Let me preface with that I normally hate dishes with "Surprise" in the name, but those are usually the name of the two or three main (random) ingredients, followed by the word "Surprise"
Such as:
Tuna Noodle Surprise
Vegetable Kumquat Squash Surprise
or even, Meatloaf Surprise
But I feel like the two syllables plus the mild alliteration, and just general pleasant flow make it acceptable. It was, after all, made from stuff I've wanted to clean out of the fridge before it goes bad. But it's SOOO good. And so fast.
Raw Materials:
-Rice
-Turkey (or regular) bacon - this is the soul of the dish. Bacon makes every dish better
-Olive or Vegetable Oil
-Sesame Oil
-Assorted Veggies - celery, peppers, carrots, water chestnuts, whatever is in your fridge
-Onions
-Rice Vinegar
-Soy Sauce
-Fruit juice (would have used wine but didn't have any)
-Garlic Powder
-Sesame Seeds
-Corn Starch
-Mushrooms
Start making rice. For this run, I used Success Rice, which actually isn't bad at all.
Chop the bacon, veggies, onions, and whatever else you feel like throwing in.
In a frying pan, heat up equal parts olive and sesame oil. Fry up the bacon a little bit, then add the veggies and onions and fry those up too. Add soy sauce, wine or fruit juice, vinegar, garlic powder, and sesame seeds, and reduce for a bit. Add some corn starch to thicken the mix, and toss the mushrooms in. Fry all of this up for a little bit, basically until your rice is done.
Mix and serve.
Stir fry is so easy and SO TASTY.
Friday, June 26, 2009
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Soynut butter
So, I've had some interesting advancements. It appears I have come full circle once again, to where everything started from.
I was 11, in 6th grade, when I first got into psi. Specifically, telekinesis. Active Psy led to Psipog, which lead to everything after that. When I knocked over that tube of paper, I don't think I realized at all at the time the logical ramifications of it. Or the torrent of fluff that would be to come.
Oddly, what caused me to break away from psi for three years after a few months of study was the fear that I would accidentally become so adept at precognition, that life would become simultaneous monotonous and too much to bear.
So here I am now, nearly a decade later. I'm recovering from the dark hole of atheism and skepticism that was somehow directly or indirectly brough on by RPI. It made me miserable, and for a while I was starting to fear that my life would become permanently mundy. When I started to pull out of it, I initially loathed the process, but now I'm seeing it as an opportunity to rebuild from the ground up. A solid base that cannot be shaken, regardless of any events, experiences, scientific data, or overzealous scrutiny of nihilistic skeptics who deep down inside hate their life.
An A priori. A statement that is unfalsifiable because it is based on its own self-evidence, just like 2 + 2 is 4, and all bachelors are unmarried, to use the most overused and cited examples ever.
Right now, it is as such:
Observation changes reality.
I'd like to use consciousness instead of observation, but I'm afraid that from a logical background, consciousness is derivative and not direct.
Obviously, this statement makes a lot of sense from a common sense point of view. If something is observed, information is transferred, and therefore it's impossible for things to be exactly the same as they were. To put it in, well, simpler terms,
The concept of observation influencing reality is a basic tenet of quantum physics and information theory. But it should also follow that because observation (and therefore consciousness) can be directed in specific places, one should be able to bring about specific changes merely by making the right observations.
In other words, mind over matter.
Which brings us to our next anecdote. I had heard about peanut-free formulations, such as SoyNut butter, that are designed to be as close to the real thing as possible, for people such as myself with a peanut allergy. I got my mother to pick me up some at the supermarket, and I was feeling bold this morning, having just gotten a fantastic internship/job at a small chemical company startup only 3 miles from where I will be staying with my girlfriend for the better part of the summer.
So I peeled off the seal lid, wiped a bit off with my finger, and put it on my tongue. It was simultaneously tasty and frightening, because it tasted like peanut butter. You may ask, how the heck could I have ever tasted peanut butter? I haven't, but I can smell it, and smell contributes far more to taste than many people realize.
Let me tell you, they got the realism down pat. No sooner than going for a second dab of the stuff, does my throat start closing up. I feel the distinctive scratchy feeling in the back of my throat, and I let out a wheeze as I exhale. Mildly panicking, I have to read the ingredients to make absolutely sure that there are no peanuts in it (even though the label's selling point is that it is Peanut Free). But sure enough, my airways are constricted enough to be uncomfortable, but not enough to be terribly dangerous. Just typical acute asthma. And eventually, it goes away.
