A review of Melancholia

You can read my review of Melancholia here.

As I'm switching to Wordpress, you can find my latest update here.

How to spend a fortune and get nothing.

Twitter is a wonderful beast. Almost real-time updates of any subject you care to think of.  By chance I was able to read running commentaries on what Republicans were saying during a nomination debate.  As an Australian, I don’t hold that much interest in the spectacle that is the lead up race for the White House, except this time the Republican side is led by a comedy troupe of Tea Party candidates.

One candidate in particular, Ron Paul, struck me as the freakiest of carny folk in Republican side show alley.  Yet this isn’t about Paul.  This is about where some of the claims about him has led me; the vaults of official statistics by the OECD.

You see, some people believe that government shouldn’t be in the business of looking after its citizens, specifically their health.  One tweeter, in defending Ron Paul’s decision not to pay the $400,000 medical debt owed by one of his campaign managers - who had died - told me:

Rick Fisk might be on to something.  The Texan Governor Rick Perry signed an executive order to fund a cervical cancer vaccine that targets HPV, a position he has now thinks is poor policy.  Michele Bachmann adds the HPV vaccine caused mild retardation in a young girl and is therefore potentially dangerous.  Paul simply says: “It's not good social policy and therefore I think this is very bad to do this.”  So obviously any government involvement in health is bad.  Obamacare must be bad.

Ever since Jesus played fullback for the Saints*, leading political figures have told us that the private sector is always more efficient that an equivalent government sector.  It’s certainly a mantra of the Tea Party, that and the idea of universal healthcare is inherently toxic.  The arguments can appear convincing, but once stripped of emotion, are they really?  Hence delving into the OECD health statistics.

There are remarkable things to discover.  For example; in 2008, the US spent $7220 per capita on healthcare (all figures in 2011 USD).  This represents 17.4% of GDP.  More than half of that is what Americans are paying privately.  Every woman, man and child in the US forked out more than an average $3610 for private healthcare and almost the same again indirectly through tax.

Second place in the staggering statistics department goes to the Netherlands, who spent $4241 per capita, or 12% GDP.  Unlike the US, the Netherlands has a universal health care system, and only about one-sixth of that is in the private sector. 

In twenty-third place is Australia, possibly the best match for the US in health after Canada.  After all, Australians eat roughly much the same amount of rubbish, watch a similar amount of terrible television and speak (mostly) the same language (but without the weird accents).  Australia’s figures for 2008 are $3445 per capita or 8.7% of GDP, below the OECD average of 9.5% GDP.

Keeping in mind this total is the private and government sectors  combined per capita, and yet it’s less than what the US pays privately per capita.  Despite this, Australians on average live longer and have better health outcomes than Americans.  The OECD data demonstrates Australia’s universal healthcare system is more efficient than the US private fend-for-yourself system and more effective.  Surely that can’t be right?  Believe me, the healthcare system in Australia isn’t exactly a shining beacon of efficiency, no matter how hard or magnificently those at the coal face work.  How can such a sector, two-thirds funded by governments (i.e. Australian tax payers), be better than the equivalent private sector in the US, the land where the consumer rules?  

One explanation is the private US medical system is fraudulent, syphoning off billions of dollars from governments, insurance premiums and individuals when they present themselves for care.  Maybe that’s a little harsh.  Perhaps the private healthcare sector is so grossly incompetent, inefficient and ineffective Americans would be better off without it?  Best not to confuse a mistake for malice, but either way, small wonder President Obama wants reform.

What does it take to convince the fans of the Perrys, Bachmanns and Pauls that they are willing to continue spending a fortune to get very little in return?  I mean people like Fisk who told me that if we pay tax for such things as healthcare, the government should also pay for our car loans (no, I’m not joking and I wish Fisk was).  It’s a serious question I wish the American people would ask of those who aspire to be called, one day, President of the United States.

*Obviously Jesus didn’t play fullback for the Saints; Jesus is a fictional character.


Update: Rick Fisk informs me - which I haven’t verified - that Ron’s Paul’s campaign manager, Ken Snyder, couldn’t be insured because he had a pre-existing condition, and that Snyder died of pneumonia.  Fisk assures me Paul had no moral obligation to help Snyder.  Is Paul seriously wanting to be the Republican Party’s nominee?

Shut your goddam carbon-taxin’ mouth

The following was originally blogged by Geoff Lemon here, and I’m reblogging it because a few people on Twitter have posted links, but for whatever reason the links point to a suspended account (I’m sure it’s nothing sinister; never blame malice for a mistake.)

(n.b. I haven’t asked Mr Lemon for permission to reblog; the usual rules apply.)

Shut your goddamn carbon-taxin’ mouth.

Three days on from Julia Gillard’s policy announcement, and the most striking characteristic of the carbon tax debate is just how closely it resembles a dozen retards trying to fuck a doorknob. The only apparent solution is a massive airdop of Xanax into our reservoirs, because really, everyone needs a few deep breaths and a spell in the quiet corner.

Sure, the weeks leading up have all been hysteria: Tony Abbott marching that bulldog grimace up and down the length of the country, like a Cassandra made of old leather and stunted dreams, cawing grim warnings of imminent ruin and destruction at the gates of Troy. But you might have expected, once the details had been released, there would arrive a little more perspective.

Nothing doing.

Far from being objective carriers of information, media outlets have been trying to manufacture furore. “Families earning more than $110k will feel the pain of the carbon tax,” warned the Herald-Sun, straightfaced. “Households face a $9.90 a week jump in the cost of living.”

 $9.90.

 Cry me the motherfucking Nile.

 Households on less than that income would be even less affected. Those in the upper range would have their ten bucks a week at least partly compensated, while others would be fully or over-compensated.

The tax, after all, was not on people, but on 500 high-polluting companies. The compensation was to guard against costs those companies might pass on to their customers.

 So, no big deal, I said to myself when the details were announced. Surely this’ll all blow over. And then, found myself more than a little surprised when a Herald-Sun commenter (one step above YouTube on the food-chain, I’ll admit) said “Somebody needs to assassinate Julia Gillard NOW before she totally destroys our way of life.”

Just… hold up a minute. Ten bucks a week? Our way of life? Aside from incitement to murder a head of government being ever so slightly illegal (and something the Hun mods should probably have picked up on), the response just doesn’t make any sense. Here is legislation that might make some things marginally more expensive. Probably not much. It isn’t going to drive industries offshore, because things like power generation and mining Australian resources kind of have to be done in Australia.

 And yet the hysteria, even when not reaching Lee Harvey Oswald levels, has been constant throughout, led by the paper who defines ten bucks a week out of a hundred grand as “feeling the pain”.

