Belief

Richard Dawkins calls the extolling of the virtues of blind faith to children a form of abuse. I can understand how a child who is completely trusting may be duped and abused but I still think trust and belief are important things that need to be fostered in young children.

There is no afterlife awaiting us so the rewards must be here in the short life that each of us has. If you are trusting and then suffer because of it then that can’t be practical because once something has happened it is part of history.

A child’s mind is still forming so it is important to nurture it properly. Imagine a young child too small to have something explained to them like you’d explain something to an adult; you reward them with a treat when they’re good and punish them if they are not, right?

Is the same not true of belief? I think that teaching children through the medium of festive fairy tales that believing without seeing is very important.

The Matrix highlighted the point that you cannot even trust your own senses to be truthful to you. When I was ill I didn’t even trust that my own parents were my real parents! Trust (or belief) is a big thing in each of our lives so it is important to mould the brain of a maturing infant so that he or she can believe.

I thought that it was wrong to lie to anyone, least of all the most trusting. Master Oogway tells us that yesterday is history and I think that this is a good point. When you’re a child you become lost in the magic so it doesn’t matter how you feel once you are an adult; the important thing is that you found a measure of pleasure in the moment.

And belief has an important part to play in that. And hopefully when you make it to adulthood you will have the wisdom to see that you weren’t being duped, you were being loved.

But what if you reach adulthood and you have a very – maybe overly – trusting brain? You may be easily swindled or worse – where is the good in that? Can you teach children that believing without seeing is good but at the same time teach them to question the world around them?

The Value of Life

You probably think that life is valuable; but is it?

As a human I believe myself to have a better concept of death than, for example, a chicken does. Unfortunately being able to conceptualise death can cause a lot of pain when people do die.  And for whatever reason, it is safe to say that the living suffer when their loved ones are lost.

Does this ability to suffer loss mean that our lives have value? Does it mean that the lives of animals that aren’t capable of conceptualising death like us aren’t as valuable?

I don’t see a difference in value between the life of a human and that of a chicken; ideologically for me they are both valued at level zero. And so for example I don’t have a problem with eating meat (I am omnivorous after all).

I don’t want to kill another person but that does not mean that I value their life over that of a chicken. I wouldn’t want to cause any suffering to a person's loved ones; and I definitely would not want to cause suffering to myself by murdering a them.

If you look at the damage the humans have done to the planet, would you really choose to save the life of a human over that of a chicken? We have perverted the natural order and it has to stop.

Wake up to the facts, the world would be a much better place if the human race were to go extinct; and if that isn’t a wake-up call then I don’t know what is!

The you you think you are

They say that it started

With just a single bite

Now it seems I’m self-conscious

And it’s become a fight

Who is this thing?

Who is floating on my surface?

Having all of these thoughts

Thinking “Do I deserve this?”

Am I like the ocean?

That thing’s dark in the deep

And impossible to be delved into

By any swimming sheep

You can’t fathom the depths

And it’s the same with the mind

Some things they stay hidden

(You might as well be blind)

Could I be a denial?

Some kind of creative fabrication?

Am I too scared to face up to me,

And handle the situation?

If only I could know -

But then maybe I can

Could this articulating mind

Belong to an imaginary man?

He thinks he runs the joint

And that it’s all about him

And his body is a slave

To his each and every whim

But wake up my friend

You’re not who you think

The you that you think is you

He’s superficial and he’s never going to sink.

Why I’m thankful for Hitler

Do you ever wonder why you weren’t born into a different body at a different time?

Children are natural dualists: they feel there is a body and a mind and that the two are separate, which is a difficult habit to break. I have now come to realise that we are our bodies and that there isn’t a ‘spirit’ that transcends our physical form.

I like this idea because it makes sense to me. It is impossible that I could be someone else because I am a bunch organic material pieced together by genes. I am unique because the sex cells that became me contained unique combinations of instructions and the environment I matured in whilst gestating, and then the environment I grew up in once born were and are both unique too.

