KainAsylum

: kainasylum; August 8th, 1:47

For anything to be considered of worthy value, it must be attained through a sufficient ordeal. Suffering is the true currency through which we gain the attention of souls.

Time is the only resource we truly own... we have only a finite amount to spend on ourself and others... and we will never have enough time to please everybody whose path we cross. Disappointment on both sides is inevitable.

"What do I want?"

Truth makes happen what needs to happen... and so when faced with a difficult choice, you can only refer to your personal compass to guide you towards the identity you are willing to bond with... for your truth is your identity, and there is no absolute truth as much as there is a truth that you choose to fall in love with for that time in your life.

To believe in something... to have a policy on your actions is to protect yourself from future regrets by staying true to the identity you have chosen for yourself. When faced with a difficult choice, then the path that coincides with who you want to be is the right path because the difficult choice itself is marked by suffering and, therefore, is a decision of worthy value that can define you, or at the very least, reinforce who you are.

Being who you are might mean hurting others, but it has to be that way because obligation at the sacrifice of identity is never a valid path to happiness.

You always have a choice on who you want to be.
You always have the option to just wake up one day and choose to be "that person".

"What is my identity?"

Sometimes, the situation is too chemically charged to see what you need to see. That is why we develop a relationship with "the other"... the friend, the confidant, the god, the goddess... "The other" is a sentient representation of the universe that we trust with our identity. The other can be a living human being, or it can be something more abstract. We keep a piece of our soul with the other so that if we ever lose ourself, we can simply refer to "the other" to be reminded of our own reflection.

"What do I want to become?"

Choices are an opportunity to expand the definition of who we are. Once defined in a new area, subsequent choices in the future can become more apparent.

My "other" would tell me this:

Let your intentions drive your reality instead of the other way around. Visualize the lego castle you wish to have... and one by one, those missing pieces will find their place because you will explore, and you will discover, build, and place them with your own hands. Define your target: Your self-intended identity, the reality you seek - That is your compass. Follow that, and all of your choices eventually become the choice you needed to make at the time to evolve the complex entity that is you.

Tags: therapy

Today

: kainasylum; July 25th, 8:56

Today is the day
that it all goes to hell.
It starts with a whisper
and ends with sixteen bells.

You start out with nothing
Believing in something
And throughout it all,
you hear the bells ring.

Ringing and ringing,
a dark scattered singing
The bells won't stop stinging

But the tears you weep
The friends you keep
and the love you reap
lead you to that truth you seek.

Today is the day
that it all comes together,
In the present as I am
and with this weather.

Tags: therapy

Identity Restore

: kainasylum; July 18th, 22:33

Last night and today, I am reminded of a fundamental truth...

My friends range from professional to geeky to saccharin sweet to stoned to yagerbomb drunk... and I am a combination of all of them.

Whenever I feel lost and without center, I can go to my friends and be reminded of who I am after all is said and done. For whatever reason, I am the one that they choose to be with.

Thank you for remembering what I'm supposed to be.

Tags: therapy

The Looking Glass Amplifier

: kainasylum; July 13th, 22:04

"You're not a mirror, Kain."

"Then what am I?"

"You're a signal amplifier. A love freak. You absorb identities from those around you, and then you project the amplified identity back in their general direction. To the nice ones, you become a saint. The assholes see you as uber asshole. And the apathetic ones believe that you have a life that has no room for them. It's almost perfect."

"Almost?"

"Almost. You waste a lot of energy by collecting so many signals that your systems get internal interference. You have no sense of identity because your system is overloaded with all of the input you've been getting. That is why you've been such a recluse, lately... because you've stopped generating signals of your own. Focus on meaningful inputs. You'll be able to adopt a consistent identity and project a more focused signal that actually belongs to you. You've been focusing your reception on a lot of dead receivers. That energy goes nowhere. Hence, you are stretched thin and exhausted with very little to show for it."

"What does that mean?"

"It means... Quit fucking collecting and holding on to people as if they were goddamn Pokemons. You can't amplify all of those reflections without losing yourself in the process."