 “Social demographer David Chalke said the tax threatened values at the core of Australian society. ‘To an extent it will make people question, “is it really worth the bother?” They’ll smell in this something of a class war,’ Mr Chalke said.”

 Ten bucks a week. Core values. Class war. Then, “Generous payments to those on low incomes and higher taxes for high income earners would anger hard-working Aussies.” Because, people on less than $110,000 don’t have to work hard. That’s why they get paid less! Scrubbing toilets is easy and only takes five minutes, while high-level boardroom execs spend 20-hour days chained to some kind of awful lunch machine being beaten with lobster foam.

 I also enjoyed “On 3AW yesterday, Treasurer Wayne Swan was unable to say how the carbon tax would affect a Falcon. He also couldn’t say what the price change for a can of tomatoes would be.” The random grocery quiz had undone the Treasurer yet again. “Wait, wait, wait, got one…uh… large box of Libra Fleur? Nope. Uh, Sara Lee Chocolate Bavarian? Hah, you got nothin’, Swanny!”

 Then there were the numerous headlines about airfares set to “soar” (geddit!). Well-meaning travellers were interviewed saying higher airfares would make it much harder to afford family holidays. Tres sad, especially when Qantas “said it would need to fully pass on the carbon price to customers, with the price of a single domestic flight ticket to increase on average by about $3.50.”

 Three dollars. Fifty cents. They currently charge you more than that for a bottle of water. They charge $7.50 to buy a ticket online, $8 for a cup of noodles, $25 to use their check-in counter, and $6 to board the plane first. The best comment left after that article was, “So people won’t be able to buy a newspaper for the boarding lounge anymore? Good.”

So let’s never hear any talk of ABC bias ever again, because the Sun has well and truly picked its horse on this one. Any online article on the tax was headlined by a video of the lovely Andrew Bolt, telling us it was “the greatest act of national suicide we’ve ever seen.” Funny, I thought that was when they gave him a TV show. There was also a great line about “so-called solar energy” – because now solar energy is just a theory too. Like gravity, or Adelaide.

 I am a sometime journalist. In that sense, the staff in the Herald and Weekly Times building are my colleagues. This makes me feel a bit like whorehouse linen. No doubt they all say they’re just doing their jobs, looking for opportunities. Nonetheless, they’re still actively promoting harm for the sake of attracting an audience. Concentration camp guards are just doing their jobs, too.

 And with that level of reporting, the effort from their readers is no surprise. “Co2 is not a pollutant. It is vital for life on Earth. Without it, trees will die,” said John. Get that man on the climate panel.

 “How much will Australia’s temperatures decline once the tax is implemented?” asked Marty. Well, Marty, the atmosphere takes notes about where its constituent particles come from, so we’ll get a full report from the Hole in the Ozone Layer each quarter. He wears a jaunty hat, and gives every boy and girl a delicious melanoma. 

The dumbshititis was also evident in the audience of the Prime Ministerial Q and A on Monday, where the average question could be summarised as, “I’m a person, and I don’t like paying money. Can I not ever pay money for things?” My favourite line, from a surgical swab of a man towards the end of the show, was that because he earned too much to be eligible for low-income handouts, “I feel I’ll be taxed into poverty.”

This taps into a very prominent feature of our political landscape: the constant line from Tony Abbott that Australian families are hurting, that Aussies are doing it tough, that life is somehow getting harder, that the cost of living is on the rise.

Shenanigans, Tony. Let’s get one thing very clear. Australians, en masse, are enjoying a better standard of living than has ever been enjoyed in this country’s history.

And not just marginally, but by a huge degree. Really, along with a few other developed countries, we are enjoying a better standard of living than any group of people has in human existence. We have every kind of food and beverage from around the world deliverable to our doors. We have technological advances that make a decade ago look archaic. We have goods and luxuries of every conceivable kind; cheap and accessible. We have more and better options with transport, entertainment, comfort, place and style of residence. We have the most advanced medicine and best life expectancy of all time.

While there is still poverty in Australia, it does not even touch the kinds of poverty experienced in most countries on earth. Support systems and sufficient wealth exist to cover at least basic needs. The small proportion of genuinely homeless usually have other factors that keep them away from those systems. Being poor in Australia means living in a crappy house, in a crappy area. Maybe a commission flat. It means living on welfare, getting by week to week, not having any money for nice things. It might mean the kids have to go to their friend’s house to play X-Box, or that they don’t get sweet Christmas presents. It sucks, but it’s safe. It’s solid. It keeps you alive. It’s a level of stability and security that half the world would kill for, and even the basic amenities of a commission flat are amenities that half the world doesn’t have.

Poor people in Australia do not starve to death. They don’t die of cold. There is clean water running in any public bathroom. If they’re ill, they can walk into a hospital and be treated. If they’re broke, they can get welfare. They can get roofs over their heads, even if they’re temporary. They have options. If the utilities are shut off, they can find a tap, or a powerpoint. They can make it through the night. 

And those poor aside, the rest of the country is doing very fucking nicely indeed, thanks very much. Reading these stories of parents bitching about working long hours to afford their private school fees just makes me want to give their little tow-headed spawn a spew bath. The lack of perspective is astonishing. Their kids are safe and fed and healthy and getting every opportunity to do whatever they want with their lives. They’re not getting sent out to suck tourist dick for enough US dollars to get their siblings through the week.

It should make us ashamed that there are people with good earnings ready to claim victim status on national television over a worst-case scenario of five hundred bucks a year. This is what is driving people into a panicky rage. Five hundred dollars, if you can afford it. Less if you can’t. If you run a red light camera in Victoria it’s $300. Do 40 ks over the limit, $510. If we get fines, we bitch about it, but inherently accept the rationale: the fine is levied as a penalty by someone endangering others in the society. It’s the basic structure of how a society works. We all agree to abide by certain rules as a form of insurance, to make sure that we’re not on the receiving end of the negative consequences of lawlessness. When people refuse to abide by those rules, they’re variously censured by or removed from that society.

If we obtain energy by burning irreplaceable fuel, and the consequences threaten the safety of our society, then surely we should pay a penalty for that (adding to a fund to guard against those consequences). The rule is basic: you make the mess, you clean it up. Ten bucks a week is a sweet deal.

But in being part of the luckiest couple of generations of people to yet walk the earth, most of us still like to imagine we’ve got it tough. It’s that same sense of entitlement that I was discussing regarding Raquel a couple of weeks ago. When you grow up with a certain standard of living, you come to regard it as the natural state of affairs. If someone threatens that state, they are depriving you of what is fundamentally yours. To your mind, you have a right to live like this, purely because you’re lucky enough to have lived like this.

