Re: Just some ideas for SciFi.....

From: Mark Fergerson (nunya_at_biz.ness)
Date: 07/09/04 

Date: Fri, 09 Jul 2004 00:29:17 -0700

Wayne Clare wrote:

<snippage to the crash>

> Thoughts
> In the soft glow of a full moon I think of the past several days. The
> reality of my time is starting to fade. A sterile term that keeps the
> problem at a distance for the medical field is ‘decomposition'. What
> that means is that your brain chemistry is in a downward spiral in
> which you will lose your grasp of reality. Normal thoughts are
> replaced with compulsions and fears.

   You have it backwards. Your hindbrain can only think in
the primal symbols of compulsions and fears, and your
forebrain dresses them up in more complex clothes.

   The trick is to recognize the process and control it.
Frinst, go ahead and feel the reflexive hatred of
"otherness", then put it aside. It isn't designed to last
anyway.

> One of the small side affects of the medication is poor memory.

   Ignore details. Remember processes.

> The question is how to be the best possible person given the
> limitations of my medical condition.

> ... Thinking for me has a price. I can't
> sleep, can't eat, can't slow my thoughts or control their direction.

   Then decide what "best" means _before_ trying to be it.

> Lucky for me I'm a very sensitive person. I've never had the problem
> of controlling my anger or harboring hate. I do have to admit that my
> eyes water when I watch a good movie. But luckily for me I can't
> remember the show very well the next day. With faded memory goes the
> acute feelings of empathy and sadness. I do remember one important
> thing. That is my medicine. Without my medication I would be at
> Western State Hospital for a very long time. There is no question
> about that. My brain chemistry by itself can not keep the two
> partitions from merging or the crazy thinking from dominating. Street
> people can not afford the medication that I take. They rely on alcohol
> and junk to get by. So when I see someone on the sidewalk I think
> about them. Even if it hurts. And I think about my luck to have
> supportive family, friends and co-workers.

<snip derivative meandering>

   I quit using hallucinogens decades ago. Wanna know why?
Because I finally figured out that they don't "expand"
consciousness; they merely accentuate the instabilities in
our sensorium resulting from millenia of accumulated patches
and kludges in the wetware. "Consciousness expansion", if it
happens at all, occurs when you start to understand how your
mind works and take control of it rather than allowing it to
control you. From a rational perspective, _everybody's_ mind
is flawed, but that doesn't necessarily mean we can't be
rational. Some of us just have to work at it harder than others.

   The Universe _is_ out to get you, and in the end it will.
Don't take it personally, just enjoy your personal version
of the ride and get off gracefully when it ends.

   Mark L. Fergerson

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