My mind was convinced that what I was putting in my mouth was in fact a peanut product. I've always been intuitively wary of peanut products; my mother could NEVER get me to eat peanut cookies as a child, and didn't know why until I broke out after making artwork from peanut shells. But in hindsight, this wasn't the first psychosomatic reaction I've had. I can remember at least 3 different events where I ate something sketchy, worried it may in fact have enough peanut in it to make me ill, and got asthma.
This just shows how powerful the brain is. However, it also shows how the brain can be wrong. Which is why I have been and will be wary of receptive psychic abilities. They are too easily confused with deep hidden fears in the subconscious. Often times, I will have a snap reaction, such as slowing down because I suddenly don't feel like going fast, only to see a cop speed trap minutes later. Or in the case of finishing other people's sentences. These always seem to be fairly reliable. But it seems that if I have to think about it for even a tenth of a second, it's likely to be flawed.
And so we come back to telekinesis. Because thoughts can be wrong, but shit moving without any cause that follows Newtonian mechanics, that's not up for questioning. Skeptics can do as they will, but if I can move stuff to the point where I'm positive it is in fact TK, nothing can shake that. It's an event that happened right in front of me. And if I do this over and over again, there becomes such a mountain of evidence that I abolish every shadow of a doubt in my mind, allowing me to pass even further hurdles. Such as performing TK reliably in front of even hardened skeptics.
Because the thing about our A priori is that it doesn't have a caveat, "This only applies to psychics/enlightened individuals/wytches/fluffybunnies/psions/whatever." Everyone, the skeptics that are in the room, the people who may read about it later on the internet, the scientists who might want to publish a paper on it, the students who may read that paper, ALL have some influence on whether or not that object moves. Which brings up an interesting point, which is effectively, "what determines the outcome?" Is it a sum of collective thought power? IQ? Religion/spiritual entities on a side? Does distance matter? Does degrees of separation matter?
Clearly, TK must obey some sort of law, because not all influences are created equal, and there is definitely a diminishing effect with psychological distance. A skeptic sitting directly in front of you is going to have more detriment than doing it on camera and posting it on Youtube. Which leads me to believe that there are certain properties of these occurences that can be studied further. But the big problem is, A priori, the scientists will influence the outcome. It's impossible for them not to. A skeptic running an otherwise identical experiment is going to get different results than a trained psychic. They have to. Anything to the contrary would undermine the principle itself.
An experimenter of psychic phenomenon would have to be absolutely impartial in their own mind, not just in scientific rigor, and most people don't have that kind of mental strength. But hopefully that will change in time.
So, going back to myself, I have for the time being abandoned plans of making a super-rigorous TK experiment to "prove" its existence, because it's setting myself up for failure. Instead, I am out to prove it to only one person: myself. Because simple mind over matter, which seems at times to be a parlor trick without much practical value, allows for the emergence of everything else.
I was 11, in 6th grade, when I first got into psi. Specifically, telekinesis. Active Psy led to Psipog, which lead to everything after that. When I knocked over that tube of paper, I don't think I realized at all at the time the logical ramifications of it. Or the torrent of fluff that would be to come.
Oddly, what caused me to break away from psi for three years after a few months of study was the fear that I would accidentally become so adept at precognition, that life would become simultaneous monotonous and too much to bear.
So here I am now, nearly a decade later. I'm recovering from the dark hole of atheism and skepticism that was somehow directly or indirectly brough on by RPI. It made me miserable, and for a while I was starting to fear that my life would become permanently mundy. When I started to pull out of it, I initially loathed the process, but now I'm seeing it as an opportunity to rebuild from the ground up. A solid base that cannot be shaken, regardless of any events, experiences, scientific data, or overzealous scrutiny of nihilistic skeptics who deep down inside hate their life.
An A priori. A statement that is unfalsifiable because it is based on its own self-evidence, just like 2 + 2 is 4, and all bachelors are unmarried, to use the most overused and cited examples ever.
Right now, it is as such:
Observation changes reality.
I'd like to use consciousness instead of observation, but I'm afraid that from a logical background, consciousness is derivative and not direct.
Obviously, this statement makes a lot of sense from a common sense point of view. If something is observed, information is transferred, and therefore it's impossible for things to be exactly the same as they were. To put it in, well, simpler terms,
The concept of observation influencing reality is a basic tenet of quantum physics and information theory. But it should also follow that because observation (and therefore consciousness) can be directed in specific places, one should be able to bring about specific changes merely by making the right observations.In other words, mind over matter.
