Genesis 1:29-31
And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat. And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so. And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.
Sanity
There or Not?
Love is Not Its Contrary
25/06/2011
Love is a verb. Its meaning is lost without its expression. The actions behind the word constitutes its meaning. Lack thereof of its intended expression is directly in conflict with its meaning. To genuinely care for another and their interests stands as the beginning of the manifestation called 'love'. Anything in conflict with this premise is not a manifestation of love but of subjugation and oppression.
Each individual's search for love dominates their lives. The topic of concern for us all is what and who we love and how far that we will go to actualise our deepest desires. Those desires are what makes each and every one of us special - an individual. For any other to ignore those desires and replace them with their own expedient purposes, meaning looking at their own ends and not another's means, is directly in conflict with love.
Throughout the development of the historical existence of the human race, we have learnt time and time again that a tyrannical system is not only doomed to failure but also an incredibly unjust and invasive form of government. For the interests of another to be given to them by another, in turn suppressing the other's sense of values, motivations, desires, wishes, and self worth results in a caste system where the life of one individual is worth more than the life of another individual.
To elaborate on this subject, the lives of those who follow the path that the media lays for them results in the working class. To create the media that is followed by others spawns the ruling class. To do neither is to be labelled as 'an undesirable' who is incapable of 'making decisions'. This is a system put in place to clear the bowling lane of left over pins and then [re-processing] them.
Just as with any system of rules and regulations, there will be a certain amount of individuals who cannot comply within its borders. Values will not always sufficiently be passed down and a portion of the population will suffer extreme forms of disapproval and alienation. Where the individual falls short to conform to the pressures of society is where the individual is told again and again that it is THEIR problem. A healthy individual with different values than that of cultural normality is looked down upon and declared unhealthy. The idea of freedom becomes absurd and all that is presented is a few options, ultimately giving ultimatums if one does not comply, independent if one is or is not a danger to themselves or others.
Welcome to tyrannical conditioning. A system developed and enforced to collect and [re-process] the 'undesirables'. Now that you are here, YOU are the subject of inquiry. Your limits will be tested, overstepped, broken, and then shredded. You are no longer considered a human being but a lesser mammal. Your wants and desires are no longer considered but what they system wants for you is now your new life. Non-compliance is futile. Resistance is futile. The system has all the time in the world to batter you until compliance occurs. If you think yourself to have hope, the system will take it away.
To go against the grain of love is not love. To intentionally leave out ones goals, interests, objectives, personality, ambitions, and desires is not love but intentional and volitional malice. I pray for the souls of every individual involved in this terrible process. Many believe their deeds to be helping. I assert that this place can rarely 'help' a person. Welcome to Hell. I have heard that one never 'truly' leaves.
Everchanging Values
02/07/2011
Written to the conglomerate of an insane asylum.
I once valued similar things to all of you. I owned cars, a home, had family, cared about money, cared about accommodation, desired to own possessions, and lived day to day in a world that most would consider reasonably "normal". But two things changed all of that. 1) Living life, and 2) Learning.
Many things that I once valued in my life were suddenly taken away. This then allowed me to evaluate what it really was that I truly valued and many of those things were superficial and became devalued or even worthless. I have experienced much in my life, and I felt it all. I felt my way through life. I also felt my way through learning, for example, my search for knowledge. I did not "pick up" philosophy, but FELT through it, therefore its ramifications fell on me like the unstable brick wall that life is.
I now sit here imprisoned by the same government that I swore my allegiance to. I am too different for any to understand, so I am treated as a mentally insane patient. I know the taboo of that word, but you cannot just rename the word to make your connotations different. Because my values do not reflect those of your own society and culture, I have become a project to prod at to see my reaction. The majority of my freedoms have been stripped from me, and once again, my values are shifting. And this time, the needle, the catalyst, is you.
Before I was imprisoned here I used to value many things. I used to value Internet access and freedom of information. I have little concern about that now. I used to value keeping in contact with those on the Internet. I no longer care. I used to value freedom and democracy as one of my highest goods. I now know no such thing to exist. I once valued a caring government but that does not exist either.
