Reason you must NOT consider suicide

This is for all of you who have had those thoughts, or who may know someone who feels or has felt this way.... and it is also for those of you who have never considered suicide, but might one day out of the blue be thrust into such thoughts.

I'm not going to list the usual reasons NOT to do so, to take one's own life regardless of the reasons. I am, however, going to tell you one FACT that should deter you from doing so.

Regardless of how hopeless your situation may seem, when you meet God in judgment, you will see how you could have handled the situation with perfectly clear eyes through God himself. In other words, if while alive you felt desperate, like in a maze with no exit, God will show you exactly how the exit would have been shown to you out of your dilemma and despair.

I've blogged about this before, about how if only Judas Iscariot had held onto life for three more days, he would have seen the Resurrected Christ and have sought forgiveness.

When you are judged by God, whether you are taken to heaven or sent to hell, you realize not only that there was a way to cope with your situation, no matter how hopeless or painful and, further, that even if you felt the most worthless person who ever lived, how someone in the present or the future would have needed you very much. Each and every person can save their own physical life and thus, through God, be open to Him saving his or her eternal soul also.

DO NOT BAIL OUT. Trust God and genuinely open your heart to Him and Him alone.

I hope this helps.


Through His Holy Name.

Artwork & spirituality do's & don'ts case study

Don't worry, I'm not going to make this all alarmist and heavy, ha. People who know me know that I enjoy arts and crafts, and I sure enjoy being around people who love art, hobby or professional crafting, and who understand the daily urge to buy art supplies ha ha.

I also have observed through my significantly length life, ha... that art has become more intertwined in many people's minds with personal quests for spirituality and mysticism. People who know me know that I have to be honest and point out that a lot of "New Age" thinking is total garbage. However, people who really know me do know that I respect genuine, how shall I phrase this....hmmm....genuine attempts to interact on a deeper level with the materials of one's art, and any spiritual heritage, legit or not. Here is an example of to me the difference. It's one thing to give a nod to birthstones, and so utilize the traditional meanings of birthstones for each month in one's artistic craftings and expressiveness. I would also think there would be room to be quirky and droll, such as how one mixes and matches the supposed assigned months. This, however, is a vast distance from marketing and using stones for their supposed powers and abilities.

Again, I'm not going to be all heavy and school marmish and a party poop and warn about meddling with magic etc. Rather, I'm going to point out that whatever you believe, I am going to give you some tips to make your art genuinely more authentic, and to recognize some misguided thinking that may have affects via your art, unknowingly, on your mood, your outlook, your health and so forth.

Here's my main example. I bought a nifty book today with some cute crafting suggestions, and I'm just beginning to leaf through it. As is so often the case (it's almost trite now, and this is not a criticism of the author, but of the societal mindset) there is the usual construction of a bracelet with "power stones." By the way, I love the bracelet. Anyway, the author reiterates the same old tired stuff about chakras and the "meaning" of colored stones and the "powers" associated with them. So far pretty typical, but while admiring the bracelet (while rolling my eyes over the spiritual psychobabble) I realized how to turn this into a case study.

One of the stones the author uses is "black onyx" for "grounding." (Excuse me while I roll my eyes some more, ha). I see the usual flags of "why" to use this stone because it "has protective qualities," (*roll*) "absorbs and transforms negativity" (*roll roll*) "without storing it" (meaning the negativity). So just to recap: I love the bracelet, each bead is terrific, the color scheme is wonderful.....but then I read how it has this supposed mystical and spiritual function. One runs all the time into this thinking with crystals, which is why I've stopped using crystals in my art as I do not want anyone watching me to think I buy into that bull hockey.

Anyway, here is what I want to point out to you. How logical is it to make permanent in one's art something that should be a temporary or transitory experience in life?

Let's for a moment pretend that black onyx really does "absorb and transform negativity." OK, how often does one really legitimately encounter spiritual negativity in a day? Does one really need to wear a negativity vacuum cleaner on one's wrist all the time? So think of black onyx, particularly the stone in this otherwise beautiful bracelet, as being a miniature vacuum cleaner (I think Brits call it a "hoover") and that the only dust and dirt it sucks up is "negativity." What is it saying about your outlook of life, rather that just enjoying a beautiful black stone for it's color, texture and workability, if you think you need a piece of jewelry that has a vacuum cleaner constantly on?

Work with me on this visualization. In the real world where sure we are bummed out by high petrol prices, traffic jams, nasty bosses, demanding customers, long work hours (or loss of one's job), how much of that is really "spiritual negativity." Please, put Avatar aside just for a moment, LOL, and remember that you are not spiritual warriors wading through a mass of negative spiritual molasses being hurled at you while you wave your vacuum cleaner bracelet around to suck it all up and transform it like some warrior princess. Goodness. But it says a lot about your mindset (which you reinforce every time you wear the bracelet, or tell that to your customer who bought it) that he or she is wading through the slings and arrows of outrageous "spiritual negativity."

So pretend that it is true, that this stone does "absorb spiritual negativity," but if it does, that means it acts like that vacuum cleaner. So you are walking around with a vacuum cleaner on your wrist that is constantly whirring and sucking and swooshing and trying to pull in the dirt it is supposed to clean. Um, are you not attracting the negativity to you that would otherwise have just wisped by you? Remember the cartoon character Pigpen in the Peanuts cartoon strip? If he walked around with a running vacuum cleaner on his head all the time, pointing outward, would he be cleaner? No.... he would actually be dirtier as now all the surrounding dirt would be sucked toward him, adding to what he already has.

Thus, even if you believe in the totally bogus "power" of black onyx, you have a problem. You, rather than ridding yourself of the supposed routine negativity floating out there (that you must be unaware of because if it was directed to you verbally or with someone's bad behavior, you'd deal with it rather than wave your silly wrist at him with your best spirit warrior princess look), would actually be having that "spiritual negativity" attractor on full time. It does not matter that black onyx supposedly "transforms" and "stores" it in a harmless way because just like dirt caught in a really expensive filter in a vacuum cleaner, the dirt still has to be sucked into your face and all around you until it is inside that filter, no? Pigpen would have not only the cloud of his own natural dirt around him as in the cartoon, but with that live vacuum cleaner on his head an extra large cloud of all the passing dirt, including that which was harmlessly on the ground! (read my analysis a few years ago under label "debunking cults" where I explain one reason one knows tarot cards are bogus is that they assume a high percentage of negative events that actual life does not reflect unless one is being bombed in Darfur or something, and even then people would not have 25% or more horrendous days).

This is an example of how art should not codify or make permanent something that is by its natural and ought to be a transitional or transitory part of life. I know that this will be a bit hard to let go of because you've been raised in several generations where people think every burp and fart they make ought to be enshrined in a record of artistic merit for others to either admire, be shocked by, or accept your art authenticity street cred, ha. But I am assuming that artists who try to combine mysticism and spirituality in their art are sincere and well meaning, and thus I am responding to you in kind in an effort to coach you and get you to recognize an error in your logic.

Thus, practically speaking, I would have used the black onyx as it is beautifully worked in that bracelet only for its color and texture, in other word, the aesthetics (and budget) of your materials. I would not use any material that you "believe" has some sort of "power" because legit or bogus you are codifying a percentage of exposure to that supposed spiritual world that does not actually exist in reality. This creates two problems. One is that it occupies space where a genuinely more spiritual and proactive attitude could reside. The other is that it works to keep your unconscious pointed toward the very thing you seek to avoid. It's like the old joke "Don't think about pink elephants" but of course you have to when you hear those words. If you wear something you think is a vacuum cleaner-transformer of "bad things," well, you sure are thinking about bad things and it becomes like a computer virus that makes your computer consume resources and ultimately slow down or crash your meaningful work.

Let's get a little deeper into this, as I envision what someone (and trust me, I know a lot of people who are in that mindset world) might reply. If that person is really caught up in the fantasy that he or she IS indeed walking around in the world "meant to defeat invisible forces of spiritual negativity" and thus must wear the bracelet, um, hold on there. Here's my reply. Look, I studied Chinese spirituality for many years, including tai chi and kung fu. I did not walk around with a photograph of a really good tai chi movement on my wrist, LOL, I learned how to actually do it. Likewise you do not defeat presumed "negative spirituality" in secret by wearing bogus "power bracelets" and letting people continue to have whatever negative thoughts or feelings plague them. You, um, I know this sounds strange, but you actually, um, fight negativity by 1) not encouraging it and 2) learning better real ways of thought, action and prayerfulness.