Which brings us to our next anecdote. I had heard about peanut-free formulations, such as SoyNut butter, that are designed to be as close to the real thing as possible, for people such as myself with a peanut allergy. I got my mother to pick me up some at the supermarket, and I was feeling bold this morning, having just gotten a fantastic internship/job at a small chemical company startup only 3 miles from where I will be staying with my girlfriend for the better part of the summer.
So I peeled off the seal lid, wiped a bit off with my finger, and put it on my tongue. It was simultaneously tasty and frightening, because it tasted like peanut butter. You may ask, how the heck could I have ever tasted peanut butter? I haven't, but I can smell it, and smell contributes far more to taste than many people realize.
Let me tell you, they got the realism down pat. No sooner than going for a second dab of the stuff, does my throat start closing up. I feel the distinctive scratchy feeling in the back of my throat, and I let out a wheeze as I exhale. Mildly panicking, I have to read the ingredients to make absolutely sure that there are no peanuts in it (even though the label's selling point is that it is Peanut Free). But sure enough, my airways are constricted enough to be uncomfortable, but not enough to be terribly dangerous. Just typical acute asthma. And eventually, it goes away.
My mind was convinced that what I was putting in my mouth was in fact a peanut product. I've always been intuitively wary of peanut products; my mother could NEVER get me to eat peanut cookies as a child, and didn't know why until I broke out after making artwork from peanut shells. But in hindsight, this wasn't the first psychosomatic reaction I've had. I can remember at least 3 different events where I ate something sketchy, worried it may in fact have enough peanut in it to make me ill, and got asthma.
This just shows how powerful the brain is. However, it also shows how the brain can be wrong. Which is why I have been and will be wary of receptive psychic abilities. They are too easily confused with deep hidden fears in the subconscious. Often times, I will have a snap reaction, such as slowing down because I suddenly don't feel like going fast, only to see a cop speed trap minutes later. Or in the case of finishing other people's sentences. These always seem to be fairly reliable. But it seems that if I have to think about it for even a tenth of a second, it's likely to be flawed.
And so we come back to telekinesis. Because thoughts can be wrong, but shit moving without any cause that follows Newtonian mechanics, that's not up for questioning. Skeptics can do as they will, but if I can move stuff to the point where I'm positive it is in fact TK, nothing can shake that. It's an event that happened right in front of me. And if I do this over and over again, there becomes such a mountain of evidence that I abolish every shadow of a doubt in my mind, allowing me to pass even further hurdles. Such as performing TK reliably in front of even hardened skeptics.
Because the thing about our A priori is that it doesn't have a caveat, "This only applies to psychics/enlightened individuals/wytches/fluffybunnies/psions/whatever." Everyone, the skeptics that are in the room, the people who may read about it later on the internet, the scientists who might want to publish a paper on it, the students who may read that paper, ALL have some influence on whether or not that object moves. Which brings up an interesting point, which is effectively, "what determines the outcome?" Is it a sum of collective thought power? IQ? Religion/spiritual entities on a side? Does distance matter? Does degrees of separation matter?
Clearly, TK must obey some sort of law, because not all influences are created equal, and there is definitely a diminishing effect with psychological distance. A skeptic sitting directly in front of you is going to have more detriment than doing it on camera and posting it on Youtube. Which leads me to believe that there are certain properties of these occurences that can be studied further. But the big problem is, A priori, the scientists will influence the outcome. It's impossible for them not to. A skeptic running an otherwise identical experiment is going to get different results than a trained psychic. They have to. Anything to the contrary would undermine the principle itself.
An experimenter of psychic phenomenon would have to be absolutely impartial in their own mind, not just in scientific rigor, and most people don't have that kind of mental strength. But hopefully that will change in time.
So, going back to myself, I have for the time being abandoned plans of making a super-rigorous TK experiment to "prove" its existence, because it's setting myself up for failure. Instead, I am out to prove it to only one person: myself. Because simple mind over matter, which seems at times to be a parlor trick without much practical value, allows for the emergence of everything else.
Thursday, April 2, 2009
I don't think I have bipolar.
'Nuff said. Well not really.