"Fuck you, Goodwill :)"

"Fuck you, too, Kain :)"

Tags: therapy

The Underlying Cycle

: kainasylum; July 6th, 22:17

George C. Vaillant met his wife at the age of 29 in 1930. He was a prominent anthropologist working on pre-Columbian Aztec digs. She was the daughter of a successful expatriate American banker. Together, they had a storybook romance. His son would be born 4 years later in 1934; George C. Vaillant was 33 at the time. At the age of 35, he gave up the excavation lifestyle and settled down in the world of museums and universities. The family of three led a charmed life. During the time of the Great Depression, they employed a nurse, a maid, and a cook within their household. George C. Vaillant continued his life as a successful museum curator, professor, published writer, and father... until 1945.

At the age of 44, George C. Vaillant was found by his wife... dead in their own back yard from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.

His son, George E. Vaillant (Jr.), was 10 years old at the time. He was the last to see his father alive.

( The Life of Junior )

His father's traumatic suicide was a double-edged sword that had changed his life forever. He gave up his own persistent Communion to become a manifestation of Agency to give his father's death meaningful context. George E. Vaillant died at the age of 10 when his father died, and in that child's place emerged an insatiable unbridled formless energy that would help millions around the world understand what may have happened to his father that day in their back yard.

Inspired by this article

Tags: life, sociology, therapy

The Duality of Perfection

: kainasylum; June 9th, 23:32

When you introduce yourself to someone, you show them the most perfect version of yourself.
Your potential employer, mate, or cool new friend of a friend.
You start with the version you've deemed fit for presentation to the world:
Beautiful, intelligent, charming, and successful.

Perfection is to be expected.

But the more we expect perfection, the more we notice the cracks within ourselves in stark contrast.
And then we have a choice...
to either drown in self-judgment until we give up on stopping the bleed from the ever-widening cracks.
or embrace these imperfections and find a way to thrive, regardless.

We are beautiful because of our imperfections.
And that is how we survive.

Tags: therapy

Silhouettes and Intentions

: kainasylum; June 4th, 22:34

Like is when you are willing to share an experience.
Love is when you are willing to share an identity.

The absence of both, shared experience and identity, is neither like nor love... It is resource management.

I am thankful for my friends and lovers who graciously offer me an identity when I don't know who I am.

Tags: life, sociology, therapy

Whatever it takes...

: kainasylum; May 25th, 0:15

Goodwill, here. Kain is away at the moment, and so I figure I would hijack his journal to give away his deepest secret: The reason why.

He is looking for context. Meaning. We all are. Like most of us, he wants to know that the things we did do matter, that we matter... and that the suffering and effort meant something - nothing wasted. The narrative has a happy ending when the random set of generic events come together in a system that makes sense to him... with every observable action having meaningful context. The entropy of the world makes sense when everything has a context... As if the universe were a living sentient entity that one could have a real two-way relationship with.

Every conversation we have, every movie we see, game we play, thing we read, in everything we do, we seek context that promises the potential to affect our future thoughts in a never-ending drive to modify our own internal genetic algorithms. Anything without personal context ultimately renders the experience empty or irrelevant.

We try so very hard to seek that relationship with our universe. It is the only way we know how to interact with our world: as a relationship with a sentient being. full of context. empathy. with likes and dislikes. To have a relationship with an entity is to have control over how that entity affects us. This control manifests as an identity: the labels that we allow ourselves to wear and the verbs implied by those labels.

We are not looking for truth. We never were. We never are. We are looking for what the truth would promise us: meaning. emotional context. an identity we can call our own. understanding. control. peace with what we believe to be our own truths. validation from an "other".

We seek out this context in the various forms of media and interactions that reflect back at us... mixing ourselves with ingredients to experience the alchemy that makes us... Gravitating towards the edges of silhouettes that belong to forms worthy of our recognition.

So when that little voice in your head tells you to be afraid or just lay down, play it safe, and take it easy, then ask yourself:
"Why not? The truth is... we're all gonna fucking die someday... so let's just do this."