One of my favorite expressions and one that has profound truth is that "Truth is the greatest antiseptic." If you think there are negative spiritual forces in the world (and there are, but nowhere near as much as people think, since all of God's creation is made in his goodness) the negativity comes from thoughts and deeds of human beings, thoughts and deeds that obviously are able to be identified, discussed and corrected in the light of day and real facts.

When one starts to think that amulets, stones and whatever human made objects, and here we are discussing arts and crafts, have "special powers," one is running from rather than dealing with the presumed issues of the times. I mean, do you think mailing a lot of rose quartz to Darfur would solve anything? *reality phone ringing*

The second thing that I envision someone in dialogue with me would say, "Well, do you mean that people should not capture in art form something they felt very badly about in a moment, but got over. And so are you saying that a really angry, sad or depressive piece should not be made if the person is to transition through that temporary state?" Yes, I am saying that to some degree, and that's the part I know is controversial.

Too much value is falsely ascribed to "venting" and "letting it out." As a counselor I have read the literature and also through my work have witnessed that as satisfying (and addictive) as "venting" or "catharsis" is, it is the least helpful of all the measures of improved mental and emotional health. It's one of those myths of the 1960's, starting with "scream therapy" I reckon. Art that is depressive, venting, cathartic and "letting it out" is codifying and making permanent something that the healthy human brain is supposed to experience, move through and let go of by transforming it to the next step. Art (and now I include music) that puts into concrete and makes viral to the viewers, listeners and purchasers is inadvertently keeping people stuck in the artist's temporary space. The artist, of course, too is likely to remain in that space.

There are obvious exceptions to what I am saying. The great painting Guernica captures the horror of war via a specific war atrocity. This is where art has a huge noble purpose. Art can indeed help to capture and make permanent the expression of something that would otherwise be lost or less understood if it were not on canvas or paper. But you see, that is a world of difference between being an unhappy depressed young person or adult in your personal life and thinking you are "cathartic" and "authentic" via repeated morbid art, versus a thoughtful piece of art that you are using not as catharsis but to snapshot or capture an admittedly transitory event or emotion that you can express with others.

Here's another way to understand the difference. Wyeth has a painting of a dog that is kind of stuck in a sandpit, and you see his or her sad and confused head looking over the rim. That work is brilliant on all levels by expressing alienation, entrapment, confusion, etc. That is a world of difference from painting over and over the body of your pet dog that was put to sleep when you were a teenager! Or of wearing a bracelet that you think invokes the "protector goddess of dead dogs," *gentle ha* or that has a stone that "fights dead dog negative spirits" *goodness gracious.* Genuine art knows the difference between capturing a moment of expressiveness versus getting on an unsatisfactory and even counterproductive supposedly "cathartic" treadmill.

When I select colors for my artwork I do so to 1) make an attractive piece and 2) aid in the expression of what I am trying to depict. I do not choose a color because "Thor's fairy aunt's dogwalker has wings in that color" or "my mom washed my mouth out with soap of that color when I told her to shut up" (ha ha, one of my proudest child warrior moments, true story, the soap I mean, not Thor LOL).

Likewise you need to discern the difference between art that, yes, may express a sad and transitory time, and that can be painted or crafted legit, versus viral "cathartic" art that keeps both you and the viewers stuck in an emotional and mental state that should be progressed through with maturity and left behind or, at the very least, remains in a better holistically integrated state within you.

I hope that you have found this helpful and even droll and amusing :-)

Detoxing from pornography

Here is a fantastic article, at the following Jerusalem Post link.

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1242212387707&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull


And just a quick word about the dire danger of pornography. It is not an issue of being a "prude." Pornography, as it exists today, works to erode a human's sanity and their survival ability. Pornography, as it exists today (not as it used to be, which was difficult to get, much softer in its presentation, and an almost rare "treat" event, rather than an addiction) erodes one's very health, one's very soul, one's coping mechanisms for life in general and, ultimately, destroys all chance of genuine love and intimacy, either with another human being or, in a spiritual sense, with God. Porn addiction can be thought of as being like someone so addicted to drugs that they stop drinking water or eating food, and they starve to death, but in this case, pornography blocks normal life, normal brain processes, normal intimate relationships and, ultimately, the normal state of the soul.

Do everything that you can to break your own addiction, or to do an intervention for family members, friends or work colleagues to help them understand the above dangers, and that it is not a question of being "liberated" or that those who warn of the danger of pornography are "just prudes." Pornography will place a person in an earthly hell first, because it estranges them from real normal life and the comfort of sane real intimacy, and secondly, in the actual hell after death, because it becomes as powerful an idol as if one was worshiping Beelzebub, and when one is estranged from God by continually selecting a corrupting alternative as one's priority, one ends up in hell when one is judged by God at one's death.

I cannot over-emphasize how much porn has ruined mental and spiritual health and has been a prime reason in many-including self proclaimed "saved" Christians-from NOT, I repeat, not achieving salvation in heaven.

Human health perspectives, case study, analogy

There is one really crucial point that I want to convey in this particular blog post. Humans have barely begun to scratch the surface of understanding the complexity of their own physical, mental and emotional biology and part of the problem is that they do not sufficiently understand that they evolved to be a certain way that is not at all reflective in the modern life style.

In other words, the human organism, both body and mind, is structured and functions the way it is because it lived a more natural life for millions of years. Technology and enforced social structure at first provided an evolutionary and survival advantage to humans, but now the balance has tipped so that much of the routine activities one takes for granted each day are actually contrary to how the human body and mind evolved.

Let's use an analogy, one that is a bit of a stretch, but everyone can relate to it. Thing of the human body, mind and emotions as an automobile. Roads existed before automobiles did, since they were the result of footpaths, by both humans and animals, and eventually were widened and paved to support horses and wagons. Thus when the internal combustion engine was discovered (first for trains that ran along their own roads, called tracks) and cars were developed, they used the same roads and were even called horseless wagons. Cars were developed to automate a function that already existed, which was to move along a pathway and transport people on land.

Suppose that over the past hundred years that the waters of the ocean rose so much that just about all land was under at least a few inches of water all the time. Humans have a huge investment in cars and they'd still work, so obviously everyone would have to get used to driving cars around through water all the time. A new set of problems would arise, so people would tinker with cars, perhaps making bigger tires so the chassis would be farther up and more out of the water, for example. But people being stuck with cars would continue to use devices that were designed to run on dry roads in the new theoretical water covered world.

Problems would spring up (no pun intended) because cars were not originally designed to be in continually wet surfaces. What happens when the exhaust pipe is under water? Will the engine quit when hit by a wave? Cars can float away and capsize in just about a half a foot of rapidly moving water. Would traffic reports now report local tidal action on the roads rather than traffic jams?

OK, so now let's assume that several generations of mechanics were born and raised knowing only the water covered world, not the dry land masses that cars were originally developed for. When they sit around and talk about cars, how much would they understand about why cars are developed the way they were? They would not understand it much at all.

For example, they might look at windshield wipers and say, "Why did they put them 'up there?'" They should have put a propeller under the car so that it can move better through the water. They would not understand that there was no 'water to move through' except from puddles of rain and that visibility, not boat type of safety, was the only need for wipers or "propellers."

So much of how cars were developed would seem baffling or like egregious oversights to these young mechanics who never knew the dry world where cars traveled at most through rain. The most incredibly obvious thing to those of us who drive cars in the normal world would seem weird, mysterious, or stupid to the young mechanics who modify and fix dry world cars that operate in the wet world that is constantly covered with several inches of water, day in and day out.

Likewise the humans of the past hundred years understand very little about the millions of years of life that the human body and mind evolved for and lived within, and wonder why the body "breaks down" or "works the way it does" as it tries to make do in a world that is not structured now the way it was evolved for.

The most obvious example is the daytime biological clock. Humans were evolved to wake with the sunrise, perform all of their work, child rearing and recreation activities before sunset, and then have quiet evenings with low or no lighting and then sleep. Huge chunks of the human DNA and chemical balance evolved in that simple formula of concentrated physical and mental effort during day light hours, and long periods of sleep at night time, with low light and reduced activity in the evening, since only natural star and moon light or some candle, oil lamp or fireplace light was available.

