lucky to be alive

i'm very lucky to be alive, and even more so to tell you about it. i coulda died so many times (and i will die one of these days) but rumours of my death are greatly exaggerated. stay tuned, and i'll tell ya about it.

today, i think i'm starting to get my memory back. i can dimly remember going to the bathroom back in february or march, before all this started. this is really important, this focus on body-function.

paranoia

i battle paranoia for much of the day--the feeling that something isn't going to happen or somebody isn't going to come through. it negatively affects my behviour, making me think this isn't real, and then i do things like try to walk without any supports, or deny this is really happening,

god is....

...ineffable, and beyond the bounds of space and time. i take a leap of faith and establish a relationship with god.

lack of knowledge leads to bogus internet?

sometimes i seem to make up things, rather than admit a dead-end on the info-hiway, or my lack. i seem more prone to making things up in the morning and afternoon. by the evening i seem to have settled down.

false idols

this is inescapble
the glory of the internet is that it is ubiquitous
no matter where i am, there it is

decisions

it's a tricky thing--as with everything it seems--knowing when to do something, and when to refrain. like deciding something for my future--i can remember that i used to do it all the time, often without thinking. now it takes concentrated effort. the alternative is not to do it at all.


similary, undoing or doing up my pants when i go to the bathroom. do i do the hardest part myself or do i ask for help? do i keep asking for help 'til i die? have i become that dependant? already? or is this vacillation part of the progress of the disease? will i come through? should i just relax, and it will happen anyway?

the system

this 'system' is all-encompassing. for all i know, it may include these emails. or i might be the only one that is crazy and the system extends as far as i see. what do i do? know reality, says plato's allegory of the cave. know thyself, says socrates. be still, and know that i am god, says the famous poster. an existential approach (paul tillich; john shelby spong) posits that faith alone determines my relationship to the divine. two nights ago i was worried that like the buddhist holyman, i had to have everything sewn up at the moment of death, but now i'm not so sure. otoh, if we're caught forever in our dreams at the moment of death, it woud be good to have a good dream. but is that any better than a lousy reality? are dreams just as real? do i get brownie points for thinking like this?

[later]
this makes less sense the longer i'm here. maybe i see more and pay attention more to things that have less to do with me, and in this way they make less sense. this adds to my feeling of unreality. real or unreal, how can i tell? either way, where does this paranoia come from, that someone is out to prevent me from disovering the truth. is it paranoia, or is it for my own good?

insanity--all of it

i think i'm insane. this is a relative term, so i think i'm insane compared to the relative sanity of society. of course, i think society is crazed, and i no longer want anything to do with it. society includes you. so why do i bother? first, it's the proper procedure to let my psychologist know where i'm at. second, it's therapeutic for me to write about it. third, i have a dim hope that you can help me. fourth, if no one can help me, this is my way of thumbing my nose at the world. fifth, this is my response to being in rehab for 10 months. paradoxically, my explanations of my insanity hopefully will make my actions seem less insane.

a difficulty in being insane, is knowing what is real and what is constucted. one of my aims is to realize everything is constructed by me, and thus to control everything. this is why i do things as inocuous as eat dessert or as harmful as walk without any supports: i am often testing my sense of reality. the problem is that my sense of reality often comes up short, and i can only take so many knocks. protecting my brainpan should be my number one priority. but then i may never know what is 'real'--besides, it's boring. it also appeals to me to think that society is constructed to support a false illusion about reality. it helps those in power stay in power--and power is not money or guns, but ultimately it's about knowledge. i may not have access to money or guns, but i may have a twinkling of insight into knowledge. or so i flatter myself. i may be totally out to lunch.

what, then, is the point to all this study, if an indeterminant part of this is unreal? when i read a text--or respond to a text--what part is real and what part is not? is this what insanity is? (is not 'is *like*' but '*is*').

well, if i am insane, i have fulfilled my self-prophecy. and i don't like it. but i can't go back and feign my ignorance, now that i know; but how do i move forward? i ask the same question whenever i go pee.

i think of something, and immediately either there is an answer, with its accompanying solace, or there is a great, crushing anxiety. left to my natural desires, i of course seek the solace. but if i do, doubt plagues my mind--am i lusting after forbiden fruit and taking the easy way out?

one final admission: i am better in print than spoken word.

these disturbances don't help. i'm talking specifically about the guy in bed 3 who keeps me up half the night; this fire alarm;... is my brain grasping at last straws before the finality (seeming finality) of the anullment?

is the anullment to be desired or not? is it even real or not? i want do what is right. i've always wanted to do what is right. but what if there is no right or wrong? what if it's an existential world, and we are indeed creatures of our own decisions, ultimately of our own faith.

or am i just lost? having given up on active rehab but not allowed off this unit, what do i do? right now, if i stay in this room, i'm at the mercy of the television, which right now has an ontario focus on the gm-bankrupcy. i've steered clear of all news of the depression, having gone into the hospital before its official start. i feel overwhelmed. if i return to my bedroom i'm bored. bored beyond death.or is it just monday, and there's a kind of fatalism to the day [why is it 'fatalism' if it's negative, and 'providence' if its positive? does positivity presuppose a belief in a higher power? if one does not believe in a higher power, what does one call 'providence'?][see how i go around?] harold has the tv very loud; it's interrupting my thought. lunch is almost an hour away but i gotta pee.

