this

Dogs do not have four legs and I'm done pretending that they do. They have two legs and two front limbs that are incorrectly called legs. Legs!!?? It's ridiculous. How are they legs? When you ask a dog to give you their paw, do they ever give you a hind paw? When a dog opens a door or takes the lid off a container or does anything like that, they always use their forelimbs, so why are we calling them legs? They don't even look like dogs legs. Like, they have elbows. How is that a leg? 

art L

sick

When I first came to the understanding that I 'have' depression, I didn't really believe in it. I wasn't sure if it was a real thing or just a kind of framing that we do. But medication worked. What a relief! 

With anxiety, it was much more obvious that it was a real thing. I started having trouble breathing and having panic attacks. The way I understand it is that anxiety is all the worry and fear and angst that you keep repressing and then suddenly one day it just hits you hard. It seems to come out of the blue. It's your physiology saying - hey! Stop repressing all that stuff. You need to address this. 

I think we generally see illness as something that's all bad and kind of random and meaningless, but, at least some of the time, that's not the case at all. Illness is your body's and mind's way of healing. Like, for example, when you throw up, that's your body very actively getting rid of something. Your body goes, Nup - not having that. Fever is when your body raises its temperature to fight infection. A friend of mine once explained to me about all the chemical reactions and interactions that happen in your body when you cut yourself. It was a really complex and intricate process. The body makes an assessment of the situation and responds accordingly. 

permanence

Recovery is more of a marathon than a sprint, but then, I was thinking that it's actually better than a marathon. There's more of a reward at the end, and you begin to reap that reward well before the end. 

I actually don't really care about the end that much. This isn't the kind of thing you can wait out. It's going to go on and on, definitely for years - it's already gone for years - and maybe for decades, maybe for the rest of my life. 

It's not linear. You go up and down, windows and waves. Life for me has always been like that anyway. But the overall trajectory is in a positive direction. I'm making permanent changes, permanent progress. 

writing and fire

Writing is like starting a fire: thinking about it makes absolutely no difference. You need to gather kindling and then make a spark and then you can put progressively bigger pieces of wood (or whatever) on the fire, and then you have a really good fire going. 

There's an equivalent dynamic with writing. Imagine if we tried to start a fire by thinking about it. The idea is ridiculous. Yet we wrack our brains trying to think of something to write about, and think that that mental effort somehow helps us to get something written. 

There's a kind of momentum that mere action engenders. 

Depression slows you down and makes ordinary tasks overwhelming. So, I think, I've got to gather sticks, and I do that, but it takes me so long and I can't believe in the fire, so I'm just gathering sticks. 

feeding the right dynamo

Things looked really daunting before. I find that life is really like climbing a mountain. When you see a mountain in front of you, it seems like it would be impossible to get over it, but when you're actually on the mountain, the reality of it is not as daunting as it looked. 

For some reason, I always think of obstacles as being insurmountable. Like say if I'm applying for something - a course or something like that - and I have to fill in and submit a number of forms and maybe scan documents and that kind of thing. When there's some minor complication, I always think it's fatal. Everything can be going ahead. Like, I might have even started the course and there's just some administrative thing that needs to be clarified, but I will think - that's it. I've been thwarted by this obstacle. And then invariably things do work out. What I thought was a decisive obstacle wasn't even really an issue. 

But in those moments, I'm hyper-aware of the obstacle and I think that I can't proceed until this issue is resolved, even though there's really nothing I can do about it. I just need to go and talk to someone or submit or form or whatever. Until it's resolved, I can't relax. And you can never do these things right now. You have to wait a day, a couple of days, sometimes longer. I want to get it sorted now, but I have to wait and work things out and rely on other people to do what they need to do.  

I'm getting better with this. I'm more resourceful and persistent in dealing with obstacles, and I'm able to manage the stress of uncertainty better. Even though I still obsess over processes I have to complete, I can see now that the debilitating worry and rumination that used to plague me - the laser-like focus on things that are actually pretty minor but also that I can't really do anything about in the moment - is a choice. It still doesn't really seem like it because it's such a deeply ingrained thought pattern, but it is, and it's one of the things that I'm changing. My new self is not defeated by a form I need to fill in or something that needs to be clarified. 

