Sigh

I am so hungry for love. I’m starving so much that I’m devouring myself.

Valentine's Day Dependency Fertilizer

I looked at a site today and broke down. I let it get the best of me. We all do sometimes...

When I was younger, I threw away all of my yearbooks. I knew I'd never see these people again.

No matter how hard I'd try to rekindle things, friendships, love and nostalgia would never return... because I knew they didn't want me. I knew they didn't need me. Their actions, words, and demeanor told me so. I was gone forever in their eyes and discarded like worn clothes.

I'm haunted by recent memories now. I mourn the loss of friendship and love. The understanding that I cannot change people and the past is an agony. Some unknown inadequacy that I had drove them to discard me and wraps me in self-hatred. It's shit. It's all lying, mean shit. And I feel very alone because that's all there seems to be left.

So I'm going to finish this comment and rise. So I'm going to go to draw with real people and not feel alone. I'm going to put the shit on my flowers and fertilize them.

Method of Loci

The Method of loci (plural of Latin locus for place or location), also called the memory palace, is a mnemonic device introduced in ancient Roman and Greek rhetorical treatises (in the anonymous Rhetorica ad Herennium, Cicero's De Oratore, and Quintilian's Institutio Oratoria). In basic terms, it is a method of memory enhancement which uses visualization to organize and recall information. Many memory contest champions claim to use this technique in order to recall faces, digits, and lists of words. These champions’ successes have little to do with brain structure or intelligence, but more to do with their technique of using regions of their brain that have to do with spatial learning.^[1]

The term is most often found in specialized works on psychology, neurobiology and memory, though it was used in the same general way at least as early as the first half of the nineteenth century in works on rhetoric, logic and philosophy.^[2] John O'Keefe and Lynn Nadel refer to:

'the method of loci', an imaginal technique known to the ancient Greeks and Romans and described by Yates (1966) in her book The Art of Memory as well as by Luria(1969). In this technique the subject memorizes the layout of some building, or the arrangement of shops on a street, or any geographical entity which is composed of a number of discrete loci. When desiring to remember a set of items the subject literally 'walks' through these loci and commits an item to each one by forming an image between the item and any distinguishing feature of that locus. Retrieval of items is achieved by 'walking' through the loci, allowing the latter to activate the desired items. The efficacy of this technique has been well established (Ross and Lawrence 1968, Crovitz 1969, 1971, Briggs, Hawkins and Crovitz 1970, Lea 1975), as is the minimal interference seen with its use.^[3]

The items to be remembered in this mnemonic system are mentally associated with specific physical locations.^[4] The method relies on memorized spatial relationships to establish, order, and recollect memorial content. It is also known as the "Journey Method," used for storing lists of related items, or the "Roman Room" technique, which is most effective for storing unrelated information.^[5]

Contemporary Usage

Many effective memorizers today use the 'method of loci' to some degree. Contemporary memory competition was initiated in 1991 and the first United States championship was held in 1997.^[6] Part of the competition requires committing to memory and recalling a sequence of digits, two-digit numbers, alphabetic letters, or playing cards. In a simple method of doing this, contestants, using various strategies well before competing, commit to long-term memory a unique vivid image associated with each item. They have also committed to long-term memory a familiar route with firmly established stop-points or loci. Then in the competition they need only deposit the image that they have associated with each item at the loci. To recall, they retrace the route, "stop" at each locus, and "observe" the image. They then translate this back to the associated item.

Memory champions elaborate on this by combining images. Eight-time World Memory Champion Dominic O'Brien uses this technique.^[7] The 2006 World Memory Champion, Clemens Mayer from Germany, used a 300-point-long journey through his house for his world record in "number half marathon", memorizing 1040 random digits in a half hour. Gary Shang has used the method of loci to memorize pi to over 65,536 digits.^[8]

Using this technique a person with ordinary memorization capabilities, after establishing the route stop-points and committing the associated images to long-term memory, with less than an hour of practice, can remember the sequence of a shuffled deck of cards. The world record for this is held by Simon Reinhard at 21.19 seconds.^[9]

The technique is taught as a metacognitive technique in learning to learn courses. It is generally applied to encoding the key ideas of a subject. Two approaches are:

1. Link the key ideas of a subject and then deep-learn those key ideas in relation to each other, and
2. Think through the key ideas of a subject in depth, re-arrange the ideas in relation to an argument, then link the ideas to loci in good order.