Now, think of all the ways that the natural body is now forced to be unnatural in the modern world. List them for yourself so that you can use this as a comparative exercise: if human bodies were evolved to be active from sunrise to sunset, with diminished visual and mental activity in the evening, and a long period of overnight sleep, how many ways do we break that formula today?

Working shifts comes to mind, but do not focus on that too much since there have always been those who were "night watchmen" and others who had to adjust to different work schedules.

Instead, think about how desk jobs and school enforce physical laxity during the day while only moderately stimulating the mind. Instead, people are forced to be mentally stimulated more in the evening (homework, bill paying and electronic media usage), just when they are supposed to "wind down" in low light and stimulation conditions. What is elevated during the day? Corrosive stress hormones and other chemicals. When humans farmed and hunted they were not in a continual state of arousal. There would be the need to react quickly to prey or to a sudden weather condition or mishap, but in general people only got the occasional as needed "adrenaline shot." Now we have seething people everywhere in a constant state of stress arousal but having to contain it, whether it is due to economic crisis, child care crisis, oppressive and stressful workplace, and physically sedentary jobs or classrooms where kids are even drugged into being "non hyperactive" and thus "compliant."

Virtually everything about modern life, both the infrastructure and the mindset, are in opposition to how the human body, mentality and emotions have evolved and are naturally programmed and sustained. Life was difficult and often brutal for much of human history, but humans thrived and increased. Why? Because life was still structured to leverage human strengths and evolutionary "talent." But now modern society is infested with "secret weapons" that work against the human body, mind and emotional well being. All humans are consistently overstimulated while having at the same time to suppress much of the over stimulation in order to conform to the expectations of the job or activity AND at the same time they have less physical activity during the times in the day when they are supposed to, according to their own genetic evolution and profiles.

This is the heart of the physical and mental health crisis in the world today.

Here's an example. Can you believe there is a mental disorder called "SAD," "Seasonal Affective Disorder?" This is when people get depressed due to low light levels and so forth during the winter. In other words, people who still respond to the world naturally are diagnosed with an illness, while those who seem on the surface to not mind or respond to seasonal changes are viewed as the "healthy" ones.

Think about it. People who experience SAD are the ones whose bodies are correctly saying, "Hey! The seasons have changed and the body and activities should change accordingly." Yet we no longer have intensive work summers followed by harvest and then reclusive winters as did our ancestors. We are supposed to be jolly and carry on with our "work" or studies or other activities no matter what the season, what the daylight or how our bodies try to recapture their survival skill rhythms. People used to be thrilled at the short days and dark wintry season because they weren't busting their backs working in the fields. The crops were in and they were tucked and hunkered down for a low activity season. They didn't get "depressed" or the 'winter blues!'

Much of the global epidemic of depression is from the feeling of inadequacy-no matter how much one 'achieves'-because so much of modern activity is forced into slots that down in the soul feel unnatural. People are forced to live less in sync with reality and more and more in an artificial and enforced timetable of activities and expectations that are contrary to the body's natural evolved survival traits. Look at the war against "fat." I mean, no one used to be "fat" in the way that it is meant today. Fat is the body trying to do the right thing in circumstances that have become miscued regarding the daily activities that humans were evolved to partake in. I cannot believe how much people are now warring against their bodies even as they try to do the best that they can.

Think back to the dry land cars that are now forced to operate in wet land. What if the modern mechanics who only know of wet land but have to maintain the dry land cars got "angry" at the parts of the dry land cars that don't seem to work "optimally" in wet land? Rather than being grateful that dry land cars worked at all in the wet land environmental crisis, they were enraged at the dry land car parts that weren't totally "perfect" for wet land? That is what humans are like with each other and with their children, and now our children have learned to be enraged at themselves because they don't "measure up" to the insane expectations of modern life. Rather than being grateful that the dry land cars kept on working in the wet land crisis of change and their complexity and ruggedness praised and understood, people are made to feel "at war" with the dry land cars and their original makers. They learn to hate themselves even as they successfully drive their dry land car. They put their dry land cars in situations where they must break down (like drive them into a lake) and then gloat with anger and self loathing.

It's a real mess; I'm not going to lie to you. I see one moronic health research study after the other and wonder if people are ever going to understand themselves before they have completely come undone. Defiance of natural body rhythms, day and seasonal activity, lack of sleep, over electronic stimulation and the corrosive effects of social stress have damaged the human race far more than any, and I mean any, of you realize. And whenever people have warning signs you view it as something to warp even more in the "cure" rather than understand what is really going on. The refusal to work together to make congenial, honest and natural work, school and social activity settings that are mutually supportive is one of the most destructive of the changes in society.

This is another reason why so many have become less than tuned in with reality. The human mind is able to look at an object that is partially hidden by another object and infer what it looks like in total. For example, if one dry land car is parked partially blocking another dry land car, even though you cannot see the entire dry land car in the background you know that it is complete and looks the color and size, blah blah blah based on what you can observe. Human brains are evolutionarily designed to constantly "fill in the gap." Thus when you flood it with partial over stimulated images of unreality (TV, Internet, video games) the brain works to make real and false connections. So, for example, you see accurately the porn, but you then create an inaccurate mental linkage regarding reality of day to day priorities. Where once a man would feel pride and pleasure centers at having a good wife and happy healthy children, the man feels pride and pleasure center at seeing hot women lesbian kiss.

I'm not being droll and I'm not exaggerating. I'm explaining that just as too many killings in the TV and movie entertainment media have enforced unrealistic based brain circuitry, so too has overstimulated "reward" fragments of input, such as porn, overcoming the survival traits and the self esteem regulatory mechanisms that evolved in the human animal over millions of years. It then becomes lose-lose. Humans lose the joy that they used to obtain from natural cycle activities, including marital love, and they never gain what they are now programmed to crave in the new addiction. They lose what they had, or could have had, and never gain the theoretical "new world" continual gratification. That is why all addictions are called "progressive," not because they are liberal (LOL), but because they are the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow that does not really exist and is only further and further out of reach, and so more and more addiction activity results in less gratification and/or more destruction of the norm.

I'm not just ranting and in fact, just yesterday it was on the news about how something like twenty-five percent of people view porn on the Internet at work. Again, this has nothing to do with being a prude. I'm saying that such activity is depression and stress increasing because it is contrary to the biological and genetic evolutionary structure of human biology, mentality and emotional health. Humans are not evolved to be continually self stimulating during all hours of the day and rather than a "release" or a "diversion" or an "enhancement" of one's "sex life" (or a substitute for not having one) it becomes a barrier to both having a real life in that regard and also becomes a biological and emotional/mental hindrance to health and ultimately satisfaction. Simply put it is making artificial and corrosively stressful what should be a naturally flowing goodness for every human being.

So as the population is seething and overly stimulated and stressed (often at their own choice), you wonder why there are sudden heart ailments even among the young, cancer, bipolar, depression, autism and all sorts of woes and ailments at levels they have not been seen before? Remember that as I blogged just yesterday humans are also consuming in their food, water and through their environment untold numbers of chemicals that have detrimental effects. Again, the human body is a marvelous thing and can withstand a lot of cleansing (that is what the liver is for, no "detoxing" regimes please!) But it is not evolved to withstand constant dosing of strong chemical cleansers, other people's medications in the drinking water, preservatives and food additives and the emitting of fumes from so much plastic and other artificial building material surfaces.

It's like the angry wet land car mechanics so resent the success of the "badly designed" dry land cars that they now throw acid on top of the car since "that's the modern way to live." It's a mess and I wonder when people are going to wake up and be more generous and kind about their own bodies and minds and each others'. I hope that the car analogy helps because like I said, it is a bit of a stretch but one that everyone can easily grasp and understand. Sigh.

A few words about epilepsy and seizures

There is a lot of discussion about seizures due to the death of Jett Travolta. I do not have a lot of detail to offer, but I know that some are interested in any people I've known with similar problems.