Part of the change is that I'm learning not to be absorbed by the black hole of maladaptive thinking and instead to be absorbed by meaningful thinking and activities: learning, creating, reading, writing, interacting, exercising, etc. 

art XLIX

take this medication

I remember an episode of Buffy called 'fear itself'. The whole episode revolved around a terrifying monster and how to defeat it. It was very tense, with a lot of research (as always in Buffy) and strategizing, and finally, near the end of the show, they were ready to face the monster, which they did. That's when the reason for the show's title became clear. Everyone had heard the roars and growls and threats of the monster and assessed the threat on that basis and it seemed really dire. But when they actually faced this terrifying monster, it turned out that it was only a couple of inches tall and any of them could just squash it. They could have done that at the start and there would have been no issue. 

The title of the episode is an allusion to Franklin D Roosevelt's very memorable and profound statement that 'the only thing we have to fear is fear itself'. In the same speech, Roosevelt talked about the 'nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance'.

My daily goals can be summarized as an effort to convert retreat into advance, rumination into action. We all have our own demons to face, and the truth is that courage and personal change are the answer. Doctors can't tell us that, because only we can take that initiative. It's better when there's no answer and no one understands. It's often better when professional help does not help, because then we have to change. We have to become someone else. We have to grow. We have to take positive steps that lead to healing. That is the answer. 

machinations

I don't think the emerging ability of AI to do (or simulate) creative work is the threat that some people think it is, to be honest. 

Leave aside all the issues about a potential skynet and machines that are more intelligent than us turning against us, and let's just focus on creative work. I don't think computers will ever be able to create in the way that human beings create, because, by definition, they simply can't. It doesn't matter how technically proficient AI becomes, it can't create in the way that humans do. It isn't self-aware. It doesn't have its own consciousness. It isn't a self. And I don't think we will ever be able to impart that to computers. 

Computers are already smarter than us in many ways, and they're going to get smarter, but they're never going to be human. 

rezonance

The beauty of ruins is a collaborative effort of humanity and nature. People make things with straight edges and nature makes things with curves, so there are very different impulses at play. 

The best art allows natural impulses, even giving them free reign, while maintaining control over the project. It's like a struggle in which the artist is barely in control, and it's that tension that makes the art work resonant. 

I think there can be a completely different drama at play in the writer to the drama that they inspire in the reader. Actually, it's not just that it can be. It necessarily is different. Like, for example, at the end of her introduction to Frankenstein, Mary Shelley talks about all the positive associations of better times that the story has for her. And then she specifically writes: "But this is for myself; my readers have nothing to do with these associations." 

art XLVIII

negation and position

I can get all worked up about so-called experts publicly claiming and making the case for critical theory being incompatible with Christianity, and I could focus on that and write a whole blog post disputing that....but there's something unsatisfying about making that my focus. 

So I end up focusing on better things. I was watching a youtube video and I saw an ad for this Australian business that puts indigenous artwork on clothes. I was really excited by that, so I went to their website and looked them up on facebook and youtube. I watched a couple of videos highlighting indigenous artists. It was fascinating and it just really filled me...it was something I could engage with....I also read a post on substack by Ted Gioia: Can Songs Really Replace Philosophy? about the power of music and poetry and how they, and not text, represent the foundation of western rationalism. 

All of this just fills my mind with inspiration...inspiration about creating and connecting and meaning and true spirituality. 

Why would I want to give all my attention to arguing against a view I disagree with? Why should I be defined by that? It's silly. I disagree with it, so why am I giving it my attention? Why am I reading this book I was reading, just so I can argue against it? 

It's OK to do that sometimes in a limited way. Like recently I wrote about something I disagreed with, and I was reading a whole book about this view. But what I did was that I picked out one small part of the book and explained why I disagree and then went on to write about my view about the issue. So, the overall message was positive. 

If I'm ever going to write a book, it will have to be like that. It can't have a negative premise, because what is the point of that? I don't believe in that. I can think of books like that and I've read some of them and want to read others, just because I'm interested in views I disagree with and I'm interested in how they make their arguments, but I wouldn't be motivated to write a whole book - I'm not even motivated to write a whole blog post - about what I disagree with or how things are bad or why someone is wrong or some ideology or viewpoint is depraved and wrong.  

progressions and reactions

One of the difficulties in understanding the movement from modernism to post-modernism, is that modernism can be correctly used to refer to two very different historical developments and time periods. 

Sometimes modernism refers to the enlightenment and the scientific revolution. So, it's centered on the late 18th, early 19th century. This kind of modernism focuses on rationality, reason and science.