The Rhetorica ad Herennium and most other sources recommend that the method of loci should be integrated with elaborative encoding (i.e., adding visual, auditory, or other details) to strengthen memory. However, due to the strength of spatial memory, simply mentally placing objects in real or imagined locations without further elaboration can be effective for simple associations.

A recent variation of the "method of loci" involves creating imaginary locations (houses, palaces, roads, and cities) to which the same procedure is applied. It is accepted that there is a greater cost involved in the initial setup, but thereafter the performance is in line with the standard loci method. The purported advantage is to create towns and cities that each represent a topic or an area of study, thus offering an efficient filing of the information and an easy path for the regular review necessary for long term memory storage.^[10]

Something that is likely a reference to the "method of loci" techniques survives to this day in the common English phrases "in the first place", "in the second place", and so forth.^[11]

Spread it on your flowers, Greg.

Mother Dirt: Selection process for my officers is ruthless but necessary. A new not-self entered the system; in developing a response it was necessary to expose you to the antigen.

Greg Feely: I don't care; you took everything I had. And I wanted an explanation. Wanted it all to make sense but it's just shit.
What am I supposed to do? What am I supposed to do with this?

Mother Dirt: Spread it on your flowers, Greg.

Steps

Highs are followed by lows. I had a high today and now I am at a low. It's 3:00 a.m. and I am low because I remembered the past. I foolishly looked back down that alley and tried to make sense of things again. But it becomes jumbled. Rotten. Gradeschool. Highschool. RISD. I believe I have positive memories but I don't seem to remember them that well because there's a sort of smokescreen of negativity.

For the record, what is depression like right now?
It is a voice in my head that tells me hateful things simply. Sometimes it sounds like someone else, but I know it's really me:

Everything is lost.
Everything is gone.
Everyone hates you.
Everyone wants to hurt you.
You are not in control.
You will never recover.
You will never love.
You are disgusting.
Your creations mean nothing and are useless.
Those who you care about and love never loved you and cared about you in turn.
You are here to be used.
You are alone.
You are a failure.
You are nothing.

It constantly tells me to give up. To sleep eternally. Something reasonable, planned and sound. Not like before. There is a clear and distinct feeling that goes through my limbs and a congestion in my chest and throat that is mildly painful. The feeling in my arms is a puke green and like a numbing, cold jelly. Motor skills fall slack slightly.

I take a bupropion sr along with the hydroxyzine counterpart. My older brother in me tells me to be calm and in the present. To breathe. To discuss this and write it down. Paradoxical intentions are dangerous at the moment and shouldn't be attempted. I can't see the future and it worries me. I consider taking a reserved clonazepam. As needed. Especially for sleep. The lows do not happen as frequently or as severe as they did last year. It has been probably two weeks since my last anxiety/depression low.

The low is becoming balanced as I write this. I turn to my Alan Moore-signed volume of Swamp Thing and think about Abby Arcane as a protagonist. A will to live is important.

Panic Attack

Gaslighting

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaslighting

 
     "Gaslighting is a form of mental abuse in which false information is presented with the intent of making a victim doubt his or her own memory, perception and sanity.^[1] Instances may range simply from the denial by an abuser that previous abusive incidents ever occurred, up to the staging of bizarre events by the abuser with the intention of disorienting the victim."
     "The term "gaslighting" comes from the play Gas Light and its film adaptations. The term is now also used in clinical and research literature."^[2][3]
     The 1941-1944 American version of Gas Light, called Angel Street, starred Vincent Price as Mr. Barrows. The role would prove very influential. "Although it was never explicitly confirmed, many critics and scholars see the play and its adaptations as subtle retellings of the Bluebeard folk tale... The plot concerns a husband who attempts to convince his wife and others that she is insane by manipulating small elements of their environment, and subsequently insisting that she is mistaken or misremembering when she points out these changes. The title stems from the dimming of the house's gas lights which happens when the husband is using the gas lights in the attic while searching there for hidden treasure. The wife accurately notices the dimming lights, but the husband insists she is imagining."