One of my college roommates, in the early 1970's was diagnosed as a child with epilepsy. Diagnosis was easy because epilepsy is the condition of having what used to be called "epileptic fits," now called "seizures." Because she had epilepsy as she grew older she could not risking a seizure while operating a car and thus could not learn to drive, obviously, but that was the only restriction placed upon her. She grew up on a farm and had a very healthy traditional upbringing and food habits, what is looked down upon by many today, but was a blessing in the times when people appreciated farm fresh food including milk and beef, eggs, bacon etc. One of her cooking specialties was a great rich chipped beef. Some people just develop epilepsy, it's one of the more puzzling medical conditions that humans have experienced for much of their history. She was not on any medications, since that just was not common back then, and actually she didn't even bother telling us "what to do" in any detail in case she had a seizure, just to make sure she didn't harm herself by thrashing around and wait it out. So most of the time the three of us who were her roommates just forgot about it.

Well, here is what is interesting. She never had a seizure in the four years in college, and it seems to have gone away on its own. Apparently it in some forms is something that can be outgrown. As the years went by we just kind of noticed one day, hey, you haven't had any seizures ever while you were in college, and she said "Yep." That's when she told us that sometimes it is outgrown.

Now, years later when I interned in a psychiatric outpatient facility I observed that I had no patients with epilepsy, but that symptoms of some illnesses include seizures. Those patients received medication for their underlying illness and for control of the seizures, and they did very well. I share this so you who are new to this subject realize that there is a disorder that is called epilepsy that is diagnosed as being the state of having epileptic seizures, and there are separate unrelated illnesses that have a range of symptoms, one of which may be seizures. I saw someone with epilepsy who grew up on a farm (lots of dirt but lots of healthy living) outgrow it, and I've seen patients with mental illnesses who have as one of their range of symptoms seizures, who benefited greatly from their medication, which basically gives them their life back.

So those are my first hand observations. I hope this was helpful to those of you new to this type of subject, and that you realize when you read the press you have to try to distinguish between the condition of having seizures and seizures as a symptom of other conditions. My roommate had a lot of class; she really was about the opposite of an obsessive drama queen that you could imagine and she was a totally cool role model for others. By the way, "back then" this type of thing was diagnosed and treated by your family doctor. Now it's pretty much assumed that it becomes a huge psychiatric thing. I think that is reasonable progress, but I'm just helping you to know that there was a time when people were much more blase about the childhood forms of it. The key was to maintain normal supportive life conditions for the child and not to do anything different in terms of food, living conditions and certainly not mental quakery of trying to "change" or "turn off" the seizures as it seems $cientology does with its toolkit of quakery and abuse.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epilepsy

Helpful mental illness/brain workings analogy

Here's why I point out the problem with even casual drug use. I thought of this analogy to explain how the brain works.

The brain is able to do a lot of things at once because it uses what you might think of as an inventory room in the back of a store, with shelves of products along lots of rows.

So the brain is constantly taking in all information (such as what you see, hear, read and also what your body is feeling) and shoving it as fast as it can in the right "slot" just as if it were an inventory stocker. Obviously one hopes that the brain identifies new incoming stock and puts it in the right place. For example, you see something, so the brain slots it in the shelf that handles seeing and not the shelf that handles tasting.

The brain then organizes the shelves and the aisles so it doesn't have to run all over to the most frequently used areas. This is the creating of paths.

Now, here's what a lot of people don't realize. Part of the genius of the brain is that at the same time that it puts the right information in the right place, it also experiments with putting it in the wrong place. That is actually an evolutionary survival advantage, not a problem. Most of the time humans never notice that the brain is doing this. So to use our example, once in while the brain takes something you see and rams it for a moment into the shelf that handles, let's say, past memories, or something even more "in error" such as you have the notion that you've had a religious experience (while you are actually looking at coffee grounds).

The reason the brain randomly but constantly "tries out" inappropriate stocking is that this is a source of rapid and creative breakthroughs in human thought processes. A random and wrong connection might actually have some valid application, in which case it will happen a few times to you and become a legitimate thought process and association.

But humans are not meant to glom onto one occurrence of the brain's "experimentation" because like I said, these are random wrong associations that the brain is just trying out once, and discards when it is not repeated with validation.

A lot of mental illness and spiritual foolishness results from people learning how to freeze frame their own brain's doing of this one time experimentation and concluding that they have been "enlightened" and have received "valid" information.

This is the source of a lot of people who have schizophrenic visions and thoughts, for example. They, through no fault of their own, have brains that latch attention onto the experimental slotting and shelving that all brains do, and make those linkages permanent.

Where it is people's own fault is when they practice, as in abuse, activities such as "meditation" and Reiki and other mind "techniques" because they think every stupid random thought that does go through their brain is mystical and "revealing" of an "inner truth."

Drugs make this a problem one hundred fold. Drugs slow down the mental process so that when one's brain randomly tries out a wrong slotting and shelving, you consciously notice it and think it is a valid perception and an appropriate thought process. So the brain cannot discard this one time experiment as it normally would, because you by focusing on it have now transferred it into short and then long term memory. Thus you mark it's place on the aisle and with each repeat of that perception you ratchet that location and association up in its stocking importance.

All brains do this, it is natural and mostly unnoticed, except when you have a really weird thought. But humans must let it go and not focus on it if you do actually notice it because to reinforce it by thinking about it and valuing it is to reinforce the erroneous connection that was never supposed to be made.

For example, one day you might see something blue colored and the brain might try out slotting that as being "the smell of a tree." It's not, and when the brain is at the same time putting it in its proper place as being a "color" the brain drops the goofy idea that maybe it was the smell of a tree. It's only if over time blue is really proven to be the smell of a tree that the brain lets that become part of its proper wiring.

Another time you might notice this is when you are about to fall asleep and you are not yet asleep but you start to have thoughts that go in strange directions. You may be thinking about your work day and then all of a sudden it turns into linking very different parts of your life in some strange way. That is the random slotting together with the dream time entry. There is no harm in it if you realize that is what it is and just forget about it.

But too many people "cultivate" every random thought (and worse, teach others to do so) thinking that they are "onto some message from the universe." All these people are doing is driving themselves and others neurotic. If continued it can be worse than neurotic.

I hope that you have found this analogy helpful.

See, by the way, while you were reading this, your brain would have been doing a few of the random error attempts, but you didn't notice because you were interested and fully absorbed in this topic. That is the way it should be. If there had been any value in a weird random error thought then you'll have it again some day and the brain will recognize its valid utility on its own, without you realizing it. People who are fully absorbed in something interesting or important (like reading my blog, ha) are protected from having these problems because the brain is doing its thing, unnoticed, as it should, just like you don't notice every heartbeat or breath.

Advice re: depression anxiety stress holidays home

It’s been a while since I wrote some advice for those dealing with ordinary or clinical depression or anxiety, so I’d like to make that the focus of this posting.

Additionally, since so many people are undergoing severe economic stress, and right before the holidays, these audiences converge and anyone can and should apply what I will explain here.

It’s also going to be a topic regarding understanding human nature and society’s effects (both good and bad) and, as if those topics were not enough, about hobbies and decorating.

The approach I want to take is to start with the opening underlying principle which is that many people are depressed, anxious and stressed because they no longer understand their own authentic motivations and sources of fulfillment in life. In other words, many people are highly critical of themselves and others in areas they should not be so concerned about, while ignoring and thus not cultivating the good, relaxed and easy going parts of their life. I spent years in a corporate world where ninety percent of people’s assessment of your worth was how early you got to the office, and how late you stayed after everyone left. Needless to say that growing societal attitude has had terrible ramifications, and much of the boomerang of those types of fallacious assumptions about individual or community worth is yet to be felt. So I decided to explain a basic human drive that everyone has, one that is good and should be honored and satisfied in an authentic and open way. You’ll see that by denying this drive, the yearnings it represents spills out in behaviors that are not as healthy, such as addictions, focus on material goods on the one hand yet depriving one’s self of other material goods on the other hand, and strange policies such as “spending one’s way out of economic problems.”

Every human has a homing instinct, a desire to have a home. This is true even of those of the homeless who elect to live that way, because they will select “their” place in the park, or under the bridge. Even the homeless who elect to be mobile have cars or carts that are arranged to suit their sense of “place.” But people feel that homing instinct in different ways, including by gender. People need to stop shying away from discussing gender differences and preferences out of fear of being “politically incorrect.” If one refuses to discuss what genders honestly prefer, when given choices, that is like saying it does not matter if a woman prefers something, or a man prefers something, there should be only one choice on the menu. So if you look at how the universal drive and urge of a homing instinct operates within individuals by group, you will see gender, age and social milieu differences. Let’s start with women.

