Damn this election! Take me back to 1999

 I couldn't sleep for about a week. Then I dropped everything late yesterday, lingered in a low state of existence, and went to bed.

I slept! I had almost forgotten how it felt. It was wonderful to take a vacation to the Sandman's realm for a while. Then, wouldn't you know, I woke up, and immediately got tired again.

My psychiatrist recommends that I think about happier things. My siblings suggest that I avoid thinking about Trump. Instead, I'm doing text-messaging for Show Me Change. I love it, but doing it sleep deprived is close to Hell, if not in Hell itself.

My moods have gone from ecstatic as it looks like Trump doesn't have a chance, to sullen when I think he might win despite all the eggs he's laid and all the public shitting he's done. The four years under Trump has been like a nonstop night terror, where I try my best to wake up, but can't move to do it because an orange, 6' 2" troll with bad hair is sitting on my chest. My real wish is that I'll wake up and find it's 1999, and the last 20 nightmare years since Bush v. Gore never happened. Then I'd party, like it's 1999. 

So, I got a good, long night's of sleep last night. But I got up tired anyway. Figure that. Maybe I just want to sleep more, take another vacation from this world of the shattered future. The complete reverse of the one I let myself think we were going to have in 1999.

Greene Power

Robert Greene's book, The 48 Laws of Power, is a moral minefield to read, the sort of how-to book I hope to never follow. If it were named The Satanic Bible instead, nothing in its pages would surprise you. I could also be subtitled: The Sociopaths' Handbook. I've noted before that power in human affairs can be defined as the ability to get people to do your will.

Greene's complete bibliography includes:

    1998 The 48 Laws of Power (with Joost Elffers)
    2001 The Art of Seduction
    2006 The 33 Strategies of War
    2009 The 50th Law (with 50 Cent)
    2012 Mastery
    2018 The Laws of Human Nature

As you could see, Greene's focus is on the morally borderline, but important qualities in human relations. Obviously, he's a student of social philosophy, I don't have a better term for it. He's extremely well-read and has a BS degree in Classical Studies.

For those of us with normal brains, and/or moral principles, it's an important  read 48LoP just for defense against life's power players. It will educate you on how people gain power, and you'll be able to recognize a slew of deceptive and unfair methods. The 48LoP are useful  in con-games, politics, business, just about everything. They've also been employed in every type of society, every type of government. It even applies to Siths, as the first law is, "Never outshine the master."*

Greene gives diverse, exhaustive, historical examples of from many times and many cultures, and even from fiction. He breaks his examples down into "Observance of the Law," "Transgression of the Law," and even "Reversal of the Law," to cite situations when there are exceptions are called for. A few of his laws don't allow any exceptions, such as "guard your reputation with your life," which he says are so important there are no times when a reversal is recommended.

 The book has affected the way I look a politicians. I hadn't read too deeply into it in 2016, but the little I had read helped me predict Donald Trump's election and his actions in office. I could see that the president-- who isn't a reader and isn't very bright--has some laws that he follows reliably. He observes them either by instinct, or maybe by advice from his father. They've served his him in his rise to power very well. Yet, there are many he breaks that are now going to cause his downfall.

         

SETBACK (UPDATE: RECOVERED)

 

This mid-afternoon, I received a humbling reminder of why I'm on disability.

I've been text-banking for the Democrats and the Galloway campaign. We started on a different campaign with a different procedure. I hit a mental wall, was unable to understand what I knew were simple instructions. Subsequently, I had an anxiety attack. I had to tell the supervisor I couldn't finish the text batch, I logged off, and threw myself into bed.

This hadn't happened in so long, I let myself think I was finally over them. My constant efforts to avoid these events, have steered my life since early childhood. They've closed off whole friendships and life-options. The first time I had one was drawing a picture in kindergarten. I never tried to draw again. They've buried me under passivity, depression, and shame. 

This time, unless I can pull myself together, this might cancel all my plans for political volunteering for the next month.

That I'm cracking under the stress of this election--it's critical importance, and all of its bizarre twists and turns--has occurred to me.  