For some reason I got the idea to look up blogs written by people with bipolar, and one popped out at me:
http://bipolarhappens.com/bhblog/
It's the same site that my parents basically get fed their information when it comes to bipolar.
And I'm reading her words and I can tell a few things quite easily:
-> I don't have whatever she has
-> She is on medication
-> The medication isn't working.
Granted, the second postulate is an assumption, at least for the most current blog posts, but I'm sure she's been on medicine in the past. But either way, the medicine treatment is clearly not working. I can't tell whether she thinks it is working or not, but the fact that the main drugs that she and her friends have taken are anticonvulsants means that her psychiatrist is working in the past.
I find it interesting that as I often find, I am ahead of the curve. I knew pretty early on that anticonvulsants aren't the way to treat any sort of mood disorder or any disorder aside from, well, epilepsy. I mean, shouldn't that be common fucking sense?
Yes, I know obviously lots of drugs have lots of off-label uses that do in fact work. But there are two major flaws with the current methodology of psychiatry:
->Antipsychotics are going to decrease psychoses in ANYONE.
Couple this with the fact that drug companies will push their drugs for off-label uses and suddenly you have papers testifying how these completely blunt dopamine antagonists are "miracle drugs." Anxiety! Bipolar! OCD! Depression! Bad day at school! All gone! Why? Because you're blunting affect. So of course you're going to see "improvement" when you define improvement as a decrease in things you arbitrarily deem as bad.
It's only now years later after the original research papers have percolated through the peer-review system that people have been like Shit wait....we need to take a closer look at these.
-> Any time you put something into the body, homeostasis tries to revert it, and this is more pronounced when you use larger doses and use drugs outside their primary route of effect. The human body is a tightly woven web, and the more you mess with it, the harder it is for it to regain balance. Considering that bipolar is a balance disorder more than anything else, antipsychotics should be the LAST thing you should be giving people.
Psychiatry needs to grow up, and start looking deeper into the results of the medications they are putting their patients on, rather than being spoonfed research papers written almost exclusively by drug companies.
So, back to me, why yes I do have unstable moods. But if that's the case, call it what it is!
I have low emotional inertia. But as long as I'm the one controlling the direction, I really don't see what the big deal is. I'm just a fucking unique little snowflake, goddamnit :-)
For some reason I got the idea to look up blogs written by people with bipolar, and one popped out at me:
http://bipolarhappens.com/bhblog/
It's the same site that my parents basically get fed their information when it comes to bipolar.
And I'm reading her words and I can tell a few things quite easily:
-> I don't have whatever she has
-> She is on medication
-> The medication isn't working.
Granted, the second postulate is an assumption, at least for the most current blog posts, but I'm sure she's been on medicine in the past. But either way, the medicine treatment is clearly not working. I can't tell whether she thinks it is working or not, but the fact that the main drugs that she and her friends have taken are anticonvulsants means that her psychiatrist is working in the past.
I find it interesting that as I often find, I am ahead of the curve. I knew pretty early on that anticonvulsants aren't the way to treat any sort of mood disorder or any disorder aside from, well, epilepsy. I mean, shouldn't that be common fucking sense?
Yes, I know obviously lots of drugs have lots of off-label uses that do in fact work. But there are two major flaws with the current methodology of psychiatry:
->Antipsychotics are going to decrease psychoses in ANYONE.
Couple this with the fact that drug companies will push their drugs for off-label uses and suddenly you have papers testifying how these completely blunt dopamine antagonists are "miracle drugs." Anxiety! Bipolar! OCD! Depression! Bad day at school! All gone! Why? Because you're blunting affect. So of course you're going to see "improvement" when you define improvement as a decrease in things you arbitrarily deem as bad.
It's only now years later after the original research papers have percolated through the peer-review system that people have been like Shit wait....we need to take a closer look at these.
-> Any time you put something into the body, homeostasis tries to revert it, and this is more pronounced when you use larger doses and use drugs outside their primary route of effect. The human body is a tightly woven web, and the more you mess with it, the harder it is for it to regain balance. Considering that bipolar is a balance disorder more than anything else, antipsychotics should be the LAST thing you should be giving people.
Psychiatry needs to grow up, and start looking deeper into the results of the medications they are putting their patients on, rather than being spoonfed research papers written almost exclusively by drug companies.
So, back to me, why yes I do have unstable moods. But if that's the case, call it what it is!