Women tend to have a “nesting instinct” as their preference for expressing their homing instinct. “Nesting instinct” has become a “bad term,” demonized by feminist oppressors who think that nesting only refers to that feudal and ‘bad’ desire to have babies. But that is not true, even if that has through the ages been the obviously manifestations. First of all, do you not notice that squirrels live in nests year around? They make big fluffy nests out of leaves that are almost like round quilted hives on the top of trees, thus keeping them warm. Crows are known to adorn their nest with all sorts of manmade objects, such as pieces of metal, jewelry, cloth, and all sorts of “junk.” These are just two of the many animal kingdom examples of a “nesting instinct,” which is to create a home that is uplifting, satisfying and nurturing, even if one is the only occupant. Unrecognized this is why so many women are “shopaholics” and addicted to shopping. Shopping is the act of gathering those items that one is going to use to adorn one’s nest (including one’s own bodily outfitting, such as clothes and cosmetics, but that is a different slant on this topic and I’ll reserve it for future discussions). Whatever women are shopping for or just browsing, they are highly motivated by their own “nesting instincts” and that is a good thing! The problem is that without recognizing that one is motivated by nesting instinct, oddly enough one tends to buy things that detract from the pleasure of the actual nest rather than enhances it. I’ll discuss how and why that happens in a bit.

Men also have a “nesting instinct” but with a very different slant. We used to describe it in the old saying that “a man’s home is his castle.” Men tend to view their home as being “home base.” Thus they are also attracted to obtaining objects that enhance the home, but these will be different types of objects and, in general, they dislike the actual task of shopping with one big exception: men love to shop for “gear.” Because a man’s home is his castle, and also his “lair,” and his “base of operations” or “home base,” men love to obtain “gear” to outfit his castle. That, in general, is the only thing they will gladly go through prolonged shopping experiences to obtain. Even men who love to decorate and style their homes, and there are many of them, tend to have a very functional drive in their styling. They tend to gravitate toward styles and decors that express, even unconsciously, the “gearing up” of the home. This is why they think that a large flat screen TV enhances the décor of a room, while many women find that it’s not the most attractive of objects.

Now, I have had a lot of gay friends in my past and I would be remiss to not explain what I have learned from them about their preferences. There is the joke about having “gaydar,” the ability to detect if someone is gay and while there is some truth to that in the topic we are discussing, one must be cautious about jumping to conclusions. Gay men have the same “nesting” and “home as castle” instincts as straight men and women, but all the one’s I’ve known have had a twist to the “home as castle” feeling. My gay friends and colleagues have all had a focus on the castle as being not so much their base of operations but as an integral part of the cleanliness and purity. Some of you who have stereotypes about gays may find that to be surprising, but it is true. Now, I am speaking anecdotally of my friendships and acquaintances with gay men going back to the late 1970’s, and this was when most were still in “the closet.” What I learned from observing them, visiting their homes and apartments, shopping with them (total fun) and receiving gifts from them for birthdays and so forth is that they have what one would think of as “the best of both worlds” in regard to how they combine the “nesting” objectives that women have with the “base of operations” that straight men have. But because they have such a focus on cleanliness and purity as being objectives for their base of operations, they have much less of a “gear” interest than straight men. They are not rigging out their home as either the lair for when one is under “siege,” “retreating to the cave,” or as Batman’s technology wonder. They tend to want a base of operation that they can rely on as being clean and pure and are thus more interested in maintaining a clean and ordered home and less interest in the latest remote control device or hunting gear. Do not mistake that as being “feminine,” because when I’ve seen my gay friends, trust me, it is like combat rather and frilliness. Gay guys I have known, in general, prefer greater order and cleanliness in their home style than women or straight men.

We all know that young people also have the homing instinct, but it tends to take the form of “their room,” which is their place of privacy during especially the adolescent years. Girls tend to make it their ‘self esteem nest’ during those fragile times of growing up, while boys tend to make their room ‘their lair.’ Now, I am going to talk to you about something very serious, because as you remember, this is about depression, anxiety, stress and other problems, and not just about decorating style. When children do not have their homing instinct satisfied, they join gangs. Yes, children want their own rooms and privacy, but they want a stable and sane home even more. Children of broken families in tough and poor neighborhoods and, alarmingly, increasingly in suburbs, will direct their unfulfilled homing instincts toward gang membership. Their “castle” then becomes their gang’s blocks of control, which is their “turf.” This is why you see young men totally destroy each other when they think one “strays” onto “their” patch. One cannot solve the gang problem without understanding that young boys and men join gangs for a large part driven by that unfulfilled need to have “their lair” and “their home is their castle.” When a father figure, “the good king” is absent, there is no castle and they will seek one elsewhere. Girls then follow them, because their ‘self esteem nest’ is no longer in their home or apartment, especially if they too suffer in a broken or dysfunctional family unit. They then derive their ‘self esteem nest’ from being where the gang bangers are in their “castle,” in their portable “lairs.”

So I have sketched a quick profile of how everyone shares the need for satisfying their homing instinct, even if one is a street person, and whether one is male or female, straight or gay, young or old, rich or poor. One of the large sources of depression and anxiety is when the “home” that one has does not match the profile of what one emotionally needs.

Women have been the first victims of this problem where they think they are satisfying their individual “nesting instinct” but are instead fulfilling societal expectations. To put it simply: too many women spend too much money on things that they think are making them happy but are actually barriers to their obtaining things that would make them happier. Women have become efficient shoppers, and they are good at finding what they are looking for, but many of them buy things and create homes that do not fuel their spirit, uplift them and nourish their well being. They want those things, which is why they fall for all sorts of “spa” products and so forth, but they have broken the feedback loop, which tells you if one feels “better” or “not” after each home or décor decision. Let’s look at some different examples.

Women will paint the walls of their rooms with colors they have chosen to be “trendy,” “stylish,” “unique,” or for “special effects,” rather than paint them the color that makes them feel good whenever they are in that room. I mean, you don’t have to be a Feng Shui expert to figure that out, yet I’ve now seen forty years of women who don’t even recognize if their choices actually make them feel happier or not. Here’s how it works and all of you women who are honest will recognize exactly what I mean. When you paint or decorate a room, you stand back and view it with the perspective of “how it good or impressive it would look to an arriving guest.” You even stand in the doorway, as if you have just “arrived” and see the room for the “first time,” to get the overall impression. That is an example of the “third person” mindset that society has brainwashed everyone with, especially women.

See, here is how it is with me, so you can compare. I can live like a real slob. For example, I tend to have my clothes strewn all around my bedroom, and choose what to wear by what is clean and what is available. However, when I style or decorate my home, including the placement of even a piece of functional furniture, I do not rest until I have put it in a place where I feel “better” in the every day viewing and living among that object, rather than worse. For example, when I pause while typing this, I look up to rest my eyes and face a wall where there is a table that I made, with both decorative and functional objects. I will not accept any object or arrangement that does not give me uplift and comfort to look at, and I will immediately change anything that does not “contribute” to the joy of the room. Many women I know are the opposite. They fight the battle for neatness but they let themselves be surrounded by objects and décor-often horribly expensive-that surreptitiously drags them down. This is an especial losing battle for women who are battling depression. They are so used to feeling bad that even when they try to style their rooms they have that “third person guest standing in the door” assessment rather than adding an object that gives them real pleasure. Also, people in general who have suffered a trauma in life have a particular dilemma about objects that “remind” them in a bad way and objects that “commemorate” or “heal” in a good way.” You see what I mean?

This is why goofy little old ladies, such as my mother, will have the same couple of objects in the same place for forty years and be content: because they found the formula of objects and arrangement that always makes them feel “better” when they are in that room doing their normal activities. That generation is a dying breed, and you can learn from them to be very cautious and conservative about “adding” anything to one’s décor to ensure that you are only adding items that are uplifting, supportive and joyous.

Now, most of us, including most certainly me, cannot thrive with the same arrangement day after day for decades. In fact, being a somewhat frantically busy artistic sort, since my décor is my art it tends to change every day, since I use my arts and crafts projects and supplies as décor themselves. But here is the first tip that I want to offer, and it’s taken from traditional Japanese culture and spirituality.