UPDATE 10/17/20: I recovered from that crisis by later that same day. It's incredible what a long nap does for me. I also have to give credit to my regimen of psych meds. But man, things looked terrible for a few hours.                   

Day off: what a concept.

 

I've submitted a story Friday, I'll be submitting one today. But recently insomnia has come back, I can't fall asleep in a reasonable time frame. Consequently, I end up staying in bed far too late, and from there, I run behind my revised schedule all day.

Since tomorrow's Labor Day anyway, I'll take an official day off. It's the first one I've felt I've deserved in a long time.

Near Cat-tastrophe

I call this a shaggy-cat story. 

I gave my cat a bath. After a quick dousing, I reached for the towel. She took off. And ran right behind my PC. You know, the most dangerous and destructive place a wet cat can hide?

She took sanctuary in a jungle of a million, mostly mysterious, cables with connectors; two power strips; a couple of USB hubs, and three external disks, all powered up for detonation. 

I screamed, grabbed and extracted her contortionist body while untangling her claws from the wires because an unwilling cat has to destroy everything it can. I feared she might get electrocuted. Then I feared both of us might die.

But even worse: she might have killed my PC.

Fortunately, no sparks or explosions happened. I don't know how. And a bigger miracle: everything still works.

Better yet, we made up and are living happily ever after. Until she does something else.

A truly shaggy cat.

Not the usual high (horse)

 It might seem sometimes that I'm on my high-horse, that I'm emotionally above things.

No, it's not a horse. I'm on high doses of drugs, legal ones, both psychiatric and neurological. I would be hapless, helpless, and hopeless without them. And I supplement them with caffeine tablets, about 4-5 cups of coffee worth per day. Never underestimate caffeine's benefit as an antidepressant.

Many people are skeptical of psych medications, but I'm a success story. I know they don't work for everyone. And for many unfortunate mentally ill people, even good doctors might never hit on the right combination of meds (because more than one are usually needed). I was persistent about seeking help, and after about 35 years, I finally got the right doctors who hit on the right drug combo.

Now, I know I have attachment issues. I get sad and shaken by crises, and I worry about today's scary political situation, about the danger we're all in from COVID, about my family and friends, and about economic plight of our nation. I have low points, and surges of agitation, but those moods never persist, and I can work through them. I can feel anger, but that emotion doesn't last either.

I consider myself fortunate because at my lowest point, a relative came through for me when I really didn't deserve it. Although I can't describe myself as happy, I can say I'm focused, disciplined, and yes, finally very organized. Considering how badly I botched my life, how many wrong acts I've committed, and how low I fell, this is the best condition I could expect to be in right now.

I hope I'm not too late in my life to contribute something. With good luck, perhaps I can. I hope.

It's been a frustrating day. I didn't write creatively today, not yet, anyway. I studied math. I tried to address some technical/business issues with my ISP, for the most part, I got stuck on-hold, never got it solved. I posted to FB, and probably shouldn't have wasted my time on that. I tried to upgrade my router firmware, and discovered that I lost my administrator PW and have to factory reset it: tomorrow. Besides, I've been teaching myself to write batch files to back up my work to redundant disks. Every backup program I've tried has been an abject failure. It's better to do it myself with tools Windows provides, though there's been a several week learning curve. In teaching myself, I learned more about the Windows OS. But no, no creative writing today. I want to be done with the batch files by Saturday. That's a realistic goal. Then I'll throw myself back into creative writing. 

Whatever learning I do, I have to do by myself. I'm a higher-education failure. My attention and anxiety problems made that impossible. I didn't flunk, but I didn't learn anything, either. I'd like to buy MasterClass, but I have to know for sure I can make time for the courses. The time's not available right now. Not until I complete the course on Conceptual Math.     

The Democratic Convention continues tonight, and I'm glad to be missing it. Yes, I'm a Democrat, I'm a liberal. But since I'm already persuaded, I don't have to watch the convention.