Well, you don’t. So if you claim you can’t afford ten bucks a week, I call Shenanigans, with a healthy dash of You’re a Dick. One dinner at the Flower Drum would make up your year’s liability in one hit. Genuinely struggling people will get compo anyway. But even they could afford it if they had to. Buy one less deck of Holiday 50s a week. Buy two less beers. Leave off the Foxtel subscription. Wear a franger, save half a mil. What the fuck ever. Remember that you live in a country where drinkable water comes out of a tap inside your goddamn house, and where the power runs 24 hours a day. This in itself is a goddamn privilege, and if you are going to bitch and moan about having to pay for that privilege, you can fuck off and die in a ditch.

Because you do not have a right to this way of life. No-one does. We just have the extreme good fortune of enjoying it, and that won’t last forever. We should appreciate it while we can.

Perversely, part of me wants to see what would happen if the sea levels rise a couple of metres, the coastal cities get swamped, the rainfall dries up, the power goes out, the militias take to the streets. Part of me would love to see these squawking indignant right-to-luxury dickwipes learning how to live in the dust, scraping out dried plants from the earth and hoarding their remnants from the Beforetime. It’ll be a sight if it happens. Dirty red skies will rise up from the ground each morning like a curse. The only creatures that seem to thrive, the cockroaches and carrion birds, will swarm black against the sand and the sunset, rasping dry songs with their throats and with their legs. The water will be gone. The world will not remember ice floes. And for her sins, for ten dollars a week from each and every one of us, Julia Gillard will hang from the garret at the gates of Troy.

Religion is a very serious business.

It’s not always easy being an atheist.  Too often I get caught in religious debates.  The same old stuff comes out; Pascal’s Wager¹, Darwin didn’t prove life came from nothing, so evolution isn’t true², our eyes are proof of intelligent design³, and so on it goes.  As an atheist, I’m not one to jump down believers’ throats and shout at them to tell them they are deluded.  It’s one of the fundamental human rights as laid down in Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; people have the right to observe their religion.

I don’t believe religion is intrinsically a rort. However I do believe it’s protected by the Law more than secular belief such as humanism and is easily corrupted.  Yes, believe in whichever deity you want and you should not be persecuted by the state for that belief.  I say “the state” because it’s perfectly reasonable for any individual to question the integrity of such a believer; if such a believer is honest with nothing to hide, then the answers should flow freely, as any statement of faith should.

Yet this isn’t what really happens.  The very well publicised Harold Camping said the rapture would occur on 21^st of May 2011.  He was (not surprisingly) wrong, and not for the first time on this matter, either.  Conservative Christians in the US, UK and here in Australia oppose gay marriage using 2 common arguments as a basis; 1) it would undermine heterosexual marriage by removing rights from heterosexual marriages, and 2) the law (at least in Australia) defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman.  Both these arguments are, to be fair, weak.

Now I wouldn’t personally mind this kind of debate if it were on a fair playing field.  Dare I suggest most religious conservatives believe it is, or if not it’s slanted in favour of the “homosexual agenda.”  If only it were!  Organised religion is exempt from discrimination laws; religious schools can expel students and sack teachers on the basis of being gay, pregnant and unwed, or even being nonbelievers of the school’s religion e.g. a Buddhist can be sacked in a Catholic school.  That wouldn’t be such a problem if governments didn’t give such schools no strings attached subsidies!

This is nothing short of hypocrisy.

For all that, my biggest beef is that religions don’t pay tax.  Religions hold the cards here, because in nearly all democratic nations, religions are exempt from paying tax.  They are assumed to be not-for-profit organisations.

(Now to be fair, most religious organisations are not-for-profit, but how do we know if the books are kept in secret, and religion is exempt from Freedom of Information laws?)

These exemptions have their basis in medieval law, when the church and state were cosy bedfellows.  The church even had powers to tax.  That may have changed since the French and American revolutions and the resultant separation of powers, but religion remains untouchable when it comes to tax. It’s unreasonable, and unjust.

To make things a little more fair, organised religions should be taxed like non-religious charities, trusts and companies.  If a registered religious group is truly not-for-profit, then nothing changes; they won’t pay tax.  If they do make profits, or accumulate wealth through property, gifts, bequeathments, grants and so forth, then they should have to declare their income, assets, fringe benefits, etc., and thus pay tax.  Like anyone else.  The same rules should apply equally to all.

To demonstrate the hypocrisy, the Church of Scientology was taken to task by a few individuals who believe the organisation is quackery and fraudulent, claiming that Scientology is not a religion but a philosophy.  This may be true, and as an atheist I have little doubt that the accusations are true.  However the means of attack against Scientology was about their tax status, not values or ideology.  The High Court of Australia ruled that Scientology is a religion and therefore exempt from being taxed.  Anyone can form a religion as long as there is a belief in a supernatural something, and cannons of conduct exist and are accepted by the believers.  That’s all.

I’m not going to try to figure out how much governments - and therefore citizens - miss out by religious organisations not paying any tax, but as a guestimate the figure would be in he order of $1 billion.

In the meanwhile, approximately $600 million is being spent by the Federal Gillard government to place chaplains in all schools; private religious and government secular alike.  The Victorian Baillieu government is injecting a further $200 million.  These chaplins aren’t allowed to teach or proselytise, so what is the point of them being there?  I can only see them as bargain basement counsellors with no qualifications at all other than to have a working with children check like this or this.  Seriously, no teaching, psychology or any tertiary qualifications are needed at all; equivalent experience is enough.  Far from being representative of the non-secular make-up of Australia, these chaplains are all Christian⁴.  It’d be interesting if an atheist was appointed as a school chaplain under the NSCP.

Is it not galling enough that that secular entities don’t pay tax and yet many are given government grants, or paid contracts to provide essential services?  How is it fair that a church can “syphon” off funds from government to build a chapel instead of, say, a computer lab for students?  How is it fair that an organisation like The Salvation Army can purchase a vehicle tax free to provide for a Salvation Officer or employee in lieu of income?  (In any other context this is seen as Fringe Benefits and is thus taxed.)  This is a double dip that no other business can get away with.

I specifically mention the Salvos because they have many government contracts to provide services to the community, such as employment and food, clothing and transport.  It goes without saying the Salvation Army don’t do it for nothing, but we won’t find out how much profit they earn from these deals because they are exempt from FOI because they are a contracted service provider (and a religion).

Why can’t a secular charity or organisation provide these services?  Well, some do, but without the tax breaks afforded to them that religious organisations automatically get, secular organisations aren’t competitive in a bidding process.

All this makes me uncomfortable.  I’m not suggesting all nonsecular organisations are corrupt, but they are certainly open to corruption and have more mechanisms at their disposal to cover up any corruption.  It’s difficult to prosecute when wrongdoing is exposed, too.  Such as when a private religious school principal and his brother were taken to trial for fraud, but they were acquitted on appeal despite the obvious rort.

It’s time to stop giving religious organisations a helping hand at becoming asset rich whilst they cry poor.  Praying should not be conceded to be a public service.  Religious charities should not be allowed to discriminate when they are contracted to provide a government service to all members of the community.  Most of all, it’s time for the books to be open and tax paid in the same way, under the same rules, that secular organisations have to.

1. Pascal’s Wager suggests it’s a good idea to “hedge one’s” bet and believe in God.  If God doesn’t exist, then no harm done.  This logic fails because there is more than one god.  Also, any god who chooses humans because of their gambling habits over their value as humans is vain and capricious and therefore not worth aspiring to be with.

2. Darwin’s seminal work On the Origin of Species isn’t about first life, rather how new species evolve from common ancestors by natural selection.  It’s not just an idea, but a testable theory with observable predictions, just like Einstein’s Theory of Relativity.  Further, debating anything in science using the premise “but x isn’t true” does not negate a theory in it’s entirety; just because science doesn’t explain everything doesn’t mean it can’t explain anything.

3. Human eyes are terrible at many things.  They aren’t like camera at all, and only a small part near the centre of the retina, near the blind spot, can detect colour.  Even then it’s not very good.  If the eye were designed, then the designer did less than a half-arsed job.

4. This blog here does an excellent job of dissecting chaplains in school, and why the commissioned report (which I linked here) for Access Ministries should be viewed as propaganda, or the very least, extremely subjective and biased.  Not one acceptable metric was used.

What shall we do with the rioting refugee?

Much debate is raging in Australia at the moment over refugees.  It makes me angry and sad that we are still arguing over details in the foreground rather than it being a background topic, as if asylum seekers are a sign of end times.  For those in mandatory detention, it must be beyond anger and sadness, as the rioting demonstrates.

Now the government has had enough.  Enough of the rioting.  Enough of asylum seekers burning down perfectly good squalor for attention.  So Chris Bowen, the Minister responsible, has angrily come out, fists flailing, saying that any refugee charged with a criminal offence in a detention centre run will fail the character test and therefore be deported.  Further, the government will be reintroducing the much reviled Temporary Protection Visas.

The real reason this is such a crisis isn’t mandatory detention, it isn’t offshore processing, it isn’t a failure to “stop the boats.”  It’s a simple problem with a secretive mission: ASIO.  No asylum seeker is granted refugee status within Australia until ASIO has done a background check.  These background checks have, over the past 2 years, blown out to more than 60 days per detainee and growing.

What is the solution?  More ASIO staff to do background checks?  Maybe, but not really practical.  Bigger detention centres?  The prison management company Sirco can barely staff what exists now.  Naru?  Naru still hasn’t signed the Convention and Protocol relating to the Status of Refugees, despite promising to do so, which effectively means any asylum seeker (or indeed refugee) has no rights when in Naru.

A the risk at being unpopular, this is what the government could do: use detention centres only for medical checks and quarantine, then release the asylum seekers into the general Australian community with a visa within 30 days.  Once released, the asylum seeker would have to report to Immigration once a fortnight, inform the department of their whereabouts at all times where practical, is barred from work and would not have access to Centrelink or Medicare services.  In other words, they would be for all intents the same as a tourist on a tourist visa (except for the reporting requirements).

Some may say this is inhumane and doesn’t give the asylum seeker certainty.  This is true.  Australia’s obligation is to protect asylum seekers and process their claim, and we should do this better.  What better place than for some poor wretch to be housed with family or friends or people of the same culture or refugee advocacy agencies who can provide until refugee status is granted (or declined)?

It’s time to stop treating asylum seekers as the problem in need of easy but tough solutions for political games, or as potential terrorists or criminals.  Sure, not all asylum seekers are genuine, but the vast majority are.  Those who are are no more a criminal risk to the broader community of citizens and permanent residents.  I’d even risk a frown or two to suggest saying they are less of a criminal risk.

You’ve got to… accentuate the positives.

It’s somewhat remiss of me having successfully ignored my blog.  The trouble is about my lack of confidence and esteem; I don’t have anything worthwhile to say, I’m not interesting and so on.  The point isn’t about whether I am dull and uninspiring, it’s whether I believe I’m insipid and tedious.  Which, unfortunately, I do, and since today is Australia Day (or Invasion Day if you prefer), now is the time to write something that will be buried in the bloggosphere amongst all the other national day blogs.

2010 was a tempestuous year for me.  End of a long term relationship, death of a pet, homelessness, multiple hospitalisations.  Oh, for a quiet, boring life.

Yet even as it’s easy to look at the negatives, many positive things happened too, and the year ended on a surge of positive self-discovery and that’s pretty much due to my American mate.  He views the world with child-like wonder.  His philosophy is simple; it is what it is.  His ability to extract joy from the simplest pleasures is astounding.  And this is what triggered my urge to look at myself anew.  Who am I really?  What do I like?  What makes me happy?  Sad?  Indifferent?  So here is a short list of what I’ve found so far:

• I’m not a leader, I’m a follower.  Yes, I’m fine with that now.  Not everyone can be a leader, which is just as well as I’ve often found myself frustrated in situations when there are too many chief and not enough indians.

• I like rules, except when they are stupid.  Yes, it sounds like a stupid thing to say, a bit like “I obey the laws I believe to be just and disobey the laws I believe to be unjust,” but really it means that I don’t control the rules of the game, and ought to stop thinking that I should.  A simple example is a game.  Sometimes a rule makes no sense or doesn’t reflect the real world; this frustrates me, but it’s about time I stopped worrying about it, getting bogged down in its syntax and semantics, and embraced the game as a whole, the broader picture.

• I ought to stop trying to justify myself when I don’t like something.  Not everything ought to be liked, it’s fine to have tastes and be discretionary and discriminating at a personal level.  I don’t like Tom Hanks films, for example.  Full stop.

• Now is the time to thank people instead of thinking “I don’t deserve any praise, well wishes or compliments.”  If someone says something lovely to me, it’s probably because they’re sincere and the proper thing for me to do is to humbly accept.

• I have friends, mates, for a reason.  If I were truly repulsive physically and emotionally then I wouldn’t have such terrific, loving people around me.