Have one place in your room where you enjoy having a picture or a painting. Rather than hang all of the pictures you own and enjoy, rotate three or four of them in that one location every few months. This is something I have done pretty much all of my life, in dorms, apartments and houses. Traditional Japanese have an alcove, a kind of place of honor for their favorite art, and every few months they change what is the painting or scroll that is displayed there, drawing upon favorites that are kept in storage. An obvious system would be a favorite painting or scroll that comes out matching each new season.

The key is that these are paintings or pictures that YOU love and feel better looking at, not what the imaginary third party visitor would be impressed with as stylist. (Though it often has exactly that effect, because what makes you honestly feel better tends to provide an authentic style that people admire). This is the reason why I would have many pictures and paintings in the attic, but rotate several of them a few times a year. Another tip is to have an easel and use the easel to display a favorite picture, as with the easel you can bring the picture off of the wall and into the room at pleasing locations for more three dimensional viewing and participation. I bought a very inexpensive raw wood easel at Wal-Mart that I assembled and painted, and use it even in my small apartment for that purpose, and I have just rotated onto it a new picture that I bought at the antique flea market this week, and moved it to a different location.

So what I am advising you all to do is to be aware of and follow these principles:

1) Whether it is décor or functional, find the placement for each object in your home that adds rather than detracts from your feeling of joy, comfort or satisfaction while in that room. Be aware that even unconscious decisions can drag you down. For example, if you are stuck having something utilitarian in the room with you, such as a vacuum cleaner, throw over it a favorite and beautiful piece of cloth, such as a remnant that you buy in the Wal-Mart sewing area. Don’t settle that something glum or utilitarian “must be” in a certain location and exposed to view.

2) When you make decisions, including painting, or the placement of even one object, no matter how cheap it may be (a lot of my decorations are dollar store and inexpensive), sit in the places where you would normally sit in the room and determine placement on that basis. Do not stand in the door and “imagine” “where it would look best” to some “guest walking in.” Figure out where it looks best and gives you the most joy exactly as you are engaged in your every day activities.

3) Be very cautious about displaying mementos of traumatic events and losses. For example, if you display photographs of your loved ones who you have lost, couple the display of those pictures with uplifting objects nearby. For example, when I display a photo of my deceased dad or stepfather, I will place those photos near objects that remind me of things they loved (like my stepdad loved fishing so I will put his picture among fishing motifs) or I will be sure to place objects that express salvation and faith, such as art of Jesus or the Virgin Mary, alongside. Do not feel that one must continue to suffer loss through the way that you display your loved one’s décor: that is the LAST thing that they would want for you. Respectfully store away the mementos that are sad and display only the ones that contribute to your joy of memory, not keep you chained in suffering and sadness. This includes displaying even expensive objects that come from a sad period in your life. Store them away for your children or sell or give them away. Do not tolerate a “downer” object or décor in your home. You would not believe the expensive objects I have thrown away following this very healthy and spiritual principle.

4) When you are shopping, never pass up an inexpensive object that you see that is colorful and makes you think, “Wow, that is so cute!” For example, in a dollar store I saw five small plastic storage containers, each with a different color lid (blue, green, purple, yellow and pink). I totally did not need them but loved the color so since they were cheap I bought them and have them on display on a bookshelf. Keep your eyes open, even if you think that you are there only to get one item, and scan the shelves for things that make you go “Aw, that is so cute.” I don’t mean sappy statues of clowns and cats, LOL, though nothing wrong with that. What I mean is that a style, a color or has a motif that you had not thought of before and just gives you cheer to look at is often a great investment.

5) If you have to economize because of the economic downturn, do not feel that you are losing options in decorating your “nest,” because often you are opening them up. Here is an easy example. Suppose that you are someone who used to enjoy buying fresh flowers and can no longer afford to do so. What I do is that I invest in (usually dollar store) silk, artificial or dried flowers and rotate fresh arrangements. You may actually end up having more in quantity and frequency of new and pretty arrangements than you did when you bought a fresh flower arrangement once a week. Trust me; I’d rather still be growing my own flowers or buying fresh flowers, and I’m not trying to turn people away from making those stimulating and beautiful expenditures if they can. But if you cannot, remember that with very little skill and not much expenditure you can make really unique arrangements, ones that you can change on a daily, weekly or monthly basis. I save pretty and droll containers, such as Joy dishwashing plastic bottles, and use them; it is not necessary to buy expensive vases.

As I said, men tend to have much more of a “gear” orientation to their homes and I think that is great. One problem is, however, that the “gear” for many men has transformed from being cool activities to mindless electronic “entertainment” and web surfing. This is one reason that men sometimes get stuck in less than ideal activities on the Internet. Men are action oriented and attracted to gear. Men therefore get computers and video games. Men, during this Christmas and other holiday season, think about honoring your “inner gear” but in ways that are more traditional. I’m all for big screen TVs and watching sports (I had a dog who used to watch football games with me), so definitely do not stop the “gear” urge, such as you can afford it, for sports. But be aware that the computer is surreptitiously hooking onto your “gear” urge and directing it away from where you might have once more better invested. For example, guys used to love having their own home carpenter or auto repair “lairs” and would spend time in there instead of being on the computer. It used to be so easy to shop for guys because they loved gear such as new tools, and would certainly let you know what to get them. Ha, there is a run on guns lately because of concern that the new administration will tighten up gun laws and availability. Rather than just stock up, how about having more of a hobbyist or affectionato view of guns? That is a male equivalent problem to the women’s “third party view” of how their home “looks” to an entering guest. Here is what I mean.

Guys will stampede because while women “imagine what the new décor will look like to some imaginary guest” rather than get what makes them happen, guys feel that alarm bell go off in their “home is the castle” mentality. If I hear one more right wing radio nut job gloat about how many Uzis he has stockpiled “just in case” I will scream. I’m not saying to not buy guns. I am saying to recognize that it is your “home is your castle” mentality that is clicking in, rather than actual rational thought about what may or may not happen. Buy the guns but do it as a hobby, something you invest some time in appreciating, not as a “doomsday” scenario. Now, I have credibility because I grew up in a hunting family and I learned how to shoot a rifle in target practice in college and I enjoyed it a lot. Male depression and anxiety is exacerbated by not recognizing and honoring your “home is the castle” instinct. There is danger in overreacting and under reacting. Men overreact when they become convinced of alien invasion, liberals denying gun rights, buy into the vision that if riots broke out that they really could “hold out and protect the family” (if it gets that bad everyone is in trouble), and so forth. This is why men are particularly susceptible to depression and anxiety that is from a kind of fear of the future mentality. Women get bummed out because of self esteem and lack of love. Men get bummed out because they have inappropriate triggering of their “home is the castle” mentality while not honoring that mentality in genuine and productive ways.

Thus I equally enjoy counseling men and women about how to recognize the validity of their own interior and exterior “acquisition” and “decorative or gear” needs. The trouble with many popular home improvement shows (and I do enjoy them, though I have no TV with which to watch) is that they buy into and enable the “gear equals electronic escapism” problem. Sure, if a guy has a hobby the home improvement shows will do something to acknowledge it, but they fall far short from truly honoring every guy’s “home is his castle” and genuine “kit” and “gear” mentality. “Back in my day” guys had real home workshops that were fabulous and they actually used them. That was how they relaxed, found absorption in real activities, had hobbies and built knowledge and skill, not by being glued to the computer or video games. Boys would know they are growing up by how much their dad, uncle or grandfather would let them help in the home workshop. Guys knew how to do all sorts of things “back in my day” including having home hobbies such as winemaking (it doesn’t all have to be traditional woodworking and so forth). Guys would love to work on old radios or other “gear.” After dinner, rather than racing to the stupid computer (which of course did not exist then) they would dash, as soon as the lady of the house would let them, into their workshops to work with their “gear.” They’d sort through their fishing tackle, or finally get around to adding some accessory to their car (guys used to do that themselves instead of going to a pro, because half the fun was learning how.) A lot of guys also were avid gardeners, and found something to do year around as not a chore but real enjoyment. Alot of guys also worked on model plane and ship kits. I knew guys who knew how to build those ships in a bottle. Some guys built their own musical instruments, such as making a guitar. Others painted, even if it was "paint by numbers!"