I have low emotional inertia. But as long as I'm the one controlling the direction, I really don't see what the big deal is. I'm just a fucking unique little snowflake, goddamnit :-)
Saturday, January 3, 2009
Crazy Chemist Goes Cooking 1: Artemisia Calamari
I came up with this today. Haven't tried it yet due to lack of absinthe or comparable. I was basically violating pretty much every law of "standard" Italian cooking and doing things to tomato sauce that would make my Nonna cringe (or beat me with a wooden spoon), such as adding Cajun spices, ground cloves, Allspice, and on my mom's prompting (by prompting I mean promptly telling me not to), Worcester and Soy sauces. The result was almost too sweet, and so I decided to add some bitter. Absinthe, probably one of the most bitter substances on the planet, immediately came to mind; we don't have absinthe in my parent's disgrace of a liquor cabinet, so in consolation I added some Martini & Rossi. I cooked some elbows with ridges, and heated some leftover fried calamari in the toaster, poured the sauce on the pasta. It was CRAZY tasty. I thought the sweet of the cloves and Worcester would be disgusting, but the hots and hint of M&R balanced it out. When the buttery fried calamari hit my taste buds along side it, it was, as I often describe because I'm a perv, a culinary orgasm in my mouth. So with a little modification I came up with this:
Artemisia Calamari
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil, once around the pan in a slow stream
1 tablespoon butter
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 shallots, minced
1/4 cup* Absinthe or comparable artemisia extract blend
1/2 cup chicken stock
1 can crushed tomatoes
Coarse salt and pepper
Ground cloves
Worcester sauce
Ground hot pepper
16 ounces pasta, such as gemelli, or penne rigate
Fried calamari
*Nota bene: I have never worked with the stuff, so I don't know how bitter it would get, and still need to tinker with the proportions with pretty much all of this. The idea is to balance out the sweetness and increase complexity, not wash out any other flavors (this is true of cooking in general).
Absinthe contains thujone, and a high alcohol content. However, in the proportions used, both are negligible. Thujone content in absinthe is already highly regulated (generally 10mg/L), and its toxicity in small amounts is debatable (in my opinion laughable, LD50 in mice is 45mg/kg ), nonetheless the absinthe should most likely be avoided if one is pregnant, planning to become pregnant, has a sensitivity, or other shit. Ask your doctor before being a total dumbass; use common sense and you'll be fine.
Place a large skillet over moderate heat. Add oil, butter, garlic, and shallots. Saute for 3 to 5 minutes until slightly golden. Add absinthe and reduce to about 2/3 original volume. Add chicken stock, tomatoes, Worcester sauce, salt, pepper, cloves, and hot pepper. Bring sauce to a bubble and reduce heat to simmer.
While sauce simmers, prepare the pasta and calamari. Cook pasta to al dente, drain (DO NOT RINSE UNDER PENALTY OF DEATH!!!1 I really fucking hate people who rinse perfectly good pasta. Liz did this once. I should have broken up with her at that very moment) and return to the pot. Add a few generous ladelfuls of sauce to the pasta and mix around a bit. Serve with fried calamari, feel free to mix it up if desired, I like keeping the calamari somewhat on the side and then mixing in-oris.
Now if you were completely bat-shit insane, you could substitute/supplement the absinthe with an extract of your.... erm... preferred native/ritual psychoactive. From what I've heard, the majority of those are also quite bitter, and could do the trick.
Artemisia Calamari
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil, once around the pan in a slow stream
1 tablespoon butter
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 shallots, minced
1/4 cup* Absinthe or comparable artemisia extract blend
1/2 cup chicken stock
1 can crushed tomatoes
Coarse salt and pepper
Ground cloves
Worcester sauce
Ground hot pepper
16 ounces pasta, such as gemelli, or penne rigate
Fried calamari
*Nota bene: I have never worked with the stuff, so I don't know how bitter it would get, and still need to tinker with the proportions with pretty much all of this. The idea is to balance out the sweetness and increase complexity, not wash out any other flavors (this is true of cooking in general).
Absinthe contains thujone, and a high alcohol content. However, in the proportions used, both are negligible. Thujone content in absinthe is already highly regulated (generally 10mg/L), and its toxicity in small amounts is debatable (in my opinion laughable, LD50 in mice is 45mg/kg ), nonetheless the absinthe should most likely be avoided if one is pregnant, planning to become pregnant, has a sensitivity, or other shit. Ask your doctor before being a total dumbass; use common sense and you'll be fine.