You have chipped away at me and now I am a product of your oppression. My mind has transcended the physical and I no longer hold any values within its realm. The only thing that I care about now is my morals and the way that I choose to live my life. I will never fall out of sync with myself. It is better to be out of sync with the entire world than myself. You can take me out of sync with absolutely everything in your control, but you will never achieve your objective. I am not an "episode" and am actually insulted that you consider my personality as such. You can feed my body, starve my mind, and try and tear away at my soul, but my soul is strong and you are in a losing battle, no matter how much or what methods you try.
To take an entirely free bird from its home and sticking it in a box is your crime. The only difference is that I am human.
However, I am not one to ignore the positive. I came in here because I was struggling with my ego desiring what it did not have. I have suffered much in my life because I was not content with what was and thought that it should be better. Thanks to your unruly procedures, my ego has receded to what its function is: to take care of one's functional needs and nothing more. I am no longer suicidal because my ego is deflated. My ego is where I want it; the reason I came into this mouse trap. I appreciate your oppression to teach me what I needed to learn.
But there comes a point where one must ask how much longer they will endure torture. I was told by another that psychiatrist take an oath to "do no harm". If this is true, mine is breaking theirs. Please remove my shackles so that I can get external help to reverse some of the damage you have inflicted.
05/07/2011
My freedom is taken away like it was never there nor important. I am then treated on and not with. My desired teamwork faded away and I became the rat in a cage, without a say or a soul. No matter the amount of research or standing up for my rights I perform, my cries remain ignored because I have become less than human. My dream of traveling around Australia as a student seems to dwindle away. I have come to understand freedom for its true colors: non-existent. I can not be the person that my psychiatrist wants me to be because my personality is not a psychotic episode or results thereof.
All expect me to be calm. To sugar coat the truth to make everybody happy. My feelings have become irrelevant in a system that has stripped my freedom: oppresses and subjugates me on a day to day basis. My interests have been tossed aside like yesterday's paper and externally created interests put in its place. My search to not become a number has proved absurd and a number is all that I am. To be "normal" is my oppressors objective, but I cannot comply. I have been told that if one complies when I am deployed back into society and revert back to non-compliance, that one will end up back here. I have been told by those who have experienced this. I am discredited and those who care can do nothing.
- Why can't we all just get along?
- Why are so many's actions deviant?
- Why do so many ignore the golden rule?
- Why do we oppress those who care and accept those who are malicious?
- Why do I see extremely violent individuals come and leave, and my non-aggressive self, stays right here?
- Why does the system not work with individuals but instead against them?
- Why do professionals believe that they are always in the right?
- Why must people lie?
- Why is volitional malice commonplace?
- Why can a Westerner not be a monk?
- What did I do wrong?
- Why is it wrong to be myself?
- Why has God forsaken me?
- Why am I here? What is its meaning?
I Love Myself
07/07/2011
Tears roll down my face like boulders rolling down a hill as I ponder the reality of my situation. Two weeks and a few days has thus far been my sentence at the Ballarat Acute Psychiatric Facility. I have been informed that I suffer from a "thought illness". The lifetime that it took me to condition my mind the way that I desired it has been spit all over, and my views and interpretations that I have found as a result of my life's studies is belittled as the result of a psychotic illness.
My life's search for meaning and greater understanding is not "normal" thus needs treating. The fact that I never attempted to be "normal" remains unconsidered, and I get stuck in a system attempting to "normalise" me. The fact that my life has been spent to remove the box and not think inside it remains ignored. Their objective: to make me "normal". To revert the mental conditioning that I have spent my life project moulding. My moral development as an individualist is assessed as inappropriate and a more collective set of moral guidelines handed to me offered as the only route to freedom. What is continually ignored is that I love myself! I love my brain, my ideas, my creativity, and my courage.
I have spent my life breaking outside of the box for a reason: because I did not like what was inside the box. It held nothing but hostility and empty promises. It gave ignorance and consumerism as its gifts and I saw those not to be gifts but instead bait. Bait to get sucked into an meaningless life. A life without meaning but instead systems that were put in place to keep the power and control in the hands of the greedy, in turn allowing the caste system to exist, dividing a planet that naturally is undivided.