ADHD: The kaleidoscope of distractions

My doctor is raising my ADHD medication. I thought it was maximum before, but apparently, there's a step above, and I'm being elevated to it.
With ADHD, distraction is the nemesis of my life. It's the principal reason I'm not more productive as a writer. Lately my symptoms have become worse. It's why I can't get writing done. They're not just a direct time drain, but the fear that I might forget what I'm doing, which happens frequently. This is why I write everything down, what I'm doing and what I've done. I've been keeping a Daybook to see where my time is going because I can't remember at the end of the day.

What are these distractions? First, there's the obvious environmental stresses everybody's feeling now: the epidemic, the economy, and Trump. Or the ones they should be feeling. Then there's my family crisis concerning my brother. I've already written enough about that.

Then there's another personal problem: my cat. She's been over-grooming if you want to call it that. It's more like she's a cutter. She's skinning her back with her bristly, cat-of-one-tongue. I've tried various ways of getting her to stop, de-fleaing her, of course, and changing her food and litter in case she's allergic. I've tried giving her canned food, on the theory she might be missing the flavor of real meat. Nothing works. Now she bothers me for food every morning like a real cat. Not only does skinning herself seem to give her no pain, but--being a cat--she has neither any empathy nor any understanding of it. Empathy is an evolutionary disadvantage to a pure carnivore species. It's very likely her compulsion literally hurts me more than it does her. After initially letting myself get very upset over it, I decided just to accept it. She'll do it. I don't take it personally anymore. However, it might still affect me unconsciously.

Other sources of stress arise from my own choices. It's usually some aggravating tech problem. They happen at a rate of at least every day. The recent example: my browser hangs after I wake up my PC in the morning. I usually run about a dozen windows at a time, so shutting it down and rebooting takes some time. I tried to find another remedy to it. I've traced it to my browser, not my router, nor my network card because other browsers work just fine. I still haven't found a  remedy it, except by rebooting. I would go to the forums and ask, but that takes time. Because my life is so tech-heavy, I basically get hell for the heaven of my choosing. 

The interruptions and distractions do wear on my disposition, unfortunately. It could make me very sour. They're raised my blood pressure and have given me insomnia again. Every time I've found a remedy that works for sleeplessness, the problem comes back. This time, however, I'm aware that I just can't lie still. Last night, I tried to stop twitching or kicking my legs, and not exaggerating at all, it was torture. I felt like I was tied up and needed to break loose. I'm trying some leg exercises before bed tonight. I hope that could take off some of the excess nervous energy.

But I most hope that a higher dose of the medication does take care of the residual symptoms. We'll see by next week. Given how other dosages have changed things, I am very curious to find out.

Movie Review: Color out of Space (Just see it!)

A mix of Picasso, Geiger, and Lovecraft

I was awed by a great horror movie on Monday, and I've been wondering since if it's not the greatest horror movie I've ever seen. The film is an adaptation of H. P. Lovecraft's 1922 1927 novella The Colour out of Space that greatly improves the story in every way. It keeps the genius of the basic plot: a strange meteor crashes on a farm and has a horrific influence on the unlucky family nearest to it. It warps their minds and disfigures them. (A warning for animal lovers: it also affects all living things in the vicinity.

Crucial to this movie's success is the way director Richard Stanley and screenwriter Scarlett Amaris concentrate the action. In Lovecraft's pages, the story unfolds like cancer over two years. In this movie, it spans maybe four days. After a brief narration lifted from Lovecraft to set the mood, the film takes fifteen minutes to establish the characters. After that, buckle in, because the plot careens through crises with the speed and force of an avalanche. The mood is fevered, and the horror is nonstop. The characters are so well-established and acted their ordeal always seems real and urgent, even in moments of humor.

How else does the script and director Richard Stanley improve this story? Anyone who has read Lovecraft is familiar with the weaknesses of his writing: i.e. his two-dimensional characters; the shortage of dialog, with only brief passages of speech so badly depicted they make you wish Lovecraft didn't try at all.

Stanley has upgraded the story in every way. Where the characters in Lovecraft feel remote, Stanley retrofitted the tale with revised characters, armed it with great dialog, and put the best actors in the roles. The setting is completely modern-day. The visual effects combined with the cinematography are first-rate and rise to meet a spectacular ending, exactly the one Lovecraft described.