Place a large skillet over moderate heat. Add oil, butter, garlic, and shallots. Saute for 3 to 5 minutes until slightly golden. Add absinthe and reduce to about 2/3 original volume. Add chicken stock, tomatoes, Worcester sauce, salt, pepper, cloves, and hot pepper. Bring sauce to a bubble and reduce heat to simmer.
While sauce simmers, prepare the pasta and calamari. Cook pasta to al dente, drain (DO NOT RINSE UNDER PENALTY OF DEATH!!!1 I really fucking hate people who rinse perfectly good pasta. Liz did this once. I should have broken up with her at that very moment) and return to the pot. Add a few generous ladelfuls of sauce to the pasta and mix around a bit. Serve with fried calamari, feel free to mix it up if desired, I like keeping the calamari somewhat on the side and then mixing in-oris.
Now if you were completely bat-shit insane, you could substitute/supplement the absinthe with an extract of your.... erm... preferred native/ritual psychoactive. From what I've heard, the majority of those are also quite bitter, and could do the trick.
Friday, January 2, 2009
I have control.
I lost my glasses on the ski slope at West mountain today, and it set in motion the cascade of negativity that is just like every other time.
But something was different about this one. And in hindsight, I'd felt it several other times in recent history before.
It felt almost as if I was TRYING to flip out, like I was deliberately choosing to get angrier and angrier. And when I actually stopped and thought about it, it all dissipated very rapidly. But this level of calm, given the circumstances, felt totally alien to me, so strange that I had to pursue destructive and self-destructive behavior in order to "make things right."
I've seen enough into abusive relationship behavior to understand immediately why I would deliberately choose to be negative: it's all a matter of comfort, familiarity, and routine. But beyond that, I have control, control far more natural, and far more of it, than I ever did on any brain medication, any therapy, anything else.
I still feel the black clouds of self-doubt clinging to me as I struggle to brush them out of my way to clarity, but there can be no doubt about it.
Something has clicked in my brain.
I think the very something I've been waiting for.
I had to do a mental doubletake just then to make sure I wasn't on any medications, because it feels so strange to feel this well, given the circumstances.
And pretty much most of my negativity for the majority of this week has been because I've chosen to continue the negative loop, because I felt it was the right thing.
Obviously, it isn't the right thing. But 'twas logical.
I realized there was this disparity in a convorsation with my mom tonight. She asked me if her worries about me were rational. I told her that all worries are irrational. What she meant by, and I knew it, was that did my actions warrant her having fears. Were her fears justified. Well-founded.
From a logical point of view, yes, all fears are logically well-founded at some level. Everything in life is potentially bad, therefore, fear itself is logical. But not rational.
Logial, but irrational: Arachnophobia - spiders could potentially have a poisonous bite. However, the odds of running into one of those spiders in your house, in the Northeast, is very low.
Some fears are logical and rational: Jumping out of an airplane without a parachute.
Some are utterly illogical and irrational: Stepping on cracks in the sidewalk could induce deadly earthquakes. But even then there is some semblance of logic; there is a direct, albeit weak, connection between sidewalk structural integrity and plate tectonics. An utterly illogical fear would be...hmmm I'm hard-pressed to think of one...Because a truly illogical fear would be a fear of something completely impossible. Anything is possible with one's own mind, and since fears deal moreso with preventing the anxious state of mind, rather than the stimulus directly, any thinkable fear is a logical fear.
To sum up the 4th possible case, it's pretty much impossible to have an illogical, yet rational fear (if its rational, it poses some real threat, therefore a logical reason to fear it).
So on that note, back to fear itself. Most fears are really not fears of something bad happening, but the fear of being in the state of fear. And that is why FDR's quote is repeated nearly ad-nauseum. Because it's so freaking true. (Magistra Sugarman's quote "ab ovum usque ad malum," is equally as true, in context, but nonetheless nauseating.)
So...what makes this period of time different...
Well, there is the utterly irremovable variable, which is time, and the dynamic nature of life.
But I have ingested a good deal of mugwort and wormwood. This actually strengthens the case for trying mushrooms, if only once. Other than that, maybe it is just the fact that I've had temper tantrums run the exact same course 999 times, and it took the 1000th one for something to click. I'm not a slow learner, just a really thorough one!! >.<
But something was different about this one. And in hindsight, I'd felt it several other times in recent history before.
