The crazy head trip of '04
Started: Sunday, May 2, 2004 21:08
Finished: Sunday, May 2, 2004 21:41
So far I've written 2 out of the 4 planned ideas I had for ramblings today. Not a bad start.
I've caught up on reading Elusis's journal. Everything else on the content front is still hopelessly behind.
[Bitscape puts on headphones. Plays the Tori Amos Winter maxi single.]
It occurs to me that if I keep having such an interesting life, I will probably never catch up, either on my writing, or my reading. The more adventures I have, the more there is to write about, and the less remaining time there is to sit around and document it. In that case, forget about reading other people's lives. The time is all used up.
Now I'm going to expound upon another idea whose seed came during the night between Thursday night and Friday morning. This is not one of today's 4. (Indeed, those who have been paying attention will see that today's rambling count already exceeds that number. The 4 just refers to a select few big thoughts I had.)
I want to talk some more about manic depression. Bipolar disorder. Whatever you want to call it.
What is it, really? Is it craziness, or an entirely enhanced form of sanity that is just too overwhelming for carriers of the disease to handle?
Let me give an example.
The other night, Thursday evening -- Friday morning. The time was roughly 01:42 in the am.
Awake again, I walked out to the living room. There, I sat on the floor in a meditative posture. But I wasn't feeling very meditative. I was antsy and restless. Nonetheless, I stopped and let myself listen.
The clock on the far kitchen wall was ticking. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.
The noise was almost too much for me to handle. Had this been my episode 8 years ago, I would have started screaming and covered my ears. If there had been another person in the room, I would have begged them to turn it down. It was too loud. The clock in the corner wouldn't stop ticking.
Was I hallucinating? Had I reacted the way I felt, any casual observer would have thought so.
Better experienced in how to handle it this time, I adjusted for the difference in my perceptual sensitivity from its usual norm. I calmly stood up, put my shoes on, and went outside for a nice walk. No more ticking.
But outside, there were all sorts of other sensations -- not to mention thought within the brain, that demanded my attention. I dealt with each of them with as much serenity as I could muster.
I hypothesize that bipolar -- or one aspect of it -- is an ability to amp up the senses so much that you really do start seeing all sorts of things nobody else does, and the patient wouldn't either on a normal day. Not because you're crazy, but because your brain's DSP is operating on a new level.
Most people with the disease, myself included, simply cannot handle it. We're not used to hearing and seeing all these things. The squeak of a car door closing two parking lots away. The tiniest flicker in a child's eyes, from which you can derive whether their parents are abusers, neglectors, or healthy human beings with time to love and care for their kids.
When all these things you perceive combine with the overwhelming mess of thoughts coming at a pace your consciousness is not accustomed to, the natural reaction is to start screaming and hollering. To jump to conclusions, become paranoid and start accusing your best frends of being behind it all.
I'm not saying heightened sensory ability is the only aspect of the disease, but I think it's a far bigger part of it than most give it credit for.
Anyway, if that is a huge aspect of it, it is one I seem to finally be learning to handle without outwardly losing it. I can't get too confident though, because then I really will lose it.
A guiderule to follow: Above all, cultivate a sense of deep compassion for all life. I mean all life. I got it pretty close in '03, but still let my anger get the better of me when it came to the people who had hurt those I cared about.
Compassion for all life. That includes George Bush and John Ashcroft.
It's not easy until you get there. Then you have to stay there, but that's impossible, because you fall off all the time.
Now I'm just regurgitating the Buddhist teachings.
I'll let it go with that, and leave as a question mark whether another rambling will be written before I sign off for the night.
by bouncing (2004-05-02 22:36)
I too have noticed, at times, how noisy even the quiet is. I can't remember ever hearing just silence in my lifetime. Growing up in the mountains, you hear crickets, passing cars, distant waters. Sitting alone here at my computer, I can hear the city alive, like an organism. With the computer off, I would hear it even more so.
You hear the air coming from the vents, a neighbor running a dishwasher. From the window and the floor you can hear a gentle hum from the city itself. One speculates that most of that hum is from cars on freeways several blocks from one's home, but you think about all the other things that make noise -- air conditioners, sewage systems, the electrical grid. If you listen closely to power lines on a humid day, you can hear them buzz as tiny archs of electricity burn dust off insulators.
Sometimes I wonder what absolute silence would be like. In hearing tests I've taken, I have 10% hearing loss in one of my ears, which doctors attribute to heredity. I wonder what not hearing at all is like? Or, even more wondersome, only hearing yourself. I think it would be cold, disturbingly frightening. Something about that constant hum of either civilization or wilderness makes you think the world is alive around you. Without its reassuring presence, I would think the universe would seem dead and lifeless. And that would be, at least for me, a terrible feeling.
It's a bit off-topic, but those are my thoughts...