But in other contexts, modernism refers to a completely different time period - the late 19th, early 20th century. This kind of modernism is all about experimentation and breaking the rules. It's like, we've always made chairs with 4 legs, a seat and a back-rest...how else can we make a chair? 

Post-modernism emerged around the middle of the 20th century, and that's why we can think of it as a progression from the early 20th century kind of modernism, but, in terms of what actually drove the movement, I think it makes more sense to think of it as a reaction to the enlightenment form of modernism, because post-modernism is a rejection of certainty and knowability. It questions the very idea that there is a truth that can be illuminated. 

Because the modernism I learned about at uni was the early 20th century one, I've been trying to understand post-modernism as a progression from that for a long time. I've always tried to think of explanations for post-modernism as a response to or continuation from modernism, and it's never really very convincing or satisfying. 

I suppose you could say that, in modernism, they were questioning everything and then post-modernism is the next step, in the sense that the most fundamental axioms are questioned. Or conversely, if we think of post-modernism as a reaction against modernism, we can say that modernism rejected tradition and then post-modernism picked up traditions and played with them. 

Post-modernism as a rejection of enlightenment values is easier to understand and define. There's a real opposition there. We have the enlightenment which was all about understanding the truth through reasoning and science, and then post-modernism questions the very idea of truth. 

I like it though. I like how the progression from modernism to post-modernism is somewhat problematic. It's something to think about. 

art XLVII

on being a fugitive

When I was younger, I would hear or read a convincing portrayal of things or an expression of ideas or ideology, and, if it was convincing enough, I would then think it was my own, as if I had thought it through and come to that conclusion, rather than just taking it from what I read or heard. 

Looking back, I can see that that was the case, which is pretty amazing because it means that my mind continued to hold those ideas but wasn't wedded to that way of viewing them. 

It was kind of about trust. Certain writers won me over, so I adopted their arguments. The first time you hear some really good reasoning (or reasoning you think is good) about something, you're won over because it's the best you've seen. It could be wrong but it's compelling. 

It's pretty amazing - that sense in which your mind can hold certain ideas and, later on, your view of them, or your understanding of them, changes and grows, but the ideas themselves held water when you first came across them and still do. 

The mind can hold a very nuanced concept of something. It can incorporate the subtlest of hints. It's like how, in your dreams, you can speak what really sounds like a foreign language, but if you try to do it when you're awake, it's not convincing at all. 

The mind has a power of its own that we claim, but is actually independent of us in some ways. 

persistence

I heard a really good analogy yesterday in some YouTube videos I watched, on a channel called Kirsten — Sobriety Bestie. She was saying that recovery is like chopping down a tree. You're doing all these things and it doesn't seem like they are contributing much to your progress, but when you keep chopping, you eventually get to a breaking point where the tree falls. When you persevere with the positive steps you're taking, you will wake up one day and be really better. 

This is like a counterpoint to the usual story of benzo withdrawal not being linear and it being a marathon not a sprint. I think both are true and helpful analogies. 

I'm still so drawn to my old thinking. That's my life. A lot of rumination and passivity. Being fulfilled and actualized is something....I was going to write, 'I can't even imagine', but I can imagine it, and every day I'm chopping. Chopping has become really interesting. My fascination with chopping has grown. I've developed new ways of chopping. On the foundation of rudimentary chopping, I have built an edifice of what can only be described as the baroque mode of chopping.  

virtuous cycles

I have more moments now when I feel that I don't need to foresee loss as my fate. Still, it's really hard to break out of the cycle I'm in. It's like that infinite mirror effect. I perceive pain and distress in the present, I foresee it in the future, going on indefinitely, and that perception ensures that it will happen. My fear manifests the thing that I fear. 

But I'm also manifesting something else. The self-fulfilling prophecies of doom are not true. I fear that they are true and therefore they are not true. They've never been true. 

And I'm fighting my way into my new life by achieving my daily goals every day. The fact that it's hard just makes the success sweeter, as it unfolds. 

in security

Overcoming depression is about being able to put down this narrative that has held my attention for decades and to pick up something better - something good. It's disturbing and scary that I'm still in that place of pain and fear and insecurity that I know so well. It's still just as bad. It doesn't get better. 