     "Psychologist Martha Stout states that sociopaths frequently use gaslighting tactics. Sociopaths consistently transgress social mores, break laws, and exploit others, but are also typically charming and convincing liars who consistently deny wrongdoing. Thus, some who have been victimized by sociopaths may doubt their perceptions.^[6] Jacobson and Gottman report that some physically abusive spouses may gaslight their partners, even flatly denying that they have been violent."^[3]

Wayne White

     Wayne White is an artist from Chattanooga, TN better known from his work on Pee-wee's Playhouse, Shining Time Station, Riders in the Sky, The Weird Al Show, Beakman's World, and art direction for Smashing Pumpkins "Tonight, Tonight" throughout the 80s and 90s. In 2012, a devotional and biographical documentary film called Beauty is Embarrassing was released. White and the director going on tour to promote the film. They had a showing at Bamcinematek and White came out after the film to answer questions. The crowd seemed enthusiastic to pat him on the back and congratulate him afterwards (fans). I too was lifted by experiencing the film and his presence (he is admittedly, a very jolly man- he looks like a backwoods Zach Galifianakis wound up to an eleven on enthusiasm, optimism and creativity). I believe the audience failed to see one of the most important aspects of the film though because they "could not relate" or denied the evidence, which is fleeting in the documentary. White had a breakdown. It was summarized by his frustration with managing life after Pee-wee's Playhouse: the trials of ever-changing computer animation, children, relationships, and the decline of his initial optimism with creativity. Things came crashing down in Cali and his wife, Mimi, recalls him staying long periods of time working on computer animation in the basement. The documentary then depicted a cartoon explosion and references to the fact that White had had too much... (perhaps he was hospitalized in a ward, I'm going to have to watch the film again). He then got "happy pills," everything was assumed to be better and the film kept on track with his optimism and creativity, piqued by that sudden revelation half-way through. It was as if a curtain along the wall of White's life had been brushed aside suddenly to show a dark, barren, adjacent corridor and then quickly refitted.

     I asked him about how he dealt with the breakdown during the Q&A and he mentioned how "once you realize that the universe does not need you, it can be quite freeing." The universe, the galaxy, the solar-system.... and people do not revolve around you nor gravitate deliberately through some force of your own power and will. White's dilemma was existential and somewhat karmic. He reminded me of Jack.

     Did White lament?: I should be somewhere by now. I'm a professional. I've done good things, created great things. I've treated people nicely, provided them with laughter and warmth. I have a wife and children that I've raised with faith and devotion. There should be more than this. Why is this happening to me of all people. My imagination brings to mind Jonah.

     My understanding is that the only power/freedom we really have is over our created "selves." We relinquish/sacrifice and reclaim/reconstruct constantly in order for that "self" to survive: weather bodily, through tools, or by works. This does not imply that the self is not a uniquely individual creation though. There are varying levels of survival also, which come dressed in shades of dignity. We are free and yet not. Knowledge of our own current limitations (lack of freedom), actually frees us to seek alternatives.

The Hikikomori and the Beautiful Ones

A comment was made on a BBC article featured on Slashdot. A connection was made by user "Universe 25" on the symptoms displayed by hikikomori and the "beautiful ones" described in the research of ethologist, John B. Calhoun on the effects of overpopulation.
The real question that is posed is wether this connection is a causation or correlation in regards to societal overpopulation. I believe that it seems to be much more complex than a reservation based on a population of mice though.

Taken shamelessly from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-23182523:

Hikikomori: Why are so many Japanese men refusing to leave their rooms?

     "I had all kinds of negative emotions inside me," he says. "The desire to go outside, anger towards society and my parents, sadness about having this condition, fear about what would happen in the future, and jealousy towards the people who were leading normal lives."
In Japan, hikikomori, a term that's also used to describe the young people who withdraw, is a word that everyone knows.
    Tamaki Saito was a newly qualified psychiatrist when, in the early 1990s, he was struck by the number of parents who sought his help with children who had quit school and hidden themselves away for months and sometimes years at a time. These young people were often from middle-class families, they were almost always male, and the average age for their withdrawal was 15.
    "They are tormented in the mind," he says. "They want to go out in the world, they want to make friends or lovers, but they can't."
    When Saito began his research, social withdrawal was not unknown, but it was treated by doctors as a symptom of other underlying problems rather than a pattern of behavior requiring special treatment.
    Since he drew attention to the phenomenon, it is thought the numbers of hikikomori have increased. A conservative estimate of the number of people now affected is 200,000, but a 2010 survey for the Japanese Cabinet Office came back with a much higher figure - 700,000. Since sufferers are by definition hidden away, Saito himself places the figure higher still, at around one million.
    The average age of hikikomori also seems to have risen over the last two decades. Before it was 21 - now it is 32.

....

    "Traditionally, Japanese psychology was thought to be group-oriented - Japanese people do not want to stand out in a group," says Yuriko Suzuki, a psychologist at the National Institute for Mental Health in Tokyo. "But I think especially for the younger generation, they want more individualized or personalised care and attention. I think we are in a mixed state."
But even hikikomori who desperately want to fulfill their parents' plans for them may find themselves frustrated.
    Andy Furlong, an academic at the University of Glasgow specializing in the transition from education to work, connects the growth of the hikikomori phenomenon with the popping of the 1980s "bubble economy" and the onset of Japan's recession of the 1990s.
It was at this point that the conveyor belt of good school grades leading to good university places leading to jobs-for-life broke down. A generation of Japanese were faced with the insecurity of short-term, part-time work.
    And it came with stigma, not sympathy.
    Job-hopping Japanese were called "freeters" - a combination of the word "freelance" and the German word for "worker", arbeiter. In political discussion, freeters were frequently bundled together with "neets" - an adopted British acronym meaning "not in education, employment or training". Neets, freeters, hikikomori - these were ways of describing the good-for-nothing younger generation, parasites on the flagging Japanese economy. The older generation, who graduated and slotted into steady careers in the 1960s and 1970s, could not relate to them.

....

    In any case, the do-nothing approach has been shown not to work. Tamaki Saito likens the hikikomori state to alcoholism, in that it is impossible to give up without a support network.

What about female hikikomori?

• - Hikikomori are seen as predominantly male - Tamaki Saito says males occupy 70%- 80% of the group
• - However, an internet survey by NHK found just 53% to be male
• - Andy Furlong at the University of Glasgow speculates that female withdrawal into the home seems so natural to Japanese society that women hikikomori may remain unreported

John C. Calhoun and the "beautiful ones."

Taken shamelessly from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_B._Calhoun and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_sink:

The Utopian Mouse Universe

    In July 1968 four pairs of mice were introduced into the Utopian universe. The universe was a 9-foot (2.7 m) square metal pen with 54-inch-high (1.4 m) sides. Each side had four groups of four vertical, wire mesh “tunnels”. The “tunnels” gave access to nesting boxes, food hoppers, and water dispensers. There was no shortage of food or water or nesting material. There were no predators. The only adversity was the limit on space.
     Initially the population grew rapidly, doubling every 55 days. The population reached 620 by day 315, after which the population growth dropped markedly. The last surviving birth was on day 600. This period between day 315 and day 600 saw a breakdown in social structure and in normal social behavior. Among the aberrations in behavior were the following: expulsion of young before weaning was complete, wounding of young, inability of dominant males to maintain the defense of their territory and females, aggressive behavior of females, passivity of non-dominant males with increased attacks on each other which were not defended against. After day 600 the social breakdown continued and the population declined toward extinction. During this period females ceased to reproduce. Their male counterparts withdrew completely, never engaging in courtship or fighting. They ate, drank, slept, and groomed themselves – all solitary pursuits. Sleek, healthy coats and an absence of scars characterized these males. They were dubbed “the beautiful ones”.

(Unfortunately, Dr. Calhoun was a religious man and many of his theories have been taken up by Conservative Right Christians and eugenics supporters in relation to a human societal collapse. An alarmist congregation can use his experiments to maintain fear. - my opinion).

Calhoun's work became used, rightly or wrongly, as an animal model of societal collapse, and his study has become a touchstone of urban sociology and psychology in general.

Fear and Repetition

Haunted by her siblings and injuries never requited; enough to stay away from that library and park forever.

"Down down, deep in the ground. Safe and sound in the womb of the earth."
 I'd say this as I walked around in a daze on the summer Thursdays and drink aloe juice from the Japanese mart. I'd be stuck in a feed-back loop like Jed asking why had they left me in a booze-fueled binge. No one wanted to answer him politely. No one was there. Because they didn't care. He was just another invention after all.

Allusions, Metaphors and Similies

“But in the end one needs more courage to live than to kill himself.” 