Our emotions, both good and bad, are driven by our own context... and suffering is the currency through which we acquire validation.

Tags: life, sociology, therapy

Wise words on Judgement

: kainasylum; May 14th, 9:39

From Glenda and Matthew...
"When you answer somebody's questions, then that is advice.
But if you give advice without being asked, then that is judgement."

Tags: life, referenceinfo, sociology, therapy

Sources of Endorphins

: kainasylum; April 15th, 23:17

Four days without smoking. I am experiencing a distinct lack of endorphins. Choices are as follows:

~~Prescription Drugs (Smoking cessation, anti-depressants)~~
~~Illegal Drugs (marijuana, heroin, meth, ecstasy, etc.)~~
~~Cigarettes (again)~~
~~Orgasms~~
Physical Pain
Herbal supplements
Laughter

Tags: life, therapy

Heaven and Hell of Your Own Making

: kainasylum; April 11th, 9:50

The weird thing is... I can understand that mother's mind (WARNING, THESE ARE GRAPHIC IMAGES):
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1168424/I-send-son-heaven-Hell-Chilling-moment-mother-executes-boy-firing-range.html

I would not have completely understood these motivations a few months ago had I not been touched by the madness, myself. Events over the last few months with somebody who believed she was "Lilith" and the effect it had on me have brought me to understand the link between madness and one's drive to be significant. That one thing that people look for is the most powerful drive in a person's psyche. We find comfort in having a form to internalize, an identity to covet, validation that we do exist... and the easiest thing to do is to leave the source of that significance up to faith... Meaning bestowed from the great unknown... Invisible to the human eye but real to the beholder because our perceptions are as real as we make them.

We can make them, and then we can act on them... all in our wonderful little vacuum of existence.

And so once again, I am reminded that...
The will to be significant is more powerful than the will to live.
... and this is the first step towards making your own Heaven and Hell.

Tags: life, sociology, therapy

Madness... Setting In

: kainasylum; March 20th, 23:26

"It happened again, today. That feeling of madness that sets in when you suddenly get a flash of seeing and knowing more than your brain can hold. It feels like being in a giant dark empty room the size of the universe, and all that's in it is yourself and the plain white chair that you are sitting on... the walls far beyond what your eyes can fathom. No matter which direction you look, you see the same 360-degree view. I lost it... and I had to scream, and then I ran as fast as I could for as long as I could until I was exhausted. And then it became clear. I don't know how, but I think I know why you're doing this, Goodwill."

"Do you, now?"

"You think that in this maddening chaos, I'll see the pattern... the truth that I choose to ignore in my desperate cling to order through the things I do that bring me closer to a life that makes sense to most people."

"See anything you like?"

"I saw the lives of people in middle America... with as much energy and ambition to be a hero as I have... they wish to be something great before they die, yet they are unable to do anything but live their life as they can because their chances for options were limited. These weren't just people in middle America, these were people everywhere... close to me and far away. Trapped inside their bodies living a mundane existence, relegated to a life of survival, screaming to escape... being held up by one thing."

"And what was that one thing? Something you don't have, perhaps?"

"They have a home that feels like home... with people around them that they see on a regular basis."

"What is it that you are afraid of more than anything else in this world, Kain?"

"That nobody will notice... that I'll always feel homeless."

"After all is said and done, you are nothing special, Kain. You're a piece of shit... just like everyone else."

"I don't know why I let you talk to me like this. You are a fucked up dumb stuffed animal that I got at a Thrift store!"

"Embrace the entropy. You're the one who gave me life."

"Goodwill... "

"It doesn't matter what I am. What will you do now, Kain?"

"I will become a caricature of a human being to those who can see me. I'll give them a fantasy that I will never be able to live up to when examined closely."

"And what good would this do?"

"I've tried being an agent of order for a long time, now. Something is not working. It is time for me to become an agent of chaos. We'll see what happens."

"Every creation is preceeded by destruction. Every destruction is preceeded by creation. You need both. Order will naturally invite opportunities for entropy, and only in chaos will you see the mathematical pattern arise from what seemingly starts out as noise."