It felt almost as if I was TRYING to flip out, like I was deliberately choosing to get angrier and angrier. And when I actually stopped and thought about it, it all dissipated very rapidly. But this level of calm, given the circumstances, felt totally alien to me, so strange that I had to pursue destructive and self-destructive behavior in order to "make things right."
I've seen enough into abusive relationship behavior to understand immediately why I would deliberately choose to be negative: it's all a matter of comfort, familiarity, and routine. But beyond that, I have control, control far more natural, and far more of it, than I ever did on any brain medication, any therapy, anything else.
I still feel the black clouds of self-doubt clinging to me as I struggle to brush them out of my way to clarity, but there can be no doubt about it.
Something has clicked in my brain.
I think the very something I've been waiting for.
I had to do a mental doubletake just then to make sure I wasn't on any medications, because it feels so strange to feel this well, given the circumstances.
And pretty much most of my negativity for the majority of this week has been because I've chosen to continue the negative loop, because I felt it was the right thing.
Obviously, it isn't the right thing. But 'twas logical.
I realized there was this disparity in a convorsation with my mom tonight. She asked me if her worries about me were rational. I told her that all worries are irrational. What she meant by, and I knew it, was that did my actions warrant her having fears. Were her fears justified. Well-founded.
From a logical point of view, yes, all fears are logically well-founded at some level. Everything in life is potentially bad, therefore, fear itself is logical. But not rational.
Logial, but irrational: Arachnophobia - spiders could potentially have a poisonous bite. However, the odds of running into one of those spiders in your house, in the Northeast, is very low.
Some fears are logical and rational: Jumping out of an airplane without a parachute.
Some are utterly illogical and irrational: Stepping on cracks in the sidewalk could induce deadly earthquakes. But even then there is some semblance of logic; there is a direct, albeit weak, connection between sidewalk structural integrity and plate tectonics. An utterly illogical fear would be...hmmm I'm hard-pressed to think of one...Because a truly illogical fear would be a fear of something completely impossible. Anything is possible with one's own mind, and since fears deal moreso with preventing the anxious state of mind, rather than the stimulus directly, any thinkable fear is a logical fear.
To sum up the 4th possible case, it's pretty much impossible to have an illogical, yet rational fear (if its rational, it poses some real threat, therefore a logical reason to fear it).
So on that note, back to fear itself. Most fears are really not fears of something bad happening, but the fear of being in the state of fear. And that is why FDR's quote is repeated nearly ad-nauseum. Because it's so freaking true. (Magistra Sugarman's quote "ab ovum usque ad malum," is equally as true, in context, but nonetheless nauseating.)
So...what makes this period of time different...
Well, there is the utterly irremovable variable, which is time, and the dynamic nature of life.
But I have ingested a good deal of mugwort and wormwood. This actually strengthens the case for trying mushrooms, if only once. Other than that, maybe it is just the fact that I've had temper tantrums run the exact same course 999 times, and it took the 1000th one for something to click. I'm not a slow learner, just a really thorough one!! >.<
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Concerta pt III
So, I felt strung out today. Around 3:30 I started going into one of those catatonic-ish states where I could hardly move and basically have to power down before being able to do anything again, but not actually sleeping.
I felt like I was going to strangle someone anytime anyone interrupted my train of thought, or interfered with my music mixing, or even if I just made a mistake (I've been DJing for a handful of days now). I have frustration problems to begin with. It doesn't seem to make it worse, it just highlights it and reduces the volume on all the rest of the feelings. It's the same 'whatever is the primary train of thought gets boosted above the rest' thing I've observed. However, I've noticed that I can make myself calm down if I focus on calming down.
Right now, I am REALLY tired. The number one side effect of this drug is insomnia. I had trouble getting out of bed the past two days, and I could go to sleep now and I know I wouldn't get up till 12 tomorrow.
Did some card tests, first run started off completely headblind, but then I actually noticed stuff starting to come through.
Card25: 7 b=3.5
I want to try another because I feel like I'm onto something, but I'm SOOO tired.
I felt like I was going to strangle someone anytime anyone interrupted my train of thought, or interfered with my music mixing, or even if I just made a mistake (I've been DJing for a handful of days now). I have frustration problems to begin with. It doesn't seem to make it worse, it just highlights it and reduces the volume on all the rest of the feelings. It's the same 'whatever is the primary train of thought gets boosted above the rest' thing I've observed. However, I've noticed that I can make myself calm down if I focus on calming down.