― Albert Camus

“Actually, it was only part of myself I wanted to kill: the part that wanted to kill herself...” 
― Susanna Kaysen, Girl, Interrupted

     Facing my depression is very real and always has been. It has been with me throughout my life pretty much, but I realize that now in retrospect. I tried my best to hide it, and still do because of the vulnerability it reveals.
     My depression seems subjective to me, but I know that it mostly revolves around an inferiority complex that deteriorates my trust in myself and others. This almost always becomes a problem for my work and personal life. In a strictly imagined and poetic sense, it's like a darker-half, an ashen eight-year old child with shark's teeth who wraps himself in the skin of familiars to basically wear away at every ounce of inspiration, trust, or love of life I ever had, have or will have in a nihilistic and predetermined fashion. To sum things up, I'm my own worst enemy. I shouldn't let things get to me, but I do. I allow them to.
     I've been putting up walls to protect myself from others since I was young, expecting the worst from those around me... because I feel robbed by so many since, even though I may not have been "robbed" in a sense. There's a number of different analogies to choose from. When I trust someone, something or even myself, it's like putting stock in a company, only it's not financial stock, it's a bit of one's self, time, effort: a personality sacrifice. Or if I think of my mind as a hard-drive with a limited capacity, I'm reserving a chunk of data for the trust therein. There's a risk factor, giving a part of myself over to another, and my stakes and expectations have often been too high. It's a paint-yourself-into-a-corner trap, and when doubt enters the framework (even in the slightest for me), everything begins to crumble. And it doesn't just crumble for me; it often detonates and scatters radioactive particles everywhere, ensuring a dangerous fallout! (Bad-blood, burned-bridges, bad-blood, burned bridges and not a drop to drink). Or another way to put it is from a favorite by Jennifer Egan:

     "Fear was dangerous. It let in the worm: another word Danny and his friends had invented all those years ago, smoking pot or doing lines of coke and wondering what to call that thing that happened to people when they lost confidence and got phony, anxious, weird. Was it paranoia? Low self-esteem? Insecurity? Panic? Those words were all too flat. But the worm, which is the word they finally picked. the worm was three-dimensional: it crawled inside a person and started to eat until everything collapsed, their whole lives, and they ended up getting strung out or going back home to their folks or being admitted to Bellevue or, in the case of one girl they all knew, jumping off the Manhattan Bridge."
― Jennifer Egan, The Keep

     The "darker-half" taunts my sexuality, levels my intelligence, and destroys my confidence in my mind and body with both relish and disgust while wrapped in various disguises, even corrupting that which I found genuine. (A "disguise" here is a projection). It throws me into a pit with no ladder and laughs from above. Then, like the cycle of weather, the storm is lifted, but the fear is still there. I fear these people now, these places, these memories. They are demonized by my own overbearing ego and I fear them with tears in my eyes because I am scared of what they will do if I ever approach them again. Will they hurt me? Will others hurt me? What will I do? I've had nightmares of panic attacks and scenarios where I run out into the street to escape the site or remembrance. I've broken down in the subway simply because memories brought on a tidal wave from my darker-half. Medication helps, and so does an understanding of gesalt theory. I have to calmly assess the situation from the trunk, in the present, and not from it's branches and roots.

     I still shut myself in and put up the walls. The defense. I know I shouldn't project and mirror but it's hard not to when you have few examples to go by besides skill... which is very virtual. I patch shredded pieces together with glue, sewn yarn, tape and clips. All of what was torn and broken is still there and I still own it. I learn.

Asylum Ditty

You want to lash out

You want to lash out

Face like a knife

And a

Beautiful bundle of nerves

wounded by spite

I lick you where it hurts

Fritz / Crumb Ice Pick Stab

R. Crumb's Future is a Wonderful World of Psychopaths

Tempest

Mark but the bandages of these men, my lords.
Then say if thy be tru. This misshapen knave-
His mother was a witch...
These three have robb'd me, and this dem-devil
For he's a bastard one- had plotted with them
To take my life. Two of these fellows you
Must know and own; this thing of darkness I
Acknowledge mine.

Ghost World

As much as it is essential, it is difficult. Social networking, photo sites, updating website and resume, blog, paying bills and rent, adjusting invoices, doing taxes, continuing education, creating personal work, twittering, researching, writing your screenplay, finding directions, and even maintaining health stress the modern man and woman. Either we go faster or we should lose some of the cards. But what if you feel you can't afford to lose any cards? You sleep and dream of balancing those cards continuously.

1/20/13
But I have lost cards. Valuable cards. I can honestly say that the social network has hurt me in vast personal ways. It has changed me and my perceptions of others. People who I thought were friends and supporters are neither. I cannot find love, spirit and self through the mirror of the other. A base, shallow and somewhat nihilistic world is given back to you. And you feel invisible, dead, hollow, and worthless to everyone. It is a living Ghost World. So, like Enid, I have to take that bus down the road to art school and leave the other behind... and find meaning where there is none. To find self. To learn to love myself. Again.

That there. That's not me.
I go where I please.
I walk through walls.
I float down the Liffey.
I'm not here. This isn't happening.