• Ask.  So what if someone thinks I’m an idiot for asking.  If I don’t ask, I can’t get or, worse, won’t be told.

• Rejection is as normal as acceptance.  It’s time to stop taking things personally; if I ask and someone says “No”, it probably isn’t because of me and in any case they don’t have to justify it.  After all, if I’m going to attempt articulate what I like and don’t like, want and don’t want without justification, then I shouldn’t expect anyone else too.

It’s a start.

So much to do, so little time.

There are so many things to do and I have no clues how to do it all.  That’s life in the big city.  There are hermetically sealed crates after hermetically sealed crates to get through (not my idea).  Clothes I’ll never wear ever again, books I can’t throw away, hats for display and hats for wearing, a TV from the dark ages and a monitor from the Cretaceous period.

I’d be happy to take them to a Good Sammy’s bin, but as I’m without private transport, that task is simply beyond me.  Some are easily solved: bin it.  Others not so simple, such as how do I move a 30kg TV when I can’t lift more than 10kg without my back simply collapsing under the strain.

However, I haven’t been idle.  I’ve been preparing for the arrival of my newly found American friend.  It’s meant drawing up an itinerary of activity, booking hotels, hire car, and so on.  I was hoping to book a room at Karri Valley Resort, but the last room was snapped up less than 1 day before I tried to book it, nearly 3 months out!  But that turned out to be a good thing: I found something cheaper in Margaret River, and we will travel through Pemberton to see the Karri forrests - Gloucester Tree & Diamond Tree included - on our way to Walpole’s Treetop Walk, Albany and Esperance.  Besides, Karri Valley will be full of, shudder, children being, well, annoying little children.

Christmas with the folks should be interesting: my American has never had a summer Chrissie, let alone all the delights of cold meats followed by a arvo nap then possibly a swim in the shark infested waters of the Southern Coast of Western Australia.  Not just any old sharks.  White pointers: The Great White shark.  Think Jaws.  But my mind is at ease knowing I’m more likely to die in the hire car during the trip there than be killed by a shark.

I’m quite looking forward to the journey as well as the destinations.  Plus I’m sure my guest will have the experience of a lifetime.  Something that so many of my fellow Westralians take for granted.

I have the best friends and family bar none.

Where to begin?  If you’ve read anything it has a happy ending.  Promise.

I have so many fantastic people to call friends and family and they have been very supportive during a difficult time.  However, it doesn’t end there.  So many people have helped in big and small ways to move me into my new flat, despite the worst efforts of myself and more so a certain government department who is supposed to assist people like me be independent, not co-dependent.

There are so many people to thank.  So many in fact it would be unfair to anyone to list them.  You know who you are.

So in no particular order a big thank you to Russ, Roz, Libby, Mum & Dad, Cath, Geoff, Caryn, Bruce, Ian and many, many more besides.

Thank you.

Normal service shall return shortly.

Does diagnosis help?

Sometimes I wonder about labels for the abstract and the concrete.  This may seem a surreptitious way to give the appearance of being busy.  I know better than that.  What better way to look at Mental Health week than to pry into the world of labels.
Since my early teens I struggled yet coped in some shape or form to deal with anxiety, depression and the disassociation I all simutaneously felt often without cause.  Exams made me more anxious than usual, as did the Christmas period for understandable reasons.  There was the apperition of a pattern when really none existed.  How I survived I really can't say.  It certainly wasn't mind over matter or will power: survival was by mere chance, and eventually the odds stacked against me.
1st label: acute major depression.
A box of pills and she'll be right, mate.  See you later (ie not at all).
Later that life… I was back.
2nd label Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
And on we go. 3rd & 4th labels were Chronic Major Depression with Psychotic Features.
Right. So now you think "Uh-oh, that's all we need: a bloody psycho."   Psychosis is an unfairly loaded word.  Another will appear shortly, but for now let's deal with the 'p' word.  Psychosis merely means hallucinations and so forth are real.  That's it.  As much as I love Hitchcock films, real 'psychos' don't randomly murder people.  If really bad, a psychotic person is much, much more likely to hurt themselves rather than other people.
So this time I thought - when my thoughts were ordered - "No biggie, just another episode of depression and the auditory hallucinations (hearing voices) had the upper hand."   Yes, that was true, however the team stated from scratch.  From both my reporting and my history, some new things were discovered, resulting in a slightly different twist of diagnosis: Schizoaffective Disorder.
Okay, I'm now waving goodbye to all those who now believe I'm a whack job.  Who doesn't stigmatise schizophrenia? You don't?  I don't believe you: to my shame I still have a negative attitude to schizophrenics, and I bet I've met far more in my life than you'll ever knowingly meet.
That aside, I'm not a schizophrenic, I know all the jokes and it's an awful illness.  Look up  schizoaffective disorder by google, bing or wiki.  The point is in my case I've never had mania or hypermania, just "normal" and depressed. I have auditory hallucinations. I'm not generally paranoid. During depression I tend to be very suicidal and require hospitalisation.  Does this new diagnosis change anything?  Not really.  The only change is instead of taking a prescibed anti-psychotic when feeling overwhelmed, I take it twice daily with room to take a little more when I know I'm struggling to be coherrent or my brain is too noisy.  That's all.
The prognosis isn't too good.  For example I'm more likely to kill myself than die of natural causes, but - excuse the black humour - I can live with that.  If the current anti-psychotic loses efficacy, the alternative drugs aren't a barrel of laughs and I'm not sure I could  live with that.  But let's not cross bridges before the chickens have hatched or get splinters from fitting on the cents.
Diagnosis, like a label, does help.  Without them we don't know how to handle the contents let alone know what the contents are.  However context is just as important. 

Noisy Brain Syndrome

If, by industry, man can do good
Then he should do so
Not to prove that he can
But that he could.

There isn't a lot now that I can add to my log of "voluntary" incarceration.   Except perhaps to add what Grand Poo-Bar, Mr Hodges, had to offer today. It may not be immediately apparent how I am currently.   That's mainly due to 25 plus years of lying, good acting and a hefty dose of denial.

What was different about Thurday or Friday?  VWell, my brand new iPhone 4 was stolen.  Not having a phone was inconvenient: what was unbearable was not having Stravinsky, Shostakovich, Gershwin. Beethoven (Symphony 7.2 is sublime) or Tchaikovsky was doing my head in.  Depression is bad enough, auditory hallucinations - the three personalities inside my head but outside - are hard to handle during an episode.

Mr Hodge held my tome of mental health history and noted an antipsychotic drug wasn't as effective as it should be & that despite of many symptoms being controlled, the depth & the depression have been increasing as well the severity of hallucinations/psychosis.

