The answer to our questions

Can you judge a person? If everyone is a victim of their circumstances can anyone be guilty? If there's no such thing as choice I mean. Say someone commits murder, that so called crime is merely the end result of that person's entire history. They did not make a choice as a subjective being, like everyone else they were shaped and the shape that they were was the one that committed murder.

Like a child they get punished by law so that hopefully they won't do it again. They are that shape and that is a hard thing to change so perhaps murdering again is unavoidable, hence life imprisonment is the answer.

But that doesn't mean they can be blamed. The families of the victims will nevertheless blame the murderer. They'll think that he or she is a bad person but the injustice isn't down to the offender; it is the way that the world is that is the problem.

Inequality, corruption, greed, etc are big problems. Our nature gets the better of us when we live in a perverse world like this one. People need help to find a solution because the problem is an unnatural one.

If we learn about how our natures work and interact with our current environment instead of winging it, we will find the answer.

Intrusive thoughts explained

Hot coffee over a baby's head

It happens in a sudden flash so real that I react bodily. It feels as though I'm actually experiencing the normally violent or sexual intrusive thought in that split second. It is horrible and I still find it very distressing even though it has been going on for a long time.

Then there's the voices. Sometimes they speak in my head as though it is me thinking, although I know that it isn't me who is articulating them. They don't tell me to do things, but because they pretend to be me and go on and on for months and years they almost become second nature.

It may sound odd but because they are so frequent and ongoing I get used to them and although I can usually fight them off, when I am tired or not feeling myself, I struggle to counter them and they end up overpowering me.

A test of faith

I used to think the fact that I am here as a living thinking being was proof of a divine creator. How could I (or anything) exist otherwise? Why is there something rather than nothing?

I am told that God purposely hides away from us so that we must believe without seeing. If that’s the case, and he wants to test our faith, then surely the fact that there IS something rather than nothing is the total opposite of hiding away.

You could argue that science’s advancements such as the theory of a Universe from nothing could have been designed by God as a test of faith; tempting people to be atheist on the grounds that there was no apparent need for a creator.

But why hide yourself by creating a universe that looks as though it could come into existence entirely naturally and in doing so remove yourself from the equation? 

Each to their own (I'm right)

We all have different views on different things; but what if everything is reducible to scientific measurement? Things like morality; what if the only law is selfishness bound by a network of systems of control?

Wouldn’t that change things significantly?

I hear a lot about the big questions, for example: why are we here? Somehow it is assumed that there must be some great meaning behind the fact that we are living, thinking beings – I mean there must be!

But what if there isn’t a ‘great’ greater meaning? What if all of these questions have a surprisingly simple answer? What if I am a collection of organic material that is functioning under universal laws – just like a robot does?

Someone has to be right and someone else wrong at the end of the day; there is no room for ambiguity. If, as Richard Dawkins says, morality is inbuilt into us as selfishness (for example the achievement of social status through altruistic behaviour) then can every question be boiled down to the measurable science of nature?

The extinction of humanity

Have you ever questioned whether there's a difference between the killing of one rhino and that of the chicken you just ate?

Both are individuals with their own lives like you or me and they have each gone extinct as a single being. It doesn't matter to you whether the species survives if you're the individual animal, right?

We talk about stopping a species from going extinct but because there are plenty of chickens it somehow becomes ok to kill individuals (so long as you only kill a proportion of them). 

Isn't it interesting the way people's minds work? They seem to see a species of animal as an entire entity and they fear the disappearance of that entity. But for the individual animal all it really has at the end of the day is it's own life.

Interestingly, since humans are animals do the same standards not apply to us? There are plenty of us on the planet so does it matter if a number of people are killed (so long as it's only a small proportion)?

Intrusive thoughts explained

It happens in a sudden flash so real that I react bodily. It feels as though I'm actually experiencing the normally violent or sexual intrusive thought in that split second. It is horrible and I still find it very distressing even though it has been going on for a long time. 

Then there's the voices. Sometimes they speak in my head as though it is me thinking, although I know that it isn't me who is articulating them. They don't tell me to do things, but because they pretend to be me and go on and on for months and years they almost become second nature.

It may sound odd but because they are so frequent and ongoing I get used to them and although I can usually fight them off, when I am tired or not feeling myself, I struggle to counter them and they end up overpowering me. 

A world without magic

Are you scared that this is it and you aren’t anything beyond your body?