ok. i've peed and i'm back in the lunchroom. the tv is still on and it's still loud. i think tv-watching has come a long way since bringing the vietnam war into american livingrooms. for one thing, the military has smartened up. for another tv watchers have become insensitive to a degree. why else would horror stories be sandwiched between placid commercials?

when i put it this way, can anyone blame me? and since i don't have a crystal ball, shouldn't i send this to vki immediately?

depression

Saturday, May 30, 2009

i'm fighting the depression of seeing a long shadow get even longer.
i'm casting the shadow.
to get rid of the shadow i need to move out of the light.
but i'm afraid to move.

one thing i'm mindful of is that these depressions are inevitable.
so i should put up and shut up.
the only reason i mention it here is that i promised myself that
i would record my thoughts....

growing confidence

[090529]
i am flouting with increased confidence the edges of this dream, but if i go to the core, i get hurt--for example, falling this morning. i just went to the bathroom with maryjo [the brunette], and while i didn't stand by myself, i did most everything else by myself. otoh, i'm really tired. this is exhausting work.

[mid-afternoon]
is this a huge case of denial? no, i think i'm being realistic. my downfalls: i fell this morning, my left hand still lacks pressure-sensitivity; i can handle so much reality. my pluses: i walked further this morning; i'm typing with two hands; things are generally going my way.

[early evening]
now, i feel this is reality, and my brain is playing tricks on me. see how my thinking does an about-face during the course of the day? what am i going to do?

long pause....

as i did during the abi meeting, 'stay the course,' plan my work, and work my plan. right now i want to plan my work in the cool of the evening. but what i'm going to do is sit tight this weekend, and take my own advice, planning my work and working my plan...

avm in toronto

[090528]
went to t-o with delores and two OPTs. battled unreality much of the way. did not get out of my stretcher, but was shown the exam room while the opts waited. dr.t did not show; some other male, middle-aged dr with 2 interns--a dr. wallace, i think--saw me. he said that there's no reason evident for my cognitive deficits, and that my physical deficits will take a year or more to heal. he checked over all my qqs, and classified the first 2 as cognitive--which he couldn't answer--and the other 4 as physical. he ordered more tests for my ventricles--an mri, i think.

on the way back, i tried to relax and not worry at all. it was hard, though you'd think it wouldn't be hard at all.

god is

god is what god is

we define god based on our experiences

all we can do is thank god, for each day and each opportunity.

reality

this is real.

i may not like parts of it, but it is real.

i may at times choose to ignore it, but reality doesn't go away.

knowing what is real is the first half of the battle. the best is yet to come.

frik 'n' frak

here's a story, told by one of the nurses--

when her son was three-and-a-half, he was playing in the basement with the boy next door. i don't remember their names, but she called them frik 'n' frak. the son came up and headed outside, followed by the boy next door, who asked about the cat in the freezer. the mom ran downstairs and opened the freezer door, and the cat ran out so fast!

you gotta move

like gino sings it, you gotta move. i dunno what the future holds. so i can't predict accuately what the effect of my actions will be. but i feel i can't stay in one place too long. so, i gotta move. this week, i got my nose buried in wikipedia, which is vast. next week, who knows?

alberta tar sands

canadians--you and me--are the biggest exporters of oil to the u.s.. much of that oil comes from the alberta tar sands, as detailed by andrew nikiforuk in his book Tar Sands. as a canadian, what are you going to do?

i'm at the shaver...

...in st. catharines. my tentative discharge date is april 16, with outpatient orientation on april 20, outpatient happening on wed and fri from 9 to 12, starting on apr. 24. i want to thank vicki for all these months of driving down to t.o. and for coordinating the visits and the emails. there's nothing for me in the village of waubaushene, and so we've decided to continue my rehab in st. catharines, where i grew up and went to high school, and my family still live.

note: june 2, and i'm still at the shaver. shortly after this post i fell.

the image of everything

There's this surfer dude who's actually got a PhD in Physics who has published in the respectable New Scientist a theory of everything, as reported in Surfer dude stuns physicists with theory of everything.

He bases his math on this 248-dimensional lovely object [here drawn in two dimensions], known simply as E8.









i like the resemblance to mandalas, such as this arabic mandala:





















or this tibetan one:


























or indra's net of pearls






















or bucky fuller's geodesic dome:


















or m.c. escher:

first day at brock

i share two offices at brock in the dept of applied linguistics: one with the teaching assistants, and one with the research assistants (where i am now). classes don't start til next week, but i'm here doing research for one of the profs. wes is plugging in to the special needs department and looking forward to starting at brock in the near future.

this morning i biked to the farmers market downtown and bought whole wheat bread, peaches, and granola. at 11 am i called vki in her vancouver hotel and played wake-up music for her and rowan. they are off to burningman in nevada today, via san francisco and a green tortoise bus. wes and i had our first walk uptown and bus ride to brock. it's such a beautiful summer's day here in st. catharines.

off to mariposa

in a few hours it's off to orillia to the mariposa folk festival to catch serena ryder and hawksley workman tonight, followed by two days in the sun and closing with the grandest canuck gordon of them all, gordon lightfoot