Instead of calling it schizophrenia, we decided on "Noisey Brain Syndrome".  As an example of how intrusive this is for this depressive episode, it's taken 5 hours to get this far plus a fair whack of Stravinsky and Shostakovich.

I'll find out Monday all the treatment option.  Some from the outset I won't entertain, like Electro-Convulsive therapy (ECT) or Lithium.  Better Living Through Chemistry.

The biggest shock was how friends, old and new, rallied together to help me: an old iPhone 3G for basic telephony and net access, and an iPod Shuffle for music.  I can't thank them enough.

I'm not sure how ordered this entry is.  Sometime in the future when I'm better, I'll read it and know.      

No platitudes, thanks.

4am.  What better time to blog?  Well, it’s just another symptom.  The lack of sleep is due mostly to an overactive brain curiously at odds with its depression.
Let's get some definitions out of the way early;
1) Generalised Anxiety Disorder (GAD): a state in which one is overly anxious all the time, and often - but not necessarily - suffering frequent Panic Attacks,
2) Chronic Clinical Depression: a condition in which the patient suffers low mood, interest and drive. and
3) Suicidal Tendencies (ST): a particular state in which the patient can only see one solution to end their psychological pain, that being suicide, and active plans or fantasises suicide.  Ok so these may not be DMIV/V definitions, but they will do.
A person, such as myself, can suffer all 3 conditions at the same time but more usually just 1 or 2 combinations at a y one time. Treatment is brutal, to say the least.  I've been here too many times before.
Knowing there is "the other side", i.e. wellness doesn't make surviving any more pleasant.  In a way it makes it harder.  When will the next episode be?  GAD leads to depression with ST.  In my case Depression is a dominant feature.  Over the 20+ I've learned to be a damn good liar, actor & identity theif in order to function.  Most chronic sufferers recognise this and detest themselves because of it. Soon the GAD surfaces, then depression with ST.
Make of that what you want, but certainly not a life I willing choose, want, seek or wish upon others.  At this point I thank family, friends, empathises, medicos and fellow sufferers for doing what they can to help me to "the other side", back to wellness.  It is amazing how many suffer quietly, too afraid to ask for help knowing that doing so will expose the lies they have led.
And me?  Well, the anxiety that led to writing this is rapidly evaporating.  Depression has an awful habit of griping one's goolies tightly with no intention of letting go.

Hospitals are hilarious

So, after whining like a whinging bitch, I received my wish. I'm now a psychiatric patient. Things don't get much lower. It's a low as shark shit. Any lower would be six feet under.
That's it for today. Whoopee.

The Twitterati and Scruff - I mean Stuff

Funny how life never turns out as planned, and sometimes I'm happy it doesn't.

Firstly a big shout out to the Twitterati.  Without Twitter, I'm not sure where I'd be right now.  The story is simple enough; for reasons beyond my control I had less than a week to move on from the temporary stay I had.  So a plea of help resulted in a wave of retreating.  The generosity of strangers to help - not only with accommodation - but also to move my meagre belongings (one bag and a backpack) had me staggering.

So for the time being I'm in a position of not having to worry.  Well, I worry, but at least I can concentrate on the main matter of rehabilitation at Shenton Park.  There are so many more things I can do now that I couldn't do a few months ago, and I'm really enjoying gym now.  Well… mostly.  I'll never have the body of an elite athlete so it's fortunate that I don't want one.  But I am stronger, and the added benefit is less back pain.  Most of the time.

That other niggling thing, the rheumatoid arthritis, hasn't been as kind (nor has the osteoarthritis for that matter), but it's good that the body isn't falling apart.  A new lot of medications seem to be more effective and the evidence is that my hands, wrists and back aren't as painful or stiff.  A handy side effect is that my posture is better and my other bits are, how should I say this… happier?  Yes, happier is a good start.  Happier in the mornings.  Happier in the evenings.  Happier at supper time…

Good news for some: the Caretaker government is over.  After seemingly a billion weeks the Gillard Labor government persuaded enough independents to have a majority of seats in the House of Representatives.  No, the sky didn’t fall in, and it didn’t fall in when it looked like a deadlock of 74 seats to Labor, 74 to the Liberal/National/Country Liberal/Liberal National conglomerate commonly known as the Bastards Coalition, with 76 seats needed to form a majority.  (It’d like to point out to the Liberal Party leader, Tony Abbott, that the Liberals didn’t win 72 seats as he oft claims; the Coalition won 71 with 1 WA National who will sit on the cross benches.)  So now we join the fate of other nations enjoying the benefits of a minority government.  No big deal; Western Australia has had a minority government for over 2 years now, and even though it’s a Liberal/National/Independent coalition, the sky hasn’t fallen in.  Surprisingly it seems voters don’t hate Premier Colin Barnett as much as they did when he was Opposition Leader.

Of course, the other big gig going on at the moment is my Fremantle Docker's progression through the finals.  With a big injury toll this season, like Barlow's broken leg (cop that, round-ball football fans with your diving and fake injuries), making it to 5th was a big deal.  But the bookies had us as an outside chance to beat 2008 Premiers, Hawthorn.  Stuff that. We buried them from the start.  Three hours later, tough questions were being asked of the Hawks.  How could they be thrashed by such a lowly regarded sided of teenagers?

The answer's easy.  The Hawthorn Hawks aren't as good as they think they are.

Next assignment: Geelong, Friday night at the MCG.  A lot of the Freo mob flew, bused, drove and trained across the continent.  Hopefully we'll get a full house and beat the Geelong Cats again. (We beat the reigning Premiers in round 3 this year, much to the shock of sporting journos).

The other news is a new iPhone app (what? Another one?)  Yes, this app is for a select clientele.  Like me.  It's amazing to think that there are so many like minded people all over the world.  Chatted to a few, but thought "just another way to be let down."  How wrong I've been.  In fact, there is some weird thing going on.

For starters, intelligent conversation isn’t dead.  A little further down the track I find someone that I know I just click with.  We’d click better if he wasn’t in the US, and 12 hours behind.  But as Dr Carl Sagan once said “Life finds a way,” and I’m curious to find out more!

A drug induced lucid dream and other dramas

This isn’t going to be easy, and it’s not worth pretending otherwise.  It’s more stream of consciousness than a thought exercise or well thought out opinion piece on one subject.

Inception.

Finally I decided to overcome my fear of a DiCaprio film.  Each character, bar Romeo in Romeo+Juliet, I saw DiCaprio and wilfully wished his character would die, and thankfully most of them did.  Christopher Nolan’s Inception would be the test, even though he probably thought the main character, Cobb, would have been filled by Heath Ledger at a guess.  I don’t know how long Nolan has been working on this film.