Is that really such a bad thing? What are the implications of such a reality? For one thing life becomes a whole lot more valuable, doesn’t it? You only have a limited time so why would you want to spend it in displeasure?

What is so special about magic anyway?

Is there anything wrong with everything being a product of nature and measurable by science? Would this make ours a cold world?

I guess it’s easy to lose sight of the scale of things; how large things are and how miniscule and intricate they are at the same time. Who has any need of the supernatural with all of that?!

Does art have a place in a Universe where science rules all? Will it be limited to the purely aesthetic in the (maybe distant?) future?

What I mean is: will self-expression become obsolete if and when there is harmony in the world? Will there be anything to express when there is no religion, crime, conflict or inequality and we are all happy?

Why did god create you?

Everything boils down to cause and effect. Every decision you make is the result of the entire history that has led up to it. The you as you are right now is the result of your genetic code and your upbringing.

Everything can be seen to be the knock on effect of history. This includes the very chemistry of your body. Your genes provide the design for you; and your environment has influenced the biological development that has made you what you would term you.

Think about it, by reading this idea (that choice is an illusion), you are already being influenced. Imagine if you were to say: “ok, I’m not going to choose my usual big mac and instead go for a mac chicken sandwich because I want to prove that I have the power of choice”.

You may think that you are making a choice but because what I have said - as well as the entire

influence of history – is at play, it isn’t really a choice; you are just acting out the inescapable result of a long chain of events.

And it goes for every decision; even the ones you don’t even have to think about making like when to blink or how many times to chew your mac chicken sandwich before swallowing it.

So now for God: If this is how he designed us, as causality bound beings, he would have known exactly what we would one day do. If this is the case, how can he punish us for sinning and then go so far as to send his son to save us by his sacrifice when we have no choice but to be the way we are?

We don't need a Matrix to be born into bondage.

Pretty Eyes – have Muslims have got it right?

It is a weird thing to draw someone; to focus your attention so intensely on their physical body. I complimented my cousin on how pretty her eyes are whilst drawing her, but in doing so felt odd because why should someone’s physical appearance deserve praise?

In the past I felt that people are more than just their outer appearance – particularly when it comes to attraction. But you are your body, aren’t you? The physical and mental parts of you are equally essential and they are both organic structures.

So does liking someone because of their personality have equal standing to liking them because of how they look? After all both are tangible parts of that person, right? Either way you are judging them by their physical appearance (although some bits may only appear in an MRI scan).

By a natural way of looking at it, your body is a vessel for its genetic code. The only thing that matters to it is whether it is able to pass on its DNA to the next generation. Everything else is built around that one sole aim. So what is really important at the end of the day: our comfortable illusions or the reality?

I'm more inclined to favour personality over physical appearance, but am I fighting my nature in doing so? In this unnatural world where people get married with the intention of spending the rest of their lives together, is personality more important than physical appearance?

Makes you want to cry – don’t be so serious (they say)

I once got really upset about the state that we have caused our world to be in to the point that I broke down in tears. I was still young and innocent enough that when my parents said to me “don’t worry about what you can’t change - it’s not your problem”, their authority easily persuaded me to put those troubling thoughts to the back of my mind and leave them there.  

Over a decade later I retrieved them where they lay forgotten in a corner, dusted them off and brought them back into the light. Had I matured over the interim or did the numbing effect of the medication mean that I could finally look on them without succumbing to my emotions?

Who knows?

All I know is that people seem to be spending a lot of time on self-indulgent endeavours whilst other people are suffering. It’s as though they are some kind of zombie who is mindlessly feeding off of the flesh of other humans.

The reality is that I am as much a mindless flesh eating monster as anyone else - but what you gonna do?

I’m a monster

They call it schizophrenia. I have violent and sexual images in my head some of the time which can be very distressing. I try and tell myself that it’s just my brain saying, “What’s the most horrible thing we can make him think? I know!” and then bam, you’ve got intrusive images/urges.

Being diagnosed took much of the distress away because suddenly I wasn’t this awful, evil person anymore. However every intrusive thought that enters my head makes me question whether I am mentally ill or just a very, very bad person?

It’s not so bad when I get the urge to pour hot coffee over a crying baby’s head as that is so fantastical that I know it’s an intrusive thought. However having sexual thoughts about people who are close to you does cause a great deal of distress because they can be arousing.

I guess it’s only natural for my body to react to sexual things and the fact that I consciously resent having those kinds of thoughts is a good sign. I just wish they weren’t so damn persistent!