Tags: life, referenceinfo, sociology, therapy

Know Thyself... and Others

: kainasylum; March 8th, 19:52

Current Music:: Iggy Pop - The Passenger

We all say that we are self aware. Hardly anyone ever says that they're not... but how do I know if I'm really all that aware? How do we know if anyone is really that aware when they will always tell you that they are?

INPUT
Awareness of the what streams of information exist around us and how we filter those streams would govern our ability to adopt optimal streams for our own purposes.

SORTING
Awareness of how we process the information that we take in allows us to examine that process and make adjustments to our machine as needed.

OUTPUT
The people around us make up the relevant world that we interact with, and the shape of our interactions are the result of the way we use the information that we decide to adopt. We have an effect on the people around us whether or not we intend for that effect. At any one time, we have a choice to either blame external entities for misperceiving our output or dealing with the results of that misperceived output by clarifying and/or adjusting the way we transmit our signal. This signal we transmit is the only window that others have into our own existence.

Taking responsibility for our awareness...

of what we take in
how we sort
and what we transmit

... empowers us to command our sphere of existence as we convert...

WILL (communion - the drive to be)
to ACTIONS (agency - the drive to do).

Naturally, we are not alone; this world is full of actions driven by the will of sentient beings. Interactions with any sentient being involves an exchange, SHARING, or clash of intentions. Being neutral simply makes you a pawn for the intentions of others who manifest their wills in specific areas that they have found opportunity in. If you give up your will to be aware within any of those three categories (input, sorting, output), then somebody else will happily provide a reality for those three categories on your behalf.

To be unaware of yourself and others is to become a passenger in the universe... and quite possibly a victim to the will of others.

This problem is made visible by patterns. Strip away the variables and identify the constants. Every problem has a start point and a desired end point... The solution is a series of smaller problems.

Time is the only ingredient that we do not control. It imposes its will upon us, and we have no choice but to abide by its constraints.

Tags: career, life, referenceinfo, sociology, therapy

Power Distance index

: kainasylum; February 8th, 14:57

Yesterday, I realized what an amazing privilege it is to have a friend that you share a common meta-vocabulary with. One can easily find people that speak the same language (i.e. English), but it is so very rare to find somebody who might share the same level of mindsets and thought spaces to the point where a conversation almost feels like internal monologue.

Lately, I'm finding these irregular meetings with Quoc to bring up delta-inducing thoughts worth noting:

Experiments have shown that shocking a rat at random intervals will eventually result in the rat afraid to do anything... and so it just sits there and does nothing. Personal translation: Barriers of fear caused by intermittent negative reinforcement can result in symptoms of depression where the brain is unable to generate enough energy to overcome those barriers... sometimes taking the form of "think exhaustion"... where thinking becomes a tiresome activity in itself
Cultural Power Distance Index (PDI): [http://www.clearlycultural.com/geert-hofstede-cultural-dimensions/power-distance-index/] This can be described as the degree to which a culture is inclined to defer to heirarchy as their place on the totem pole... complacent with their identity in asymetrical relationships. Incidentally, Asian cultures and France are pretty high on that rating while Western cultures, such as the United States, are low on that rating. What this means is that the chain of command is much more authoritarian in France and Asia than here in the U.S. There seems to be a correlation between PDI ratings and the use of honorifics in the language

I went to two different social gatherings last night. Tre's Rock Band party was very casual, relaxed, and full of people who reached out. I had to reluctantly leave to meet a Vietnamese acquaintance of mine nameed Victor from the college days whom I had not seen in a long time. We were to rendezvous with some of his friends in downtown. His friends were also Vietnamese, college educated, and from the old world (meaning they still have accents). They were very insular and spent most of the night drinking and going club hopping to meatmarket bars where the music was too loud to have conversation. Four of them were coupled... possibly married, and they were in their late 30s at the youngest, making them likely to be the oldest folks in the bars that they were choosing to go to.

Note to self: Never let myself fall into a situation like that ever again. The meat-market bar scene is not my bag, and neither is hanging out with insular Vietnamese adults who are trying to catch up on feeling like they are cool.

As I was watching the interactions between the male-female pairs within the group, I could not help but feel that they were following a script that I might have seen on TV. And then it dawned on me: Their worlds make sense to them. The script is meaningful. The people were happy with a mate that has obvious and predictable happy buttons because it is like having a puppy who will love you if you pet him. The "obvious happy buttons" factor would allow for the other half's self identity to fit an unambiguous role, reinforced by the partner's behaviors in response to that role. The script followers engaged in asymetrical relationships where their sense of superiority were complementary and orthogonal to each other.

Definitive quote: "My man can be a dog sometimes, but I know how to keep him in check."

I do not see this level of script following amongst most of my Western friends. Juli made an observation that American culture tends to favor partner relationships while Asian culture tends to value asymetrical relationships.

Conclusions:

High PDI cultures will gravitate towards a sense of identity that involves asymetrical relationships in both, business and romance, as a means maintaining familiarity with how the world works... or at least how the world is supposed to work
Low PDI cultures will gravitate towards a questioning of established thought structures as a manifestation of the individual's quest to become a self-sufficient unit.
The word "partner" is more prevalent in low PDI cultures, while the word "duty" is more prevalent in high PDI cultures
I have unknowingly carried a seething disdain for high PDI cultures without knowing that there was an official term for them

Tags: referenceinfo, sociology, therapy

Entitlement, Equilibrium, and Value

: kainasylum; December 31st, 2008

Our three forces seek an equilibrium with reality by emitting signals whenever we are heading towards something unsustainable with our body, our surroundings, and our spirit. In our journey of collecting resources and sorting them to our liking, we inherently develop a goal for the way the world should be sorted... those things we "need to experience" before we die and lose it all. Sometimes, the "shoulds" are dependent on mind and body to comply, and sometimes they are a burden we place on the world around us to comply with our expectations of the way things should be.

This is where our sense of entitlement comes from. We feel entitled to HAVE, DO, and BE certain things, and anything less than that is seen as a loss of our self-intended identity's equilibrium with perceptual reality. Entitlement is not a bad thing, but our expectations on ourselves and the world around us don't always pan out the way we think they "should". At that point, we have a choice of either maintaining our current expectations in the hopes of garnering a different future outcome based on changes in external variables, or we can internally change our expectations to seek a different notion of equilibrium.

Human brains are inherently not wired to incorporate time and distance into our perceptions of comparative value. We never stray very far from the baby's fascination with what is right in front of us; our brains are hard wired to want what we see, and accept what we see as the pieces that make up our reality, which then contributes to the identity that we feel entitled to. To go beyond the here and now takes mental discipline. An infinite supply of mental discipline would give a person the ability to perceive the value of things beyond time and space... but the farther you go, the farther you peer into the distance and into the future, the more you lose yourself, your humanity, and your conduit to the world around you. Eventually, you'll need to come back to the near and present to avoid starvation, and when you do, the memories of that far life might serve as a blueprint for the actions you will need to take here and now.

Punch the ground! It begins in three places.

Tags: life, sociology, therapy

Epiphany #242

: kainasylum; November 5th, 2008

So obvious, I know, but I tend to be a late bloomer when it comes to these things. Thanks for instigating these thoughts, Quoc...

"I've decided that I can't blame myself for every criticism that comes my way. Some people are just toxic.

It's a dangerous line for me to simply say it's not my fault, but it is better for me to move on and cut people out of my life instead of putting myself in situations that make me feel bad in some self-abusive way."

Tags: therapy

"I", Savior no more

: kainasylum; October 6th, 2008

Current Mood:: calm

Current Music:: The Postal Service - Nothing Better

When I heard that the boy was tragically orphaned, I seriously considered adopting him as a single parent... because I can... and the world would look more like me.

That's when it dawned on me.

My hero complex had been a source of pride for a very long time. I identified with the hero archetype, but this savior complex comes from a dark place. It began as a reaction to the fact that I can't stand to see people hurting... especially those close to me. This level of empathy seems noble enough, at first. I wanted to have the abilities of a hero so that I could have the freedom to be useful to this world in every way I have to offer. I wanted to help the world, the city, my community, and most of all, I wanted to protect my friends from bad situations.

They never asked to be saved. They never really asked to be helped. Most I try to help will not even know I exist or that I'm trying. I simply had an unhealthy need to place myself in a role as their savior.

This comes from a dark place: The hero identity is a role I play that gives me a place in this world as an affirmation of my existence. In the process, I inadvertently put those I help into the opposite role... that of the hapless victim. In the worst cases, my role as savior magnifies and reinforces their role as victim without helping them in sustainable ways.

That dark place stems from a combination of...

my own desparate insatiable need for the love of others... as many as I can possibly "earn"
a secret-not-so-secret general lack of faith in people's ability to get themselves out of bad situations without my intervention
intense guilt issues associated with a narcissistically overpowered sense of agency with reguards to outcomes in other people's lives

The last thing my father said on his deathbed was "How is my family going to eat?" He was suffering from dementia at the time, but that thought was focused in his mind like a laser beam as he repeated that over and over until he was unable to form words. Those were probably the thoughts that consumed his brain in his final moments. My father's history would indicate that he has been an intensely selfish man... but his identity was tied to his ability to be a caretaker and shepherd to others.

That is a glimpse of what I can become if I'm not careful: a selfishly motivated egotistical caretaker saving others when he doesn't really want to and making the wrong sacrifices for the wrong reasons. This hero complex was never really about nobility, it was about my own overbearing narcissism. Recent occurences have made that particular truth about me painfully obvious, and I had to lose something very special in order to really learn that lesson.

The title of this fable would be "The Prince and the Valkyrie".

Tags: life, sociology, therapy

Looking Glass Self: KainAsylum

: kainasylum; September 22nd, 2008

I am until I'm not.

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

"Created by Charles Horton Cooley in 1902 (McIntyre 2006), the looking-glass self^[1] is a sociological concept that has three major components and is unique to humans (Shaffer 2005). According to Lisa McIntyre’s The Practical Skeptic: Core Concepts in Sociology, in the looking-glass self a person views himself or herself through others' perceptions in society and in turn gains identity. Identity, or self, is the result of the concept in which we learn to see ourselves as others do (Yeung & Martin 2003). The looking-glass self begins at an early age and continues throughout the entirety of a person’s life as one will never stop modifying their self unless all social interactions are ceased."

For the longest time, I've associated meaning with suffering. I wanted to be meaningful to the world around me, and the only way I knew how to do that is to follow models set by tragic heroes in various forms of media who accomplished great things and achieved sufficient density to their existence through personal trials and tribulations. It was the pain they experienced that made them survivors, and that history of survival gave them the strength to overcome and thrive in adverse situations.

I wanted to be like that. When I ran out of villains to fight, I began to fight myself. I embraced tragedy and held onto it because I had no identity without pain. To me, happy people were empty people. I identified with the concepts of redemption, guilt, and ultimately a bitter self-hatred for the sins of my own past... somebody I used to be that I'm not, anymore.

I've embraced that for long enough. It is time to let that go. I'd rather be crazy than sad. I'd rather be delusional than emo. There is a law of controlled entropy that governs the flow of my agency. Lucky general, synchronicity, solipsism... call it what you will... I am content being what I am... until I choose to be something else.

Hence, I have renamed this journal from "ihatekain" to "kainasylum". That's what this is.

Tags: life, sociology, therapy

Dealing With Anger

: kainasylum; July 31st, 2008

I learned something about myself today... I am a one or a zero when it comes to anger. I keep it in and seem zen from the outside until one special button is pressed... and then I EXPLODE. This is the behavior I learned growing up. It was the how my father made himself feel like a man... by being angry.

As a child, I was probably the angriest kid in the neighborhood. I had since learned to bury that anger under a seemingly calm demeanor. But I nurture a lot of anger buttons: Betrayal, incompetence, unfairness... all of these buttons stem from recurring events that threaten my sense of ability to maintain a positive situation in my environment... my sense of control. Stress results in a fight or flight response. The fight response is anger, while the flight response is fear. Anger and fear are essentially the same emotion.

How CAN I deal with anger?
Anger is my mind's way of telling me that something is out of equilibrium and requires attention. It teaches me about my environment as much as it teaches me about myself. I can't always change my environment, but I can definitely change myself.

When the emotion is fresh, I can embrace that anger and study it... so that I can learn why it makes me angry and why I am feeling threatened. I can remember what it felt like to be that angry and control it better next time.

What is threatening me?
That is the core of the situation that I need to be cognizant of. From there, I can treat the situation as a problem to solve. I can take control of the threat and not react in anger or fear.

Identifying the threat is the first step, and also the hardest. It is not a person who is a threat, but a person's actions. People do not cause deltas, their actions cause deltas. This is where the assessment should begin: not with the person, but with their actions.

From there, the evaluation process involves tracing the lines of cause and effect. Everything has a cause. The cause is either justified or unjustified... at the end of the day, the evaluation is a pragmatic attempt at projecting future events. Can the future actions be averted? What is the probability that these actions will continue despite your influence? The end result of this is either a grudge or forgiveness.

Control is the end goal. Loss of control manifests as anger/fear. Maintaining control of your situation and environment brings you away from anger/fear. The more I know about this world and myself, the more tools I have to maintain that control in more varied situations... to know what I can control, and to be at peace with the things I can't.

Tags: referenceinfo, therapy

Quantum Identification Theory

: kainasylum; June 14th, 2008

Our minds are wired to make sense of the world through discreet vocabulary. By placing a label on something, we make the identity of that something more tangible through a combination of adjectives, verbs, and nouns. To understand things, we need to know its identity so that we can figure out how we may interact with the concept in this reality we've created for ourselves.

Who am I? What am I?

Why do I have these powers? (Are you my daddy?)

One can go about answering these questions in specifics, starting with factual nouns and adjectives, going from association to association in recursive fashion until we create a conglomerate frankenstein of a definition that makes sense on the surface, but falls short on depth as the composite definition is marked by restrictions and boundary limitations that never seem to be enough to describe an entire human being's state of being. We are always more than just a collection of nouns, verbs, and adjectives with the occasional adverb tacked on.

At any one time, we are the collection of vocabulary words for that one instance, but those words may become deprecated in the next timeslice. Definition of the self is not a series of discrete particles but a wave of potential definitions whose first derivative over time can be distilled into a function of discrete values within the dimensions we are able to readily perceive.

If you can perceive this wave, then you can identify the particles that are associated with the wave. But our minds are wired to see things in discrete atomic particles. Fields of potential register only with our subconscious. The closest we can get to perceiving the wave is to force an awareness of discrete definitions on a regular basis until definition beyond discrete particles become apparent to the conscious mind. For some, the wave awareness comes from successive Twitter postings and the like. For others, the wave awareness comes from the mandatory three pages of words that are to be written every morning. These are all essentially snapshots of the wave at any one time. Repetition of snapshots over time is the key to awareness of the wave that governs the pattern we are trying to understand. When awareness is repeated enough, we use the word "internalized" to indicate that a wave is finally understood on an instinctive level beyond anything that words can encompass.

The method of cognizance also becomes the means of lucid actualization. By intentionally engaging in awareness of wave potentials, one begins to alter the particle definition as it materializes... in other words, the self-fulfilling prophecy alters reality through repeated snapshots when anticipation of the next snapshot becomes a nontrivial factor of the recursive equation.

Tags: life, sociology, therapy

Before you break up with an entity...

: kainasylum; June 13th, 2008

Anger and chastisement are luxurious indulgences. It feels really good to call people out and punish them for their imperfections. Another version of me lived for these moments. This was my previous life as a tyrant... just like my father before me. The ones who couldn't keep up with me became afraid of me. And we would inevitably part ways in whichever direction gave the least resistance.