So guys used to select activities, and thus their home gear and furnishings, along the lines of their “home is castle” mentality and had cadres of fellow family members, neighbors and friends who enjoyed these “real” activities. Women would browse discount stores; men browsed the junkyard, ha. My stepdad was constantly “stocking up” the tool area of his workshop with “just in case” tools, nails and screws and other “gear.” My mother, not a patient woman, didn’t understand that this is totally good, even if one never “needed” every bit of that gear, because this is a guy’s form of making a home. There’s something very normal and not depressive about a guy who enjoys making sure that he has everything he needs for his family, and who considers that relaxation and fun. He keeps his shotgun cleaned and stored not because he thinks that one day aliens or hungry desperate neighbors will besiege the house and he needs to fend them off. He does it because he is a hunter and has a gun because that’s what responsible men do and are interested in, not because of anxiety or depression. So guys take a deep breath and honor your castle and your gear by figuring out what you actually would enjoy doing that is “real” and not depressive or “pretend” and do it. If you have been downsized and are out of a job, give yourself a break by learning something real along the gear line, rather than being bummed out on the insane and pretend world of computers and video games. Women, don’t be “self improvement” nags and instead, encourage your gear guy to follow his moat into his real work shop, hobbies, friends and interests, rather than making him think that porn on the computer or going to the bar might be a better option, LOL. The Sears tool department used to be the Mecca of Christmas (to mix my metaphors in a hopefully inoffensive way) because so many guys “back in my time” wanted tools for real, and not virtual or gamey, hobbies and interests each year. Kids would often follow along and learn from their dad, and I don’t mean how to grow marijuana plants, make meth, or build bombs.

After many a Christmas we would see spring up in our neighborhood a real basketball hoop on a tree, and real families would shoot real hoops. They’d be astonished if we told them that in the future it would be all video games.

I hope that you have found this interesting and thought provoking. The overall theme is to be aware that everyone has a homing instinct, and that it is the warping of this instinct that has caused a lot of problems today. When one is not aware of and honors one’s genuine homing instinct, it still spills out in dysfunctional ways, such as being a shopaholic, retreating to addictive computer or game usage, or gangs. Further, one allows one’s own home or apartment to be styled in a way that is depressive, even if one thinks one is being “decorative” or charming. Too many people have even their humble abodes styled “as if” instead of “that sure feels like home.” Start changing that this Hanukkah and Christmas, even if … and especially if… you are under economic pressure, and you will see what I mean.

Instant cure for grandiosity and inflation with LOL

Here is a very effective and also humorous cure for feelings of alienation, grandiosity, inflation and feelings of spiritual superiority.

First let me define the terms. Alienation is the feeling that one is suddenly detached from the reality of life, and thus almost looking "down" on what is happening as though it were all unreal, an illusion or a "script." Grandiosity is the sense that one is bigger and better than all the other people, and that you are among them and nice to them only because you are being "generous." Inflation is the belief that you are not just human but have supernatural powers or identity. Feeling of spiritual superiority used to be known as feeling "holier than thou art" until modern times, when people want to be "spiritual" and not holy... and so this term means that you think spiritual goodness and prowess is something that can be measured and that you have more of it than other humans.

When I was a teenager and later in college, I regularly encountered people who had moments of alienation. So I have a long history of prescribing this "treatment" to them, and it is actually part of our family lore.

Go stand in a long line that involves some horribly drawn out bureaucratic procedure.

I'm not joking, this is a very effective cure for the feelings described above. It works because it requires one to be "stuck" within the reality of matter, energy and time. When one is stuck waiting two hours in a line to do some meaningless paperwork, it is enforced mental rootedness. One cannot genuinely detach, inflate or feel superior when one must shuffle as a clock slowly ticks in order to apply a very real pen to a very real paper for very real results or failure.

Now, the flagship for this cure in those days was the Motor Vehicle Bureau. Before the time of computers and even calculators, and way before the time of "service first" and "the customer is always right," going to the Motor Vehicle Bureau was a guaranteed complete day killing torture. There were no convenient "local offices" so one had to drive into the nearest city. Once there one witnessed all forms of human drama and misery (they wait two hours in line and find they have the wrong form, for example). This is where it entered family lore as my mother gave it the nickname "The Divorce Court," as the misery and prolonged drama of the Motor Vehicle Bureau was only matched by a court dedicated to handling divorce cases (which back then was not "no fault" and thus was old fashioned agony at its best).

In this modern era it is harder to find such a bureaucratic and miserable line to stand in, but you can envision and, if you are unlucky, experience some equivalents. Those who have to wait in line for water after a hurricane know exactly what I mean. No one is feeling alienated, grandiose, inflated or superior when you are standing in line, dirty and tired, waiting hours for water in the heat (or the cold) and not even knowing if you will be successful when it is your turn. Miserable as it is, it is a very rooting experience. When one goes through something like that, it's a great cure to slough off any pretensions and affectations of being "above it all" or "not really of this world." Yep, when you have to shuffle off to Buffalo, to use an old saying, to travel a long and inconvenient distance in order to stand in a long line to do one and only one bureaucratic thing, that you may or may not succeed in, and everyone is "in the same boat," it's a great cure.

So well rooted am I and having spent my share in lines such as this that in the 1980's when I needed my passport renewed and working at a Wall Street bank found that an assistant would take my passport in person and have it renewed for me while I stayed in my office, not having to stand in line I almost fainted. To this day I still retain the habit that I and my cohorts developed which is to always have a paperback book along with you in case you have to stand in a long line.

To this day when we joke in my family about "going to divorce court" that is subversive nickname humor referring to the great miserable equalizer that cures by making one stuck in time and earthly matter, the old Motor Vehicle Bureau.

Case study of personal and societal neurosis

This isn’t going to be a very nice topic but as you know, I blog very frankly about the many problems that individuals and society as a whole have to face. So I’ve decided to address one of those problems as a case study, so you can both learn about the issue itself and also observe how to analyze when such a problem creeps up gradually until people don’t even realize it exists.

Two things precipitated my awareness and alarm about this topic. One is a continual pattern of infant and child abuse related to it, and the other is my awareness when I did my undercover occult investigation that cultists promote a very unbalanced view about this subject. In fact what they teach their own children is in every sense of the word also child abuse.

First let’s define some terms. A neurosis is a mental disorder that is considered “manageable.” In other words, it may be a mild obsession, or it could be a severe mental or emotional anxiety or discomfort, but one that if the patient is willing and has the right treatment can be remediated. A psychosis is a severe mental disorder that is fundamentally defined as a breakdown in one’s perception of reality. The problem I am going to describe is a neurosis that many individuals have, and that much of modern western society has developed as a whole. But I want to point out that untreated and inflamed neuroses can result in psychotic behavior, so one should always try to treat and remove the pain from even a mild neurosis.

Here is the problem. In certain circles of western society, particularly among the youth of the past two generations, there has been a development of a neurosis about “going to the bathroom,” particularly the function of defecation. The perspective I am going to give to you is based on both my age, which means I have a clear understanding of the “before” and “after” of the development of this neurosis, and also as a psychological counselor. This is very much a human biological, mental and societal problem; there is not a spiritual crisis component for me to discuss except when I explain how cultists have outrageously tried to “explain” and actually fuel the defecation neurosis by assigning it to a spiritual disorder. It’s so frustrating and disgusting, but I am getting ahead of my explanation so let’s start.

Hardly a day goes by that we do not read of a young parent, the boyfriend or girlfriend of a parent, or some other caregiver who severely beats and abuses, even killing, a baby over a matter of their “wetting their diapers” or “having an accident.” I’ve written about the overall problem before, in very blunt terms, about how the past two generations have had a spike in numbers of near monsters who will abuse, torture and kill their children or someone else’s, for a variety of “reasons,” but all rooted in rage coupled with a dehumanized view of the most innocent and helpless of their human victims. But I want to speak about the particular “reason, “related to a baby’s defecation, so that you can have a specific case study to examine the breakdown of societal education, perspective and identify the guilty parties. This has especially been on my mind as a thirteen year old boy in a city near my own home town beat a baby for an entire hour, brutally and with no mercy, because she urinated on the floor. She died needless to say. Police found that the baby was left alone for hours at a time, on the floor, while the mother and her live in “boyfriend” went to their high school classes. Yes, they left a baby alone on the floor for hours, and then beat her to death when she had to “pee.”