I hate currency. Others attempt to push me to say that it is fine for some people but I no longer think that it is. To use currency beyond basic needs is to agree that there is value in said plastic. It is to agree to work with a system that will only work with you if you conform to its values. It encourages greed and creates an "economy" that apparently "runs the world". But it does not. This life is not about money but the people around you. Money becomes a worshipped idol when one cannot live without it. When money directs one's every move in life, money has broken an ethical barrier and becomes a source of great evil. Our society is run by a great source of evil, and it resides in our pockets. And it is precisely views like this that stand as the reason I am in this insane asylum. I have been declared an untouchable by society - incompatible with your system.
But the fact that I love myself, or better stated, the person that I have built myself to be, remains an ignored factor. The reason I am imprisoned here is not because of my own dealings with myself, but my dealings with society. The object of my conditioning has been declared unfit for the general public. I am being [re-processed] because I am now, like my philosophical investigation into reality, consciousness, sentience, and subjective interpretation, am ethereal. I am the fog of war and my captivity is the attempt to clear the ground. All expect to understand by direct language but that is impossible. I use my words to paint a picture. I realise these words to be unsatisfactory to convey real meaning, so I utilise them to strive for the conveyance of a more abstract but at the same time more articulate meaning. I can never express what it is that I am trying to express but I can make a painting to get as close to there as I can. My words are the results of my paint brush called my mouth or pen. I have absolutely no problems with my thinking. I have spent my life refining and fine tuning it. Do not punish me just because I do not fit your ideal. I fit exactly my ideal. I am a philosopher and it is the philosopher's job to remove all preconceptions. Do not punish me for what I am. I am not hurting anyone. In fact, just the opposite. I strive for love every conscious second. This is the God that I worship.
Parental Complex
09/07/2011
A few days after I entered this psychiatric ward I fasted for three days. I found out, as a result of the fast, that I am never content with [what is], which causes me to excessively strive for something that [is not]. I have used my life always pushing for what could be and not what was. This was the cause of my suffering: I am learning to be content with what is.
In light of this information, I believe that I have found the root of this deeply seeded striving and it lies as a result from my parents. They are the ones that have never been happy with me - my decisions in life and the person that I choose to be. I cannot remember the last time I talked to either of my parents and them actually display happiness for my choices that I made in life. The more I learn and the more I become, the more my parentals display their disapproval. They are never happy or content with [what is] in my life, but always critical, pushing for [what is not].
I believe that this constant disapproval in my life helped fashion me. I kept learning how to be better, but it was never in line with what either of my parents thought to be better. My parents constant push for me to change, constantly pushed me to change, but not in the direction they hoped for.
I believe my father has stopped doing this recently. I think that he has "given up", but in fact this could be beneficial for our relationship. At first I thought him to no longer care, but after some time I have found him standing back to be beneficial to our future relationship. He no longer seems to make judgements about any of my life. Maybe eventually we can reconcile our relationship and some day he might be happy for my person. But I will be content with [what is] and not grasp at the wind.
My mother on the other hand is just as hard headed as I am. She believes that she has been enlightened with all the answers. And her answer: "do not think". She wants what she thinks is best for me. And what she thinks is best for me is for me to not be me. And I believe it better to be out of sync with the entire world than with myself. It is easy to see the direct conflict that my mother and I desire in my future. The bulls butt heads. She desires so much for me to not be me that she will spend passionate effort expressing to me that she knows how my life should go and it is not how I currently choose to live it. She will go out of her way to make her disapproval known to me. She feels as if I am her responsibility even though I have not been her responsibility since 1999. She is never happy with [what is] and always strives for me to be [what is not]. This is my inherited suffering. These are my tears in life. Because I am never "right" in her eyes, or my own.
Community is Belonging
18/07/2011
A writing contest for an insane asylum that was refused entry.
To belong is to be comfortable within one's environment. Humans are communal creatures who excel within social environments. To belong is to know and love oneself, sharing one's talents and gifts with all who are around that can benefit from them. To belong one must find themselves and then figure out how their gifts and talents can be used to benefit others around them.