Right now, I am REALLY tired. The number one side effect of this drug is insomnia. I had trouble getting out of bed the past two days, and I could go to sleep now and I know I wouldn't get up till 12 tomorrow.
Did some card tests, first run started off completely headblind, but then I actually noticed stuff starting to come through.
Card25: 7 b=3.5
I want to try another because I feel like I'm onto something, but I'm SOOO tired.
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
Concerta pt II
So, the weekend was interesting. What started off as an experience that increased my lucidity, my ability to experience things to their fullest extent, not to mention focus, devolved into me not being able to word things properly, decrease in my cognitive function, being perfectly content with doing absolutely nothing, and nearly forgetting my car in the lover's school's parking lot like I had Oldsheimer's.
Hmmm...
Well, one thing is for sure, more science is in order.
I didn't take it Monday; the lack of frontal cortex stimulation coupled with the fact that that Monday felt more like a Saturday due to lack of classes made it very entertaining. I was... quite giddy most of the day, but not out of control. I mean, I haven't been 5-year-old hyper since I was 12, so relatively speaking it wasn't much worse than the baseline, but there seemed to be maybe a tiny bit of rebound. Or just relief that I don't have the dumb.
So I'm popping one today at about noon, having taken bupropion at 10:20. That might or might not prove to be important, the staggering of it. Today I don't really have that much to do in terms of things that need to get done. So I'm going to try some music writing (high creativity), beatmaking (as music goes, far more mathematical and formulaic), TK, energy-based meditation, and whatever else I can think of.
to save time, I'm defining absolute improbability,b, as the inverse of the odds. So a 20:1 horse winning would have an improbability of 20.
Some tests (1am - 2am):
Card Test25: 2/25
Sequential25: Avg: 3.2 b: 3.2 There were a disproportionate number of 5th card placements.
I'm going to be an ass on this test and just sweep right to left on each set. I'm getting so apathetic and uncreative. I can feel the concerta kicking in.
Seq25 (doing right to left sweep): 3.0 b=1.3
Card Draw25: 65 hits, avg 2.6 b=1.8
Quick Remove View25: 3 hits
I'm just doing horribly. I don't know if it's the lack of practice, my mood, or the medicine itself. Most likely a combination.
I'd try TK but I just don't fucking care.
What do I want to do?
Idk. Nothing. Fix my computer. But I have neither the windows install disk nor the hard drive.
Work on the wood project? Don't fucking care. Get dressed? Fine. Maybe i could do crunches. My stomach hurts.
I just feel allover lame. I am not bored, but I FEEL so boring. Meh!
Hmmm...
Well, one thing is for sure, more science is in order.
I didn't take it Monday; the lack of frontal cortex stimulation coupled with the fact that that Monday felt more like a Saturday due to lack of classes made it very entertaining. I was... quite giddy most of the day, but not out of control. I mean, I haven't been 5-year-old hyper since I was 12, so relatively speaking it wasn't much worse than the baseline, but there seemed to be maybe a tiny bit of rebound. Or just relief that I don't have the dumb.
So I'm popping one today at about noon, having taken bupropion at 10:20. That might or might not prove to be important, the staggering of it. Today I don't really have that much to do in terms of things that need to get done. So I'm going to try some music writing (high creativity), beatmaking (as music goes, far more mathematical and formulaic), TK, energy-based meditation, and whatever else I can think of.
to save time, I'm defining absolute improbability,b, as the inverse of the odds. So a 20:1 horse winning would have an improbability of 20.
Some tests (1am - 2am):
Card Test25: 2/25
Sequential25: Avg: 3.2 b: 3.2 There were a disproportionate number of 5th card placements.
I'm going to be an ass on this test and just sweep right to left on each set. I'm getting so apathetic and uncreative. I can feel the concerta kicking in.
Seq25 (doing right to left sweep): 3.0 b=1.3
Card Draw25: 65 hits, avg 2.6 b=1.8
Quick Remove View25: 3 hits
I'm just doing horribly. I don't know if it's the lack of practice, my mood, or the medicine itself. Most likely a combination.
I'd try TK but I just don't fucking care.
What do I want to do?
Idk. Nothing. Fix my computer. But I have neither the windows install disk nor the hard drive.
Work on the wood project? Don't fucking care. Get dressed? Fine. Maybe i could do crunches. My stomach hurts.
I just feel allover lame. I am not bored, but I FEEL so boring. Meh!
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