But that's the point - it won't get better, because it's a narrative about fear and pain. It's like, I'm telling myself that I'm stuck and I'm in pain, and those thoughts create fear and pain, and I go - see, it's true....and that creates more fear and more pain and more desolation and depression.

I'm creating an alternative. I can't hold onto it for very long at a time, but I know it's there and I feel it and it's growing. It's a good life, with healthy and meaningful pursuits. I can see it and I'm taking steps into it. 

I use a lot of different analogies for this transformation from my old life to my new life. One of them is the seedling and the storm. My new life is the seedling, and that's why the storm is still so threatening, because a storm can destroy a seedling. But the storm is fake and the seedling is real. The storm has no substance. It's just like a loud voice. It's intimidating. But the real power and the real life is in the seedling, which will grow into a tree. 

Another analogy I use is that I live in a house built out of fear and pain, and my new life is outside that house, in the wide world. That's the challenge. This house is my home. Just like the seedling can't stand up against a storm, I can't really leave this house. I don't believe in the outside world. I live here, in this house. But it's changing. I'm leaving this house. And, like the storm, the house has no substance. This house will just disintegrate without me maintaining it, and I'm building a new house out of faith and life. 

art XLVI

avalanche of marbles

I'm holding on for dear life to this wreck

that is all I know

but I keep thinking

I don't need to hold on

to this

I don't even want

this 

life is all I got

and it's just tension I can't 

let go of 

all the issues I was holding 

together 

just burst out and spilled everywhere 

the voice of reason

I'm more interested in reading books I disagree with than books I agree with, at the moment. I just finished reading How Woke Won by Joanna Williams. I was thinking about what I want to read next and looking through my Kindle and my physical books. After a while I thought - I have to read Biblical Critical Theory by Christopher Watkin. I bought it recently, and I've been really keen to read it. I just had to finish How Woke Won first and then I was going to read it. 

But instead, I decided to read The Fall of a Superpower by Michael William, which is actually a box set of 4 books: Brexit Means Brexit: How the British Ponzi Class Survived the EU Referendum, The Ponzi Class: Ponzi Economics, Globalization and Class Oppression in the 21st Century, The Genesis of Political Correctness: The Basis of a False Morality, and Turbo Brexit: and the case against Brino. 

I have a desire to engage deeply with these arguments. I don't know why that's more interesting to me than learning more about something I feel positive about. I suppose that, in some ways, it's a good intellectual exercise. Whether they are arguing for one side or the other, if they can engage my mind, that's a worthwhile use of my time. 

That's something worth seeking. Sam Harris is a good example of what I'm talking about. Years ago, I read part of his book, The End of Faith, and I thought, like Richard Dawkins's The God Delusion, it was shrill and weak and pathetic. There's always a kind of petty nastiness that comes out in books like that. The writers are just, from the start, on the attack. There's no real consideration of the other side. But then, more recently, I watched a video and Sam Harris was in it and he was talking about something - I can't even remember what - and I was struck by his profound intelligence and reasonableness. He was measured and thoughtful and interesting....all the qualities that I didn't find in The End of Faith. The combination of humanity and intelligence is really attractive. And since then, that impression has only grown. 

art XLV

things not seen

I become despondent because of this seemingly endless struggle that I am engaged in. But I am hopeful as well. 

I know that there is a greater reality than my feelings, and that, if I'm struggling, it's not bad, it's good. Demolish this damned fortress that keeps me imprisoned, that I built out of fear over the course of a lifetime. Smash the place. It seems like the end of the world but it's the beginning of true life and freedom. 

There are a lot of spiritual truths that have become practical realities in my life, and it's weird to see them there. It's strange seeing these truths in the context of my own life instead of in the context of the Bible, as if they are independent realities. 

Like being born again and faith. To overcome my dependence on alcohol and benzos, I had to push myself to change. I had to be different now, today. And then, as I'm doing that, there's a realization that this is a new life that has begun. And that realization of my new life, is faith, because it's not fully a reality yet. 

My old life and my old thinking is still dominant. If suddenly today or tomorrow, there was no more challenge and I was completely recovered, I would go back to my old life. Maybe not straight away. I would try to maintain the good habits I've started, but over time I would fall back into my old ways, because my old self is still very much alive. That self is still me, and my new self is just a seedling, maybe not even that. It doesn't really exist yet. It's not me. 

My new self is a matter of faith, but, as the Bible says, we live by faith, not by sight.