04/29/2016

 The mood is up.

 The mood has been up for quite some time now. In fact, it's been more the rule than the exception. I could get to like this sort of thing.

 I had only been out of work one day in the past three weeks and that was because I'd caught whatever it is that's been mowing people down in the office. Felt like complete poo on Tuesday so I stayed home. Spent the whole day in bed which caused a great deal of pain.

 The mood hasn't been without its moments. I was very angry this time last week.

 The property I'm renting is actually three properties. There's my house (The Stealth House), there are a pair of industrial-sized garages next to me, and a small lot on the side opposite the garages.

 The lot portion is being rented by Dealin Dave's Auto Sales. There's room for four cars. Good old 'Dealin' decided since he only has room for four cars but wants to park seven cars it's okay to first completely block off access to my carport on that side, then to block off three-quarters of the access to the carport on the other side.

 Basically, I've been having to squeeze through a space just slightly wider than my vehicle in order to get to my house. But I've been putting up with it. Until the weekend before last. The chaps renting the garages felt there was no need to leave the access to my house clear. They've either been parking me in, or parking me out, over and over and over again.

 So I finally lost my sense of humor.

 Now, I'd complained to the property management agency before about this very same problem. Nothing changed. So, last Friday, I went to visit them in person. I pointed out that both 'Dealin' and the garage guy's leases specifically state they are not to block access to the car port.

 I pointed out that my lease specifically states I'm to have unrestricted access to my carport. And, since I no longer have unrestricted access to my carport, I should not be paying for something I'm not receiving. I asked how much of a discount I'd be receiving on my rent payment.

 The following Monday, 'Dealin's cars had been moved. And the garage guys have been staying well clear of my driveway. It seems that money, or at least the prospect of receiving less money, seems to be a very powerful motivator.

 But that's been the only dark space I've experienced. And I'm good with it.

 I met with a couple of friends after work today at a restaurant in town after work today. I mostly enjoyed myself but started to get a little edgy as the place slowly filled up. By the end of dinner, I was ready to chase down the waitress for my check so I could do some retreating.

 I enjoyed the time out but crowded environments still make me very nervous.

 I think a great deal about why this is. There are a number of reasons but mostly I think it's because group-minds terrify me. I mean, I'd been exposed to a wide range of life-threatening scenarios when I was on active duty and I never lost my head. I was always calm and did whatever was necessary to make sure I came out of things alive.

 But those situations usually had something to do with mechanical failures, or natural disasters...you know, the kind of things with a cause that can be addressed.

 But put an individual in a group, and that individual would say or do things they would never even consider doing on their own. After World War II, when either German civilians or German military personnel were asked why the either stood by and did nothing or actively participated in the most horrifying pogrom in human history the answers were usually something like “I didn't know”, or “I was just following orders”.

 I've often questioned whether or not I would have followed an order that was clearly a case of murder. It's very easy to look at a situation after the fact and say “I would have...”. Would I have refused to pull the trigger? Or to herd people into that box car? Or into the 'showers'?

 My feeling is that I would have refused.

 The thing is you can take the nicest, most decent person you've ever met, put them in a crowd of people who are perpetrating something horrifying, and that person will do things they would never dream of doing on their own.

 A group-mind can have terrifying power. It can easily subvert an individual identity. Suppress a will. Encourage actions. And an individual set against that group-mind would be powerless to stop it. This is what worries me in crowds. The idea that something could sweep through it, mutating it into something powerful, and terrible.

 This is in the back of my mind as the number of people in a place slowly increases.

 I know that the likelihood of something foul seizing control of a group is unlikely...at least in most cases. In fact, as humans, we can accomplish wonderful, powerful things when we move together with a single goal in mind.

 There are two ends to just about every spectrum.

 I had a tangential, philosophic though today. “Darkness is not a thing, it's the absence of a thing”. It kinda seems profound I'm just not 100% sure why. I have a lot of thoughts like that. I enjoy turning them over, and around, and inside-out, seeking the actual meaning. Or at least trying to figure out why they seem meaningful.

 Mostly, thoughts like that are just so much fluff, in an endless field of fluff, floating around in my consciousness.

 But, then again, it may be the answer to life, the universe, and everything.

 Then again, maybe not.

 I heard the answer to that question is 42.

 Thanks for listening.  

And yet, darkness is the natural state of the universe.  At least inasmuch as we understand the universe.

Light must have a source.  Darkness is the default setting, if you will.