To my surprise, It was easier to let go of DiCaprio and see him as Cobb, a former “architect” and extractor driven by the desire to see his children.

A mysterious Japanese industrialist Saito (Ken Wantanabe) allows Cobb to assemble a team to do one last job, promising that should Cobb succeed, he’d make the charge that Cobb killed his wife Mallory (Marion Cotillard) vanish, so that Cobb can reunite with his children in the USA.  In Return Saito wants Cobb to perform an inception on his rival Fischer (Cillian Murphy), the son of the dying Maurice Fischer (Pete Postlethwaite).  Fischer is haunted by his father’s disappointment in him.  Keeping the massive business going is Fischer’s driving force to prove his father wrong.

Inception is planting a seed, a thought, in the subject’s mind without them knowing it.  By a process of drug induced sleep in which the extractor and his team share the dream with the subject, the extractor can find the information the subject has locked away in a metaphorical safe in their subconscious.  The subject creates their world, however each member of the team contributes to the dream to make it more plausible than reality, and by this process the subject unwittingly opens the safe or exposes it to the extractor.

The team consists of the architect Ariadne (Ellen Page), a graduate student of Cobb’s father-in-law and mentor (Michael Caine) whose responsibility is to create a world for Fischer, the forger (Tom Hardy) who researches Fischer’s associates - mainly his godfather and Fischer’s fellow executive Peter Browning (Tom Berenger) - to keep the inception going by adding another layer of reality to the shared dream.  Yusif, the chemist (Dileep Rao), is needed to make the right combination of sedatives to keep the team dreaming.  Finally Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is Cobb’s associate and lookout, searching for possible ambushes and other threats inside the dream.

But there are complications in this one last job. Cobb’s deceased wife “Mal” frequently appears due to Cobb’s unwillingness to let her go from his subconscious.  She feels betrayed by Cobb after they shared a dream together, in which she believes Cobb abandoned her in Limbo, breaking their promise they would grow old together.  As a result, she’ll do almost anything to make Cobb suffer in his inceptions, even trying to sabotage them.

The only way to wake from the dream is either by being killed in the dream, or by “the kick”; the sudden unexpected sensation of falling.  It’s Yusif’s job to make the sedatives strong enough to induce sleep, but enable any member of the team to feel the kick when needed.

Additionally each team member must have a token with unique properties that only they know about; in the real world they work as expected, such as Cobb’s small spinning top which eventually slows down and stops.  In a dream, the top continues spinning forever.

The timing of the dreams must be precise, as during a dream as much as a few hours can pass in 5 minutes of real time.  This precision is required as Cobb usually uses the technique of a dream within a dream for his extraction, planting a second inception in the second dream to delve even further into the subject’s subconscious by layering the deception but further dilating time.  Arthur as the lookout uses Edith Piaf’s Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien as an auditory cue to so he can induce a kick within a dream to the others.

Fischer is constantly travelling between Sydney and Los Angeles, a 10 hour flight across the Pacific, and this provides the necessary time window needed for Cobb and his team, including Saito - insisting on being a tourist on the job - to ambush Fischer into being an unwilling subject so that Cobb can conduct industrial espionage for Saito.  But things go awry very quickly, and every member has to think fast to find a way of avoiding the very real hazard of ending up in limbo forever, unable to wake up.

Inception is reminiscent of The Matrix or Memento. What appears to be real frequently isn’t and vice versa. It’s definitely not a fluffy film one would watch casually as it requires attention to detail and an attention span greater than a few minutes.  I enjoyed Nolan’s attention to detail; for example Fischer’s private jet in Sydney is registered in Australia (its tail registration begins with VH-.)  Also the detail of Paris and other cities is first rate.  The suspension of disbelief is easy (even if for me Cobb does become DiCaprio a little too often).

The story of Cobb’s wife, Mal, as the antagonist, and defenders - the parts of a subject’s mind which try to kill the the team and thus the inception in much the same way as a bodies’ immune cells detect and kill foreign invaders - ensures there is never a dull moment.

Well, there is one dull and extraordinary boring world; Cobb and Mal’s dream when they achieve limbo and survive.  The architecture is amazingly boring, uninspiring and copy-paste repetitive.  It looks like a grey never-ending Gold Coast without a single plant of any description. (In the real world the Gold Coast is remarkably unimaginative and dull with plants.)  As an architect in the dream world, the impossible isn’t, such as the Penrose Stairs (the most famous example being by M.C. Escher) which Arthur demonstrates to Ariadne as an example of how dreams aren’t constrained by logic or physics.

Fortunately Inception isn’t as boring or as predictable as Cobb’s architecture.  Right down to the the last millisecond.  It’s not flawless and it won’t win DiCaprio an Oscar (thank god), but it’s possibly worth seeing more than once since it takes a minute to understand the difference between dream and reality; possibly most of the whole film for some.  I’ll probably watch it again even though I know I won’t get the same experience of surprise and satisfaction of knowing which depth of dream the film is in.  I found the plot remarkably easy to follow yet is it solid and interesting in its own right.  Also there are some scenes due to the CGI or fast-paced action that would be worth looking at again.  Unfortunately for me, the cinema had the sound levels all over the place, with the score often much louder than the dialogue, which was very annoying, often distracting.  I doubt there will be much debate over a coffee about what actually happened after the movie.

4 stars (just) from me.

Who is the real Meryl Dorey?

It came as no surprise to me that the self proclaimed leader of the Australian Vaccination Network (AVN), Meryl Dorey, has disappeared from view after the NSW Health Care Complaints Commission upheld a complaint that the AVN “…the AVN provides information that is inaccurate and misleading.”  Instead of providing information to parents about vaccines - the benefits and the risks - Dorey and the AVN chose to be anti-vaccination crusaders, which is fine, but one can’t be an anti-vaccination advocate while spread mistruths, lies and the distortion of facts and claim to be giving a balanced view on vaccinations to parents.

It gets worse for Dorey.  The AVN is registered as a charity with the NSW Office of Liquor and Gaming, which audited the AVN books after complaints that the AVN wasn’t acting as a charity, or properly declaring income and expenses, as well as improperly fundraising.  The AVN has just under 3 weeks to show cause as to why it should be allowed to continue to hold its charity licence.

Is that enough?  Not for me.  The AVN and Dorey have been referred to the NSW Department of Justice for possible offences.  It will be up to the NSW Director of Public Prosecutions to decide if there is a case for Dorey and the AVN to answer.  I would imagine this would include fraud, deception and possibly stealing as a servant.  Also the AVN operate all over Australia and are not confined to NSW.  This is a matter the Commonwealth Agencies such as the ACCC and the AFP should be investigating in cooperation with NSW.