Also, they fix Lovecraft's complicated, convoluted archaic, story-telling structure, in which a narrator tells a third-hand story of an inexplicable disaster that happened forty years prior. The inciting incident is the presence of a dead-zone called "the blasted heath" in the middle of a New England forest. That approach seems to squeeze all tension and suspense from the tale.

Although Lovecraft wrote his story a century ago, it has influenced many films since. You might recognize it as being very similar to 2017's Annihilation. Instead of "The Shimmer," this meteor has "The Color," a quality that Lovecraft describes as "like no earthly colour." This makes it a psychic tint instead of a visual one, suggesting the presence of an entity that's both powerful and malevolent. The Color ends up being absorbed in everything. The water, the plants, the animals, and the people. The movie has to fudge on Lovecraft's "like no earthly color" concept, choosing a pink-purple, and showing it in mist whenever possible. Nicolas Cage gives a line that it wasn't like any color he'd ever seen. Also like Annihilation, the nature of the entity never gets any clearer by the end. As similar as the plot concepts are, the stories diverge so much that nothing in Annihilation spoils anything in this film. They are both worth seeing.

Nicolas Cage plays Nathan Gardner, the father and husband, and a hopelessly impractical romantic. He's transferred his family from city living to the remote country. His wife, Theresa (Joely Richardson) is a day-trader, a cancer survivor, and is the practical influence. They've moved from the city to the country with their three children. Nathan is comical at first, then gets serious as he goes insane. Nicolas Cage seems to be channeling every famous actor who ever played a psycho. The fate of two family members is indescribable. Here, the practical effects have none of the campiness of previous Lovecraft adaptations, such as From Beyond. The pity and helplessness the actors perform comes off as almost too authentic.

Yet, the parents are not the protagonists. Instead, the story begins and ends with their oldest child, Lavinia a late teen, played by Madeleine Arthur. Her character, a Wiccan, tries to protect herself with magic. In my opinion, it works. She seems least affected at first by the madness that seizes everyone else, but at a painful cost. She's also most aware of the danger and knows her parents can't be reasoned with about it. As the events overtake the characters, you can miss her character arc, but it's explicit.

Madeiline Arthur as Lavinia: suffering a fate worse than prom

With all the flaws in his writings, Lovecraft was a savant who wrote poetry starting at 3-years-old, a visionary whose work opened up whole new avenues for the horror genre. He freed it from dependence on traditional religions and myths. Also, he originated the subgenre of cosmic horror. In tales such as The Colour out of Space, the spiritual and material overlap or are one, and the universe is fundamentally incomprehensible, dashing all human assumptions and hopes. It's also inhabited by monstrous impersonal gods and creatures of immense power, as unaware of humankind as they are impossible to influence or reason with. Lovecraftian gods are worshipped, not because they'll help or save their believers, but because the believers have no will about it. Horror writers continue to develop these tropes today.

While watching, I never asked why the characters don't flee when things got weird, a common complaint of horror movies. In Color, it all happens so fast, with the characters' sanity undermined first. In their lucid moments when they try to leave, all of their plans are dashed. Oh, and the Color also jams cell phone reception, a touch necessary in every horror story today.

I'm pretty jaded but I was actually as scared during this film as I was during Alien forty years ago. For anyone whose eye's glaze over reading a dense paragraph of a Lovecraft story, who then asks me what could possibly be so worthwhile beneath the granite, I can now just point them to this movie. I couldn't do that before because no movie prior ever truly captured a Lovecraft story and played it without any camp or irony. 

The epilogue, like the beginning, ends with a narration that's mostly lifted from Lovecraft; a deserved tribute to a writer who originated this captivating story a century ago. 

EDIT 10:35 2/2/30 The story was actually published in 1927, not 1922.