Be yourself (they say)

A friend once voiced their dislike of people always talking about themselves. Since then I’ve been careful (not always successfully) not to fall into that trap.

Growing up, at least in my culture, people are quick to encourage individuality. So if talking about yourself is what you naturally like to do, is it being false to yourself not to do so? If it takes effort to be someone else then does this not contradict the idea of trying to be an individual?

I have found that if you do something for so long, eventually you become what you do. So then, when people say “be yourself”, what meaning are we to take from that? For me, ‘myself’ is not something that is set in stone; if anything a major component of my personality is the desire to be someone else.

Qualities

Unfortunately I used to be very insular and watch a lot of TV and movies and read fiction and so the person I used to aim to be wasn’t a person based in reality; and this throws up all sorts of problems. The more you get out into the reality of our world, the more you start to base your idolising on actual people. This is important because real people aren’t ‘perfect’.

Everyone has both ‘good’ and ‘evil’ traits in play in every action of their lives (I put good and evil in inverted commas because the eventually boil down to us all being selfish.

So next time you are encouraged to be yourself, remember that you are what you do so please don’t be too quick to define yourself. Be sure to base your idolising on real people (and don’t forget that every decision you make is down to your selfish instinct).

The bed of life

The antipsychotic tablets which I take nightly are major tranquilisers so it is often difficult to wake up in the mornings. Then my now fiancée came along and when I struggle to wake up she is there to help me.

The other day I realised that it isn’t just actual sleep that she rouses me from; symbolically she has also woken me up in my life as well.

Following the trauma of my psychotic episodes (and without even really thinking about it) I shut myself off from the world. My body spent its days at home focusing on learning Japanese (long story). It did get out but it did so just a shell with no real personality or opinions.

Then my fiancée to be entered my life and somewhere along the way something clicked. I suddenly felt the tug of purpose trying to rouse me from inside my comatose shell; it may sound corny but she had given me a reason to live.

I didn’t break through straight away but the ball was rolling and it started with art. I had given up art when my illness first materialised but now I felt the push to re-embrace it. This was difficult to do because I was still mostly shut away.

I needed to process what was going on but I was too scared to throw open the flood gates. How it started I don’t know but I began to write; processing things a bit at a time and eventually forming concepts that I turned into paintings.

The more I did this the more confidence I was able to build and I gradually began to form opinions of my own­. Just like she does when I struggle with mornings, my fiancée had awoken me from the stupor that my illness had anaesthetised me into.

Body over mind (the illusion of self)

You are a vessel for your genetic code and this thing inside which you call ‘you’ is a gimmick and an illusion. This isn’t in any way negative - although it is very necessary to accept it as reality in order to lead a fulfilled life.

It is easy to think that you are in control of your body but are you?

If you move your arm you don’t have to think “move” in order for it to work; it just happens. So does that voice in your head have any actual power? Sure you have the ability to take your own life, but is that control? Or is that your body controlling ‘you’?

In fact you are your body. I accept that the decisions I make are, in the end, a product of my nature; which all boils down to the continuity, by reproduction, of the genetic code I carry.

This puts life into perspective for me. It doesn’t take anything away from the wealth of human experience but it does contradict this idea of importance that humanity has imbued itself with.

And spirituality is at the top of the list; the idea that we transcend our physical bodies becomes meaningless and actually gives us a greater purpose.

You are a being that is capable of experiencing pleasure and suffering. Once you understand the root cause of these sensations you can stop kidding yourself that there is fantastical meaning in life; the only meaning comes from nature.

So stop wasting time putting your faith in crap and connect with the world around you.

Words Have Power (do wild animals get mentally ill?)

The way I understand it language is quite a modern ability for humans, coming about in order to coordinate during the hunting of large prey. But are we up to the challenge of language? Is being able to speak actually inhibiting us?

I look at my cats and see that they are unable to articulate things in their heads like I am; I can communicate more than a cat is able to do through language. I am able to talk to myself too and write down things so that I can comprehend them.

It is true that words do have power and once something is articulated in your head it is difficult to forget about it. This is different with cats that don’t have the efficient tool that is language to enable them to achieve this.

But is it actually an achievement? Or is it like a peacock’s feathers, which have evolved naturally but now mean that the birds are more susceptible to being caught by predators?

Does language make us more susceptible to mental illnesses simply because we are now aware of our reality beyond the level of our evolution?