If not for the continued pressure by victims of the AVN, Australian sceptics, balanced investigative journalism by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s Four Corners (using the BBC’s Horizon program the 7:30 Report and Lateline, and other media organisations, and a properly conducted campaign by various people, including Twitter users with the hashtag #stopAVN, the issue would never have come to light.  (Without wanting to pump up my own tires, I’ve blogged a little about the AVN before in oblique references.)

The legal and moral issues are not solely on the AVN’s shoulders.  Since way back many, many scientists and the organisations they have worked for have breached the public trust.  It’s now at a point where distrust of science is very high.  This is somewhat unfair in that it has been sham or ill-motivated scientists and pseudoscience that have brought disrepute,  not science itself.  Nonetheless, the public have turned more to woo, such as homeopathy or naturopathy.  However any prosecution of the AVN is welcome in a sceptic, scientific light, as well as a legal one, such as Alastair Hope’s Coronial Inquest into the death of Penny Dingle involving homeopathy.

It’s not the role of science to tell people how to live their lives, or in the case of medical science which course of action must be taken by the patient.  Rather, it’s there as advice for an adult audience to take on board, so that the pros and cons can be properly considered.

The difference between science and woo is simple; woo makes claims that can’t be verified and only have positive testimonies to back it up - negative testimonies are simply discarded - while science is a sceptical, logical approach, testing using the randomised double blind methodology whenever applicable and peer reviewed before being accepted for publishing by reputable journals (e.g. Nature).  Journals such as Nature or Lancet often insist on further investigations and trials before publishing, as they don’t want their reputation tarnished in any way.

So, back to Dorey.  Now that the regulators are clearly not happy with her or the AVN, why has she refused to refute the claims against her and the AVN?  Why has she stopped giving media interviews? (Self promotion has been her strength.)  Hardly the actions of someone who believes what she is doing is right and proper, I would allege.  Or perhaps her legal counsel has told her to wait to see if charges are laid against her, using her right to silence.

Despite my anti-AVN stance, I’m hoping she has been simply stupid, foolish, incompetent or a combination thereof, rather than being malicious and deliberately irresponsible.

Mad dogs and Englishmen.

It’s fair to say that when all else fails, hug your teddy.  I wrote about mental health issues, specifically depression, in my last blog, so I won’t repeat all of that here.  Instead I want to chronicle as best I can what’s been happening to me.

The short answer is it’s getting worse, despite doing everything right.  I’m exercising more; walking, gym, hydrotherapy all courtesy of Royal Perth Hospital’s LEAP at Shenton Park Campus for my ongoing rehabilitation of my spinal injuries.  I’m hoping that a fitter, leaner more active me, plus all the surrounding issues about chronic pain management, will mean more control and less medication.  In theory that should mean I should be happier.  Indeed the staff and other patients in the programme are very supportive.

Yet despite this, my mood is deteriorating rapidly.  I’m finding it harder to engage.  I’m not enjoying most things I’m doing.  Gym has become a little refuge as I can do that on my own with the physiotherapists simply looking on and only giving advice when necessary.  Using the rowing machine I can block out the world to some extent, and focus on the rhythm which can be hypnotic.

Today has been the first time in nearly a week I’ve turned on my MacBook Pro.  I’ve had so many brilliant (I hope) ideas for writing and I fear that if I begin it will consume me, as there seems to be a strong link between low mood and a desire to write a lot of material.  Perhaps it’s catharsis; writing somehow purges the darkest realms of my mind, or releases months of pent up frustrations or is simply a relief valve for my passive-aggressive habitat.  Whatever the reason, the end result is a counter intuitive burst of productivity to the detriment of my health.  There comes a time when the burst bursts, the fingers no longer type or the mind no longer creates.

If by some circumstance I become famous due to my authorship, the last thing I want is to be seen as a tortured soul or some tragic figure, brooding and dark.  Which is a problem since that becomes a voice that persuades me to submit less work than I should, or worse, not finish the umpteenth draft when I should.  The obsession with words is intoxicating.  The way they look written down, how they sound, the juxtaposition against other words. The interaction of rules and knowing exactly how to break them and when.  Knowing what’s clever and what’s pure compositionally wank.

That aside, the more tangible elements of my world are visible to anyone; the strangely teary eyes for no apparent reason, the pessimism, the seeking of comfort or solace in meaningless events, the total disregard to diet by either becoming unable to eat or gorging on fast food, unabashed anger over the insignificant contrasting with an impotence with the crucial, being unable to sleep for days on end despite a combination of exhaustion, sedatives and hypnotics, and dark thoughts that are both a comfort and alarming.  When the alarm stops the real danger begins.

Why write this publicly?  That I don’t know.  I’m not asking to be rescued, pitied, or derided for that matter.  There is some disconnect here; when I think of how I look and compare that image to what I think I see in a mirror or photo, the contrast could not be more stark, akin to believing oneself to being a thoroughbred race horse at the pinnacle of it’s career but seeing a dying elephant and knowing the dying elephant is closer to the reality.  A deep imbedded loathing of everything said, done and thought of myself.  A hatred of everything ugly and beautiful and not able to tell the difference.

Somewhere a long time ago the train derailed.  So long ago the reasons are obscured or forgotten and it matters not which.  The question becomes how to continue wading on in this waist deep rancid treacle that is my life.  A distant but powerful beacon tells me it will get better, it will, yet it is difficult to believe and harder see each time I see a glimpse of it.  These are the times I want to sleep forever.

Everything is robotic now.  I do because an alarm tells me when to get out of bed.  A timetable tells me when to catch a train.  A schedule tells me what I am to do for whichever day it is, and all the bloody days may as well be the bloody same because none have any joy about them.  Why celebrate a Friday when Monday is only a blink away, and the process begins all over again?

Depression is different for everyone.  The depth, the length, the breadth, the obstacles, the cycle and the outcomes of each episode.  Some may only experience it once (thankfully), for others they find a therapy that stabilises their life.  The possibilities don’t bear thinking about for the moment, at least they don’t for me.

Now I don’t want anyone thinking of this as a document of despair, or a hopeless confession or a cry for help.  In times past I couldn’t think straight enough to bother writing a suicide note, which was a pointless exercise anyway since my track record of suicide is woeful.  It must be since I’m writing this.  In any case I’m lucid for now, and acutely aware of the assistance available to me.

The unexpected positive is that I could not care less about any physical pain I have, as if it simply isn’t there.