Philosophical atheism

The real philosophical difference between atheism monotheism isn't really over God but over the spiritual world and spiritual processes. The atheist says those are empirically and logically unsupportable. By consequence, this means no God, i.e. no supreme being of any kind exists, and no means to "hear" prayers if He did exist. Also, no ghosts, no demons, no devils and no angels.  It implies all revelatory scriptures are works of fiction and/or philosophy. Psychic phenomenon are also negated. If superior beings are discovered to exist, an atheist expects their powers to be strictly contained within the universe and following its laws, known and unknown. There is no survival of the soul after death, no afterlife of any sort.

The atheist sees faith i.e. "belief in" as only a mental process that has no bearing on a person's destiny, eternal or otherwise, unless acted upon in some material way.    

The monotheist will argue that the universe could have never come into being without a creator because something can't come from nothing. But then, where would God have come from? Is it more likely nothing created God & God created the universe vs nothing creating the universe direct? It would seem the second one skips a step, but that's only a wild guess. We know there's a universe. No believing in it is necessary. No such self-apparent evidence exists for God. 

We can't know what happened 13.79 billion years ago when the known universe began. We only guess. Before that time, nobody has a guess. Guesses aren't faith. Guessing there's a God is of no benefit when there's no spiritual process that rewards the right belief. A guess about the origins of the universe is fixated too far in the past to have any benefit now. Whatever benefit the monotheist receives from correct belief are either psychological or material and are provided by the people around him.

And that's what's been on my mind.  

Obstructions to writing

I got up with an idea for writing blogs. Unfortunately, my political blog (An Arch Liberal) required an article I read last night on Daily Kos. It's gone from my browser history. I was going to write a different post here from you're seeing now but while l searched for what should have been easy to find, I forgot what I was going to write here.

If I can't get writing done, it's usually due to one of two or both things: a technical problem, or housework. For the former, I don't think I'm quite old enough or sleep-deprived enough that my technical judgment has slipped. Like just now. I need to turn on my backup program, but as soon as I do it, it's going to prompt me for permission to backup, and since it's been off for 12 hours, these are going to come one after the other, (Yes, I have to adjust that.) So, to remind myself to turn it on when I'm done here, I set alarm for fifteen minutes in the future. When I did it, though, I noticed the PC alarm didn't have labels. So, I canceled that out and used my phone.

Meanwhile, my cat bothers me for affection, and usually, I have no problem unless I'm already distracted and I'm facing some kind of frustration. Then I snap at her. A bad habit I want to quit. It stresses her out and that's the last thing I want to do to my constant companion.

Now, I might avoid this aggravation if I only demanded less from technology. But for efficiencies sake now that I'm committed to writing, I feel like I have to find ways to get more done, even if it requires time to put things in place.

And then there's insomnia. I can't get to sleep before 4, sometimes as late as 6. This almost guarantees I can't get 8 hours of sleep. After struggling with this for years, I'm convinced the problems is intractable, at least in isolation. Probably I'd sleep better if I got more exercise. I'd like to commit an hour a day to it. But I don't want to go to a gym. If I only have an hour, the time dressing out, getting to the gym, exercising, showering, dressing back in, getting back home, is too much. Besides, gyms count on the fact that you won't use them but will still pay for it. That's a key to their business model. Any exercise has to be done in my place, and in a way that won't disturb the neighbors: no jumping jacks or jumping rope. Or around my place, like brisk walking, jogging being out of the question.

I am now sixty. I am losing physical strength and ability. This is shown with the fact that when I take out the trash, do laundry, and vacuum the floor, my day is over, physically and because I'm just slower. That's unsatisfactory.

Now, I have to go and apologize . . . to my cat.

As I write, she studies me from above.

 You might not be able to tell by her face, but she's actually looking pretty sad.

I'm a poet?

It looks like a have some talent as a poet. So, I'm planning on going to an open mic this week.

And that's all I can write. I'm so damn tired now.

The mailman ate my rent

I mailed out January's rent on December 27. Last week, my landlady told me she hadn't received it. I wrote another check. As I did, I knew that the original would probably come back undeliverable for some reason. Today, it arrived back (Redactions mine, not the Post Offices):

Apparently, USPS was hungry. That note enclosed is an apology.

This is my first effort at altering a picture. Very good if I'd say so myself.