I was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia ten years ago and I have intrusive auditory hallucinations like the one in the title of this post.
It feels like these thoughts are put in my head because there is a disconnection in my mind; so I don't recognