Sane Inside Insanity: 2004

mercoledì, gennaio 05, 2005

2004

I found a rush of moderate strength, peace and initiative on Jan 1. God knows why. Maybe all my efforts for my peace of mind finally paid off. Maybe my heart was lightened by managing to do some important things I needed: I solved a tax problem, finished the Dragon draft and bought Brida, and verified she works and will take away a lot of weight from me when I drive. Maybe I was feeling lousy before because of a surfeit of bad things. Maybe after all I rested during the holidays.

Weird feeling at waking up on Jan 1 at a friend's house with Pink Floyd's Time playing. A warning or a celebration?

Now for a tally of 2004. It sucked, period. Apart from this:

Last year I pinpointed a bit better my PTSD problems. At least now I know there are things that are objectively difficult for me and must adjust accordingly. I have a better understanding of the causes. My ability to communicate... I'm not sure yet. Still low but I see good signs. But it could also be that I feel a bit better because isolation worked. So I am not going to stop. Sorry.

Last year for the first time I tried a different way to deal with my anxiety. I got involved socially and politically in causes that are important for me. It did not work. I have enormous problems expressing my political ideas. Like everything else; but this is immensely worse, given the endemic hatred and hostility and psychological violence that permeates the political world in all countries. My anxiety shot to levels that threatened my physical health. Things that should have made me happy only made me depressed for the level of intolerance that surrounded them. I went from fiery teenager to old disillusioned wretch in a few months. I pulled back, feeling guilty because it seemed I had just used the causes to feel better. It's not true. I really wanted to help. I made wonderful friends and I'll always be there for them, and if things get better with me I'll do even more. But I don't read the blogs every morning anymore. I check the news and tell the world to f*** off. It's not fair, it's not true, it's not what I feel. But it's my only way of survival right now.

I began doing volunteer work for AIM. I owe them: they literally put me back on my feet 15 years ago. And I was lucky in being healed so completely, so I feel the need to give something back to the less lucky. I also gained new friends to ignore...

I discovered Ancient Worlds. Fun, instructive and a way of meeting new interesting and unapproachable people while keeping myself almost completely hidden.

Now I am being cautious. Very cautious.

QUOTES

Heart shall be bolder,
harder be purpose,
more proud the spirit
as our power lessens!
Mind shall not falter
nor mood waver,
though doom shall come
and dark conquer.
(The Battle of Maeldon, translated by Tolkien)

He who has a treasure, or a demon in his heart, cannot hide it. (King Theodoric the Great)

I' mi son un che, quando
Amor mi spira, noto, e a quel modo
ch'e' ditta dentro vo significando.
(Dante Alighieri, Purgatorio)

The lambs will stop for now. But, Clarice, you judge yourself with all the mercy of the dungeon scales at Threave; you'll have to earn it again and again, the blessed silence. Because it's the plight that drives you, seeing the plight, and the plight will not end, ever. (Hannibal Lecter)

Kilimanjaro is a snow-covered mountain 19,710 feet high, and is said to be the highest mountain in Africa. Its western summit is called the Masai 'Ngaje Ngai', the House of God. Close to the western summit there is the dried and frozen carcass of a leopard. No one has explained what the leopard was seeking at that altitude. (Ernest Hemingway)

Would I embarrass you? Yes, it is possible. You see, I... I am crazy. I take the newer medications, but I still see things that are not here. I just choose not to acknowledge them. Like a diet of the mind, I choose not to indulge certain appetites. Like my appetite for patterns. Perhaps my appetite to imagine and to dream. (A Beautiful Mind)

Night gathers, and now my watch begins.
It shall not end until my death.
I shall take no wife, hold no lands,
father no children.
I shall wear no crowns and win no glory.
I shall live and die at my post.
I am the sword in the darkness.
I am the watcher on the walls.
I am the fire that burns against the cold,
the light that brings the dawn,
the horn that wakes the sleepers,
the shield that guards the realms of men.
I pledge my life and honor to the Night Watch
for this night and all the nights to come.
(GRRM)

Never criticize a person until you walk a mile in their shoes (Atticus Finch)

A warrior for peace is no less a warrior (General Korrd, unwittingly reminding of Yitzhak Rabin)

What was there to be gained by fighting the most evil wizard who has ever existed? Only innocent lives, Peter. (Sirius Black)

Whatever makes a soldier sad will make a killer smile (Leonard Cohen)

I'm rightly tired of the pain I hear and feel, boss. I'm tired of bein on the road, lonely as a robin in the rain. Not never havin no buddy to go on with or tell me where we's comin from or goin to or why. I'm tired of people bein ugly to each other. It feels like pieces of glass in my head. I'm tired of all the times I've wanted to help and couldn't. I'm tired of bein in the dark. Mostly it's the pain. There's too much. If I could end it, I would. But I can't. (John Coffey)

Oh, life! 'tis in an hour like this, with soul beat down and held to knowledge, - as wild, untutored things are forced to feel - Oh, life! 'tis now that I do feel the latent horror in thee! but 'tis not me! that horror's out of me! and with the soft feeling of the human in me, yet will I try to fight ye, ye grim, phantom futures! (Starbuck)

I have dreamt in my life dreams that have stayed with me ever after, and changed my ideas; they've gone through and through me, like wine through water, and altered the colour of my mind. (Charlotte Bronte)

If I know a song of Africa, of the giraffe and the African new moon lying on her back, of the plows in the fields and the sweaty faces of the coffee pickers, does Africa know a song of me? Will the air over the plain quiver with a color that I have had on, or the children invent a game in which my name is, or the full moon throw a shadow over the gravel of the drive that was like me, or will the eagles of the Ngong Hills look out for me? (Karen Blixen)

Do not you recognize me, Dumas? I am the rearguard of the Grande Armee. I have stood at Kovno, and thrown the last muskets in the Niemen. I am Marshal Ney. Give me a bowl of soup. (Attributed to Michel Ney).