If you ever find yourself wanting to quit something, like a company, organization, or a relationship, ask yourself the following questions:

Do the good times outweigh the bad?
Can you still get those good times any other way?
Will YOU actually be better off by quitting?

I had to ask myself these questions, lately. I had to ask myself "what is the best thing about staying with this entity?" It turns out that the best thing about it was not the mission that I had signed up for, as I do not care about the mission anymore... it is the freedom I gain to do what I really want to do... outside of the entity. The labels I wear validate me in the eyes of the people I want to reach.

Also, when I do get the collaboration I desire from the entity, things get good... really good, as in the kind of good that I don't get if I had resolved to work alone.

The theme for me lately has been that I am happy where I am 80% of the time. That's good enough... until I can find an existence that gives me happiness 81% of the time. That will be an ongoing machine that I will be tuning in baby steps. I don't have to throw the baby out with the bathwater every time I feel disappointed. I can make this work... because nothing is permanent, and I'm willing to fail spectacularly at my experiments if that's what it takes to define the shape of my external boundaries.

Tags: career, life, referenceinfo, therapy

Shoulda Coulda Woulda...

: kainasylum; June 8th, 2008

Mental Note:
Ban the word "should" from my vocabulary. It is a self defeating mechanism, so says the shaman. I have a tendency to rebel against myself every time I use that word, because the word comes off as a command, and the command is laced with the expectation of disappointment.

Replace with "could". That way, I don't have to. But maybe I want to. Maybe the choice is mine.

Tags: therapy

In Fighting, Coding, and Life and General

: kainasylum; May 14th, 2008

"I have not invented a "new style," composite, modified or otherwise that is set within distinct form as apart from "this" method or "that" method. On the contrary, I hope to free my followers from clinging to styles, patterns, or molds. Remember that Jeet Kune Do is merely a name used, a mirror in which to see "ourselves". . . Jeet Kune Do is not an organized institution that one can be a member of. Either you understand or you don't, and that is that. There is no mystery about my style. My movements are simple, direct and non-classical. The extraordinary part of it lies in its simplicity. Every movement in Jeet Kune-Do is being so of itself. There is nothing artificial about it. I always believe that the easy way is the right way. Jeet Kune-Do is simply the direct expression of one's feelings with the minimum of movements and energy. The closer to the true way of Kung Fu, the less wastage of expression there is. Finally, a Jeet Kune Do man who says Jeet Kune Do is exclusively Jeet Kune Do is simply not with it. He is still hung up on his self-closing resistance, in this case anchored down to reactionary pattern, and naturally is still bound by another modified pattern and can move within its limits. He has not digested the simple fact that truth exists outside all molds; pattern and awareness is never exclusive. Again let me remind you Jeet Kune Do is just a name used, a boat to get one across, and once across it is to be discarded and not to be carried on one's back."

– Bruce Lee

Tags: therapy

Another Me

: kainasylum; April 16th, 2008

For some reason, I really relate to this kid.

But I don't know why.

...yet.

Tags: therapy

"Truth"

: kainasylum; April 8th, 2008

Current Music:: This Will Destroy You - A Three Legged Workhorse

"The truth makes happen what needs to happen"
Those are the words I chose to live by.

But when you shove the truth down a person's throat, it is no longer a service but merely a selfish act that becomes more about you than the person you meant to be a friend to. At that point, you are no longer a resource of good intentions, but a consumer of the souls and spirits of others... demanding their thoughts for the sake of your own peace of mind. Whatever cracks you might have in your mental armor become apparent through this leakage of "truth" tainted by needy selfishness... like blood seeping from an embarrassing open wound in the middle of a dinner party.

The details will never be as important as the signal.

Projections into the future imply expectation, expectation implies obligation, and obligation implies failure. No matter how good your intentions are, the signal will always be the same. We exist in the present, and for that reason, the only thing that truly matters are the moments... Not the contract you are promising, but the moments you can offer at this very point in time.

I wish I could take credit for this mirror, but I can't. This work was created by somebody with more vision than myself.

Tags: life, referenceinfo, sociology, therapy

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