In order to be good for others, one must first be good for themselves. Before others can reap the benefits of one's offerings, one first needs a healthy mind and a healthy body. Without a healthy mind, the body will not know how to coherently interact with its surroundings. Similarly, without a healthy body, the mind cannot optimise its pathway. To belong one must first themselves reach a healthy status to be any good for others.
Once mental and physical health is obtained, one stands in a lighthouse, able to see clearly what it is that is around them and what direction they need to go. With health comes the ability to make clear and concise decisions directed towards the future. When physical and mental health is obtained, one is able to objectively assess their own ability and figure out one's place within the community where they belong and not where other people tell them that they belong.
Being is belonging. But sometimes our minds are too busy from distractions of our own lives to see what being really is. Being is observed as our day to day struggles but this could not be further from the truth of being. To 'be' consists of a conscious awareness. This awareness does not necessarily need any external factors upon it to be. Being can be awakened when one just sits and recognises what it is; what they are. Not what happened in their lives or what they are diagnosed with, but instead a conscious perception that sees over those things. One's being necessitates one's belonging. To belong one has to be. And for one to be, one can choose to be aware of their beingness or not. But if we choose to recognise this being, it will make it clear to us that we are not our diagnosis nor our history. All we have in this life is the now and we choose how we live it every second. To live it in the moment, ensuring our mental and physical health, will give us the most optimal life that we can live every second along the way.
To be is belonging. Belonging is communal. Just as the right hand becomes incoherent without the left, our mission in life is to find out what body part we are and learn to function as it the best we can. To belong in a community is not conforming with what said community wants you to be, but being yourself to the best of your ability.
Hospital Feedback
01/08/2011
To the insane asylum quality control,
I have been shaped and moulded by your counterparts to be a submissive collectivist who conforms to whatever it is that his superiors wishes upon him. I was once an individual who took pride in being something different, but now have been punished for this mentality. The only way that I found to be released from your prison that you call a hospital, was to shake my head and agree with whatever it was that was being pushed upon me. My beliefs were demeaned as a product of a mental illness, and my character was run over again and again by your hooligans that you call mental health professionals. My concerns were not taken into consideration, but instead a new set of concerns were given to me by these “professionals”. A hospital that is full of mentally unsound people does not even have a counsellor available to speak to, when most people really need to speak to someone who could help them talk out their minds. The psychiatrists stood as an enemy to all patients. There is good reason for this. Because they are not concerned about the well being of their patient but only what their next action towards the patient will be. Their lack of empathy comes across to the patients as cruelty, and instead of creating a “win-win” situation, you have created “us and them”.
Complete and utter compliance is your health professional's goal. They not only push one to agree with the given diagnosis, but also push one to agree with their chosen treatment path, which does not involve one's input. I noticed both in myself and in other people around me that there existed a general consensus with what the doctors wanted to hear, and as long as you responded in this manner, the professionals would loosen their grips on you. My suspicions were verified after I started conforming, shaking my head to whatever treatment that was forced upon me. It was at that point that I began to acquire leave. Your tight grip loosens whenever conformity is achieved. And conformity is the only option that you give. One can forget about working with the staff to achieve an optimal treatment plan that is best for you. One is given a method that is solidly created by your professionals that is apparently best for you. Any negotiation of this plan is seen as non-compliance and is dealt with by the tightening grips of your system's cold fingers. To work with your system is impossible. Your system does not make way for one to work with it. You create the “us and them” mentality, and wonder why your patients receive a poor taste in their mouths. The psychiatrist waves their brutal sword called a pen and condemns their plan on you, to be carried out by the nurses using whatever means necessary. The psychiatrist does not have the patient's health in mind, but their compliance. All is well as long as the patient has no will of their own.
The ward is not a place of healing but instead a place of misery. Healing is not encouraged. Not a soul responds to one's tears. The ward is reduced as a holding cell to ensure that patients consume their medications. The consistent malice from other patients confirms this premise. You have not provided a very nice atmosphere to encourage healing, nor are the staff trained to be effective counsellors to anyone. One must ask the same question many times to a staff member to get an appropriate response. Every time one request something from a