then.... the corrective mechanism directed by my meta-cognition kicked in again...

"Boring.... so what? Who gives a rat's ass about you?" (although my ass is bigger than I would like it to be... bodily dysmorphic disorder 8-O)

Yet another example...

So, I was hanging out with this couple... I went down for a smoke, and, after I got back, all of a sudden, the two of them looked at me and, out of blue, asked...

"Is your mother here?"

8-O lol

"How does my mama's whereabouts have anything to do with our conversation so far?"

"Could be someone said something." So I thought...

Yet, self-correction mechanism kicked in...

"Whatever..."

So, I continued on with the casual conversation... 8-O lol

Ok, all the blah blah blah I have been talking about is for a reason... maybe, what I have been applying to myself so far "could be" what they coined as CBT. (And, believe me, I don't think I had cooked it up myself because I must have read it before since this CBT thing predates me... lol)

Does it work? I guess, for me personally, it sort of works... (although with sample size as 1, not control group, and, purely based on my biased interpretations... can't quite make to much methodologically sound kinda inferences from it...)

At the same time, after applying it to myself all these years, did I eventually get cured? Oops... didn't I just take down the Ratology Blog because my psychotic self said so and, as a result, have to repost them writings one piece at a time to recover the blog? In addition, didn't I just go for a vacation in Club Meds in February? 8-O lol sigh

One thing I would say is that... for people who just could not shake the habit of them residual symptoms, this whole teaching them to see the multiple interpretations of the same artifacts thing or what is called CBT... might come handy and could be helpful. Hopefully, it would also help those who are in a state like this gentleman and that lady...

Yet, they also need to be made aware that such a skill itself is not a cure, and, maybe, one day there is gonna come a different type of psychosis called meta psychosis... at least based on the case study I have been running on myself. 8-O lol 8-X

So, at some point during the evening, I rethought the meeting that I had gone to...

I thought of how each of them seem to be so sure about the beliefs that they hold and how I can't help seeing all them different plausible interpretations...

So I thought...

Perhaps, it is true that my life as a psychotic did reinforce that relativistic self of mine mucho mucho....

At the same time, perhaps it is just like Yin and Yang... absolutist and relativist... all balanced out.... and it is because of relativists like me that there need to be absolutists...

And, one thing I DO believe is that... good luck to all them experts and their pursuits because... in the end, the only thing that really matter is.... whatever it might be... Does It Help?

Young people

I happened to be hainging out with this nice couple from Florida last night...

At some point, the husband's phone rang... and I was informed that it was his mother calling to check on them.

It was passed 8 and, apparently, they were way past their curfew time of 7.

So I was told... when they get back, shall they wake the mama up, they would just tell her....

"It is 7:30."

Mothers are just mothers regardless how old you are...

That reminded me of what happened at this talk I went to earlier on in the day...

So, I went to this meeting yesterday with the topic of discussion concerning the implications of CBT for psychotic patients... with speakers and attendants experts in related fields.

Towards the end of the meeting, as I was busy performing code switching between my psychologist and psychotist mode, this gentleman, sitting in front of me, who looked a bit more "mature" spoke out... with the sentence started with something like...

When I was in the Navy (or Army) in the 50s, xxx and xxx were already doing it...

and,

"... you young people just don't know..."


(ok... I never said that I could draw... 8-O lol)

At that point... I looked all around the room... I saw young people.... 8-O lol

Living... in and with

Story of my life...

Living

In America



with hernia

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXozg2U_wss

8-O lol

"Living With a Hernia"
written by 'Weird Al' Yankovic

Help me out! Dig!
All I do is grunt and groan
Hurts me to walk anywhere
Went to see my physician, Dr. Jones
He took my trousers off, told me to cough
Doctor says there ain't nothin' to discuss
He tells me any day I might have to wear a truss

Living with a hernia
All the time, such aggravation
Living with a hernia
Gonna be my ruination
Living with a hernia
Got to have an operation
Feel so old

Too much back pain
Good gawd, drives me insane
Can't run, barely crawl
Got a bulge in my intestinal wall
Walk real funny, bless my soul
Can't play tennis and it's hard to bowl
You can't even do the splits now... Say it!
Better call it quits now
Now I'm sick of all this dancin' anyhow

Living with a hernia
Hurts me bad in a tender location
Living with a hernia
Had enough humiliation
Living with a hernia
Got to have an operation

I live with a hernia
Can't get up, can't bend over
Now I live with a hernia
Wait a minute...
You may not be familiar with the common types
Of hernias that you could get
So just settle down, let me clue you in
There's incomplete
Epigastric
Bladder
Strangulated
Lumbar hernia
Richter's hernia
Obstructed
Inguinal and Direct

Living with a hernia...Rupture!
I said it's causin' me such irritation
Living with a hernia
Have to have my medication
Living with a hernia
I feel bad!