The point is that without every tiny bit of history that led up to me being conceived (and that led my nurturing), I would not be here as I am now. And this is where Hitler comes into it; without him (and all other people throughout history for that matter) I would not exist and I find that amazing.

Creativity

http://sommer-sommer.com/braintest/

It turns out I am substantially right-brained. My being an artist you wouldn’t be blamed for imagining that I might be slightly thrown in discovering that I am not so much inclined toward creativity. But I have known for a long time that I do not have a good imagination.

Little things like the large amount of time it takes me to compose a witty text message - or any text for that matter - are good hints of this deficit. I have to really concentrate in order to fabricate anything; am I trying to be someone else? Should I have to strain to come up with a reply to a post on Facebook?

Or is it my illness that prevents me from processing things because I have fled my head as a way of dealing with (by which I mean avoiding) the distress of being in there?

I don’t know.

Should you embrace who you are? I realise that – for one reason or another – I am not very creative. I need to write things down in order to process them properly which, as you can imagine, isn’t very convenient for me; but it is simply how it must be at the moment.

I enjoy making art; I want to jog people out of the stupor of their everyday lives and help them see beyond their horizons. This is probably a very naïve way of looking at things but it is the way that they appear to me.

I see people who don’t have the mental capacity or even the natural inclination to realise that they have been blinkered. It saddens me but I do not blame them. It has crossed my mind that I may be able to observe things from a different vantage because my antipsychotic medication numbs my feeling and makes me more cold and logical; in which case were I not being medicated I would probably be as short-sighted as them!

That isn’t a bad thing but it is in a way. It seems to me that there is so much that is wrong with our world that could be solved if people were to simply wake up.

Or perhaps it is me who needs to wake up. What if we can’t run the world on renewable, clean energy? What if the government isn’t corrupted by the oil companies? Is it true that world hunger really cannot be solved? Is it a lie that advanced technology is being held back so that more money can be made? Do we even need money? Is the prescription of medication not just another money-making scheme? 

Welfare

When I was first diagnosed with clinical psychosis my dad was keen to impress on me the importance of not giving in. He was concerned that the mental health professionals were going to wrap me up in cotton wool and be over cautious to the point that I was hardly moving forward at all. His advice remained with me in a way whilst I fought to get better - even if only in a subconscious form.

It’s strange being mentally ill because it’s very easy to forget that you are unwell. Or rather you don’t like to admit it to be true and so every time you have a panic attack or a dark day where the voices overwhelm you, you are quite taken aback. So, as you can imagine, when it comes to benefits it is very easy to feel like a thief or a cheat.

At times I believed I’d get better and be able to have a full time job with all the trimmings (I guess my dad’s words were still resounding in the back of my mind somewhere), but recently I stopped thinking about working. There are a lot of big changes happening in my life at the moment and the stress is proving to be very disrupting.

(I wouldn’t call it admitting defeat because it is definitely not that; I just had my sights set unrealistically high this time and actually it is an achievement to be able to come to terms with my own limits).

Now I rely on the welfare state because I am ill – or it could be that our world is ill, either way I am struggling to live day to day so something must be up! Everyday things seem to take more of a toll on me when compared with most of the other people in my life. I become worn out very quickly – although it’s rarely easy to pinpoint why this is.

Naturally I guess I’d have flown the nest by now; but unfortunately our world is far from natural. Maybe it is me who is ill; I may have a malformed brain – but what caused it to be so? It seems to me that the unnaturalness of our world may have had a part to play. If so then the natural process of child rearing simply goes out the window; which means that another system of support must take its place. Enter welfare.

But am I giving in too easily? I will keep on pushing of course but for the minute I must be sensible and embrace my limits and play the hand that I have been dealt. I guess that it’s disheartening but luckily I have the state to support me whilst I figure out a different route through this life.