How has society developed so many people who are insane with rage when a helpless baby has to do what comes naturally, which is to urinate and defecate? My readers in South America, Africa, Asia and the Middle East, I understand you must be shocked and puzzled when you read this. This is because this is a phenomenon of “advanced” “Western” society, particularly in the United States. It is a neurosis that has developed in this society as a whole, and is fueled by a number of factors. This is what we will examine here.

The first problem is a problem of technological success and wealth that has an unintended result of detaching people from understanding reality. Specifically, I have noticed a change in behavior when parents were first able to replace cloth diapers that had to be washed and reused with disposable diapers. When I was a teenager I had to take care of my niece when she was a baby and this was during the time of cloth diapers. It’s not the most wonderful chore in the world, to change a baby and to clean the diaper enough that it can go into the laundry service, but it’s not the worst job either (as those of you who are still sane in the rest of the world well know). But when what seemed to be the “blessing” of disposable diapers came along, an unintended accompaniment to the throw away diaper was a changed mindset of the parents, which is that a baby’s bodily function is “dirty” and “disgusting.” I can practically point to the time when this happened, which is in the 1970’s.

Back when cloth diapers were used, parents were also better “potty trainers,” as they praised babies for doing “their job,” rather than hating them for doing what they have to and should be doing. So I noticed that soon after the rising of the problem of viewing a baby’s defecation as “disgusting” came a generation that suddenly started failing at “potty training.” Books were written, talk shows mentioned it, and I just shook my head. So when disposable diapers replaced cloth diapers and either home laundering or the use of commercial diaper services, there was a collapse of both equanimity and a healthy view of a baby’s normal bodily function, and also a collapse of understanding how to transmit healthy “potty training” to the child.

The children who picked up from their handlers this view of disgust grew up and went into the workforce. They then stoked “bathroom humor” to appeal to fellow traumatized adolescents. One cannot attend any movie pitched at the youngest of children, teenagers or young adults without constant “humor” which is mentioning and demeaning either defecation itself or the various ways that it is achieved. That’s one reason, seriously, that I will rarely view a film. The entertainment industry, having grown up with this neurosis themselves, honestly think that it is a “normal” source of humor, and that everyone loves, wants and expects “gross” humor based on “s***,” “buttholes,” “farting,” “asses and their assholes,” "booty crack" etc. The first traumatized and neurotic generation trained the next generation to not only be traumatized and neurotic, but to think it is an “adult” rite of passage, to make such humor, constantly. Trust me, the adolescents who went on to fight World War II did not grow up on a diet of “potty humor,” and they did not expect it. They all had, in general, sane and good parents, a sane growing up experience, little brothers and sisters who they gave sane care to, and also exposure to the realities of living on farms. Further, focus on the rectum etc. has become a predominant topic in rap videos and other "entertainment."

This is also another reason that you see the extremely underreported problem of people putting crap in other people’s food. Trust me, if you knew what I know, you’d hesitate to eat anything that you did not personally prepare yourself, and that is a horrible shame. Those who stoke this behavior as part of “pop culture” are beginning to regret it a little, and so once in a while they will allow a mention to get into the media (usually something like showing that people do it often to police, or to show a “nut” doing in on secret camera). But cultists and pop culture mavens have secretly promoted doing this for years, as “revenge” on people who offended them in “past lives,” and for other very scary and insane reasons. Think “vampire” and you won’t be too far from the mark in understanding their “logic” and “belief systems.” As a way to alert people of the very thing they have stirred up, they allowed the “pizza deliver guy” or the “waiter” “revenge” stories to trickle (excuse the pun) into the media. This is them slowly realizing how destructive and demented they have become, and trying to “come clean” and alert people to the cultural monster they have unleashed. Gosh, thanks.


People, I cannot begin to describe to you how jarring and shocking the change has become. You really had to be there, to be observant and of my age to witness how this has happened.
As a result there is a bonfire when you combine this second generation of “defecation neurotic” young adults with rage stoked by other things (drugs, alcohol, too early sex, thug environments, broken families and abuse) and you have hundreds if not thousands of cases each year where young men or women loath their own babies’ healthy functions and will literally “beat the s*** out of them.” Police and social workers, if they are honest with you, will tell you how traumatized they are by seeing so many of these cases. Even one is too many, obviously.

Here is the unspoken problem of the cultists. Since they have a totally unbalanced and delusional view of life, one that is simply ignorant in addition to being spiritually dirtied, rather than “enlightened,” they have taken the defecation neurosis and concluded that it exists as a homoerotic component of “spirituality.” This is one reason that anal rape has become not only common, both of babies and of children and adults, but also has become a catchphrase in everyday discourse. If you are shocked, especially those of you who are in countries and cultures that are still sane on this subject, all you need to do is see what is posted in the comments section on the Internet whenever a particular heinous criminal is sentenced to prison. Immediately people post to speculate how often, and hope for, as frequent anal rape of the prisoners as possible will occur by their fellow prisoners. This has obviously been also picked up in the porn industry for a very long time, further stoking the problem.

It is one of the things that most shocked me about the depraved mentality of cultists, who secretly steer much of the discourse in “popular” culture. While I obviously observed the “diaper problem” along with the poor parenting skills myself, I would never have guessed that cultists teach a “spiritual” homoerotic component to the rectum and human defecation function. For example, that is why there was the springing up of “colonic cleansing” services, which even Princess Diane availed herself of, due to the influence of her circle of cultists. Yes, people believe there is a health and “spiritual” benefit of shoving a tube up their rectums and flushing their colons with various fluids. They think that the body “does not work properly” unless one does this flushing. I wonder how the population of the earth reached billions of sane and healthy people in a period of 7,000 years, all without “colonic cleansing.” So now we are on the third generation of people growing up in some very dysfunctional parts of society that think that without “spiritual health intervention” that ‘bad things’ stay ‘stuck in your colon’ and must be “cleansed naturally” by paying $50 to $100 for a “spiritually healthy” “colonic cleansing.” The same third generation has members who will also flip out and beat the life out of their baby when the baby naturally does defecate in or outside of their diapers, and cry to signal they need to be changed, as they are supposed to do. They also look at their own children with sexual eyes, and that is an abomination, whether it occurs “in the front” or “in the back.”
Do you see the problem?

I sometimes despair that humans will ever remember what it is really like to be sane and human. This is one of those examples that I admit, I really wonder how to ever get an increasingly self hating and insane generation (one generation after the other) to learn to return to normal when it is something that they never grew up to know.

There is another horrible problem, one that is so ironic. This “do gooder” generation has forgotten the basic “do gooder” priorities of the generations past, which is to build latrines in poor countries, and sewage treatment plants near cities, and to learn better ways to control farm waste. They cry about “global warming,” yet they have neglected an essential component of preserving the endangered oceans and also the war on poverty, which are sanitation facilities. Another example of how dysfunctional they are is if one raises the issue with them, they will lecture you about stopping eating meat, and that way you have no cattle who “fart” and “crap” (thus “no pollution” and “no greenhouse gases.”)

But that used to be the basics of every generation before us, the first thing they did when they brought clean drinking water to a poor village, for example, was the development of latrines and a sanitation ethic, one that is based on simple reality, not neurosis. But now everyone wants to “stamp out a disease” (the most popular of the do good causes) or “save the polar bear,” yet the oceans are increasingly fouled by the modern neglect of promoting and providing complete sanitation. It is so bad that the UN earlier this year addressed this problem. I suspect the UN does not realize what they are up against, one of the hidden reasons why there is so much aversion to doing something about this problem. They don’t realize that the “do good” money, the people who support the “good causes,” while not beating their own children to death due to potty accidents, are equally unbalanced on the subject in their core, unlike our very sensible forefathers and mothers.

Like I said above, I honestly do not know what to do about this problem, because I despair of teaching sanity to those who grew up in very unbalanced conditions. How does one teach to society as a whole something to lose a neurosis and go back to a sane and balanced view, when so many never experienced that sane and balanced view? But whatever the solution, if one exists, obviously it cannot start unless people have the facts, and so this is why I’ve written this particular blog post. I must admit, thirty years ago, I never dreamed I’d have to be writing this type of post. Yes, concerns about the poor skills in the raising of children-that I foresaw-but not the total breakdown of sane education and perspective about human body function, and the resulting violence that has occurred. Nope, I am surprised, unpleasantly surprised.

Good luck, young people. Good luck.