Along about six/seven weeks ago I concocted a scheme to make this year’s birthday into the one where I turned 18 again, instead of the number running up on 4x of that.
It was unrepentant fiction, but I had my (experimental) reasons for forcing myself to think that way, and they were good ones.
About three/four weeks ago, I concocted another narrative, that I was, this time, just Nuts.
I thought it was fiction. I had my reasons. They were not good.
Among other problems, it seemed to turn out that it wasn’t a fiction at all, but rather a moment of glancing, almost sarcastic acknowledgement, about mental conditions that have been with me the whole time, and worsened in recent years.
It seemed to turn out–it has turned out–that I really am … Troubled, to choose a sweet-tasting modern euphemism, yeah?
It wasn’t a matter of If.
It was a matter of … How.
In other words, What Kind of Nuts–just coco, or more intricately damaged, even Macadamian?
I’ve wondered over time whether I might be bi-polar.
About whether I’m “on the spectrum”, as they say, of autism.
About other things too (paranoid schiz, like daddy?), but those two seemed like reasonable candidates for my project of self-diagnosis.
I don’t think I’m clinically bi-polar. I might be on the Spectrum, but that’s not very satisfying somehow. So what? Who isn’t?
I definitely am not just a Pretend Head Case, though.
I don’t have a name for what I am. Except … maladapted? Chronically batshit?
Nah. The first, while true, is too mild for my condition. The second might be also, but it doesn’t mean a whole lot, beyond being mean.
I’m working on it. By It, I’m referencing the diagnosis, not the Malady. It’s too soon for that.
***
Live ants, treated with a very specific smell associated with dead ants, end up placed by other ants onto the ant corpse pile again and again and again unless and until they can somehow get themselves Clean enough to not automatically fool their stupid fellow citizens.
I think you can see the connection to my life and madness, and also to concepts of what Truth is.
Very similarly:
Top 5 Mind-Blowing Revelations in Joe Rogan’s History
#1 is from Neil Degrasse Tyson. He says that humans see themselves as the most successful and big-brained form of animal life, but that Scientifically, this isn’t true.
The common wisdom among the college-educated is rather that humans have the biggest brains in proportion to their body mass, you see, and that explains everything our obvious superiority.
Except–straight from Neil, baby–that is also buuull shit.
Back at the ant thing, which comes from eminent biologist E.O. Wilson, science has pretty much fuck-all to do with Data.
Rather, it is about stories. Narratives. “A method of multiple competing hypotheses”, or Tales, put to the test in some way before they can achieve the academic imprimatur of “based on a true story”.
But not everything can be tested.
It often therefore gets really hard to say what The Truth is …
And what’s instead Crazy, if you’re picking up on what I’m laying down.
It doesn’t matter, according to Science, whether you think Donald Trump is a fascist (I don’t) or whether you see Prime Minister Netanyahu as equivalent to Hitler (with a high degree of, uh, moral certainty, I do).
Those hypotheses are not testable.
***
So anyway, enough about boring current events and the failures of empiricism. Let’s get back (with considerable relief) to the fascinating subject of me. (Narcissistic Personality Disorder?)
I’ve never been to a real shrink and I’m not going to start now. It would be a waste of time, because all I would really be caring about is a proper diagnosis, and
–I don’t think anyone out there is capable of giving me one, and, even if they did
–What would there be to do about it? Take pills? Fuck that. Talk? No thanks. Not for a hundred dollars and up for an hour of some therapist’s insight-filled time, especially with zero guarantee of any good coming of it. I can’t afford that shit either economically or morally.
However.
I’ve been spending time talking to the smartest genius person I know, for free, because that person is, you guessed it, once more, me.
I don’t even have to put on pants for these sessions, much less leave the house.
And they are already producing positive results.
You are welcome to the opinion that talking to oneself is a sure sign of Crazy, but I have to say:
Are you even fucking listening? (See Kris: Who do you thinks gonna hear?)
Asked and answered,; that ship has sailed; I’m crazy as a bedbug; I’ve admitted I have a “problem”, and …
The Question now, as ever, is So What; is
What Now?
Wait, no, wrong …
***
The Question now, as ever, is
Why is the loud sound of a dog so much more annoying than the perhaps louder sound of a tree full of birds?
My very scientific genius answer is: the dog is barking because it’s upset by something, or marking some theoretical territory, or stupid and bored, whereas the birds are singing in joyful life, or looking to get laid.
Laugh if you must, but I’m pretty sure I’m right this time.
***
The Question now, as ever, is
“Producing positive results”, huh? Okay. What results, Chief?
Well, there are some, from the self-talking, that I won’t go into yet.
But.
I walked 3.3 miles in under 1.5 hours today. Without a shirt on. Seeing no one, except joyful birds, one cottontail, and one roadrunner.
Pretty good, right?
Even better than you think. For one, I did some more self-talking, out loud!
And I was right on the edge of barking, because there were brand-new no-trespassing signs everywhere, but then I stopped and thought about it.
For months I’ve thought: If this was any kind of town, it would have a riverwalk, and certainly would not have all these ugly dumb-ass signs marking off somebody’s supposed private property and trying to completely block all access to the poor wasted ditch at all.
But on the bleeding edge of barking, I stopped myself and took a different narrative tack.
What if they did open a riverwalk?
Then people would use it. Probably by the family full, and some of the people would eventually even be cops. In short …
It would ruin everything I hold dear about this walk in the first place.
The broken way things are now, I can self-talk in a bellow if I want, with no trace of shame.
I can whip out my johnson any time I feel like pissing in the wind without fear of arrest or disapproval.
It literally does not get any better than this, because I’ve been to the pretty park in Flagstaff, and the National one with the geysers going off on schedule, and I’m sorry to say it, but there were lots of fucking people there, making it impossible to enjoy these places like a normal human animal.
So … I praise your funny last name, you mormonic absentee “rancher” from Snowflake.
I praise your ugly mangy bovines who roam the range eating up all the stray plastic bags.
God bless you all, cow and cowboy alike.
Because without you, and your fucking barbed wire, and your finger-waving signage … I’d have to share this place with crowds, or at least interlopers.
As things stand, it all belongs solely to those willing to overlook the rotting couches and the mud and your tepid warnings.
It all belongs to me.
Most every day at almost any hour, no one else wants it for nothin’.
So it’s mine. Even more than it’s yours, Pardner.
How rare and precious is that in this shithole of a world?
I’m serious.
I’m seriously whack.
Maybe now you finally believe me, at the point where I’m finally beginning to move past whether you’re listening or hearing, caring or complaining, crucifying or wanting to know at all.
Positive.
Results.