Today's horoscope, accurate enough to be downright scary (Sagittarius):

  You are often restless at work and in love as you imagine greener pastures on the other side of the fence. In fact, you may want to experience some quiet time away from the maddening crowds today. The Moon's presence in your 4th House of Home and Family might not be sufficient to completely take your mind off the greater world of possibilities. Although you like the idea of withdrawing socially now, you are not eager to isolate yourself or alienate others. Happily, acknowledging that your current dilemma may not be immediately resolved enables you to enjoy your day for what it is.

Light is certainly subject gravitational attraction and can be bent toward an intense singularity.

As to whether light is actually broken in a black hole, nobody knows.

Perhaps the light emerges on the other side into a hidden part of the universe.

Space/time bends into that maw, possibly to spew out somewhere and some time.   Where is it?  When is it?

This hasn't been edited, sorry.

05/19/2016
 
 The mood is dangerously unstable.

 Please don't misinterpret that statement.  I"m not in any physical danger.  “Dangerously Unstable, describes a condition in which one Episode triggers another, and another.


 I'm sick as hell. The plague has been working it's way around the office. The office is a very large, open space divided by portable walls about five feet high with four L-shaped desks. Everything is wide open.

 I first heard the coughing a week or two ago. It was way back by the windows. Over time, it slowly worked its way inward until, last week, the people on the other side of the divider, the tall wall, began throat-clearing, then outright coughing.

 So, at the end of last week, it jumped over the wall and landed right on my face like a big....um....jumping thing.

 Saturday and Sunday passed without incident. No problems there. On Monday my throat began to feel a little scratchy. Way deep-down like. I'm familiar enough with myself to understand what that feeling meant.

 Monday night was spent sleeping fitfully between doses of Alka-Seltzer Plus Cough and Cold. I would drink it. Eventually I'd be able to breath through my nose again. Then I'd fall asleep until it wore off and I would take another dose.

 I was dragging badly on Tuesday. Moving very slowly, both mentally and physically. I began to become closed off from everything around me.

 Something happened on Tuesday night.

 I'm not sure what it was but I woke up, standing in the open front door of my house, desperately trying to draw enough breath. I could breathe in and out through my mouth but it still felt like I wasn't getting enough air.

 The suffocating sensation triggered a panic attack. Which made it even more difficult to breathe. Which dialed-up the panic attack. This monster kept feeding itself and I was losing control of it. That triggered the first Episode. I have no idea how long I was just standing there but it wasn't just a few minutes.

 My sense of time is just as abstract as my sense of any other kind of scale. If I'm not looking at a clock, I have no idea how much time has passed. All I knew was that the heater in the living room was blasting and the room was freezing from the door standing open.

 So, more cold medicine. I fell asleep. It seemed like the alarm went off immediately after I dozed off. I sat up for a while, just breathing. In through the nose, out through the mouth, deep and regular. I don't know how long this lasted. Maybe an hour, possibly more.

 When this kind of thing happens, it's not that I'm not aware of what I'm doing, it's that I will just keep doing it without regard to any passing time. It's a flat-lined pattern, just moving in one direction.

 So, I called off on Wednesday, and today.

 I did make it to my therapy appointment this morning but I otherwise spent both days taking cold medicine, trying to get some kind of rest. Wrestling with, not just the sensation of drowning or the passing of time unnoticed, but with the crushing guilt. It's always this way. I can't go and I can't not go. If I don't go, that means someone else has to cover.

 And it tears me up inside.

 On days like this I truly feel broken. All of the memories, all sparkling brand-new no matter how much temporal distance between when they were real and when they were just thought. Years of my family, what was supposed to be my support system.. They just insisted there was no such thing as a mental illness. There's no autism. I could be normal if I really wanted to.

 That I was weak.

 That I somehow choose to be completely paralyzed, locked in place for no reason at all, lost in my own thoughts, battered by a past that's still bright and crisp and sharp as the day it was formed. Haunted by fear, feeling threatened, for no reason at all. Losing track of how to do the simplest things because I can't break the pattern I've fallen in to.

 And they thought this is something I chose to do.

 On days like this, the skeletons in my closet whisper “It's nothing”, “You could walk out that door right now”, “You could be just like everyone else if you really wanted to”, “You just let things get to you”, “None of it is real”.

 And I wish.

 I wish they were right.

 That I could just put it down.

 Just walk away.

 Be free. Be 'normal'.

 But that's never going to happen.

 Thinking that it could? There is the lie.

 I don't want to be this way.

 Thanks for listening.  

Last edited by Conspiracy Theory (5/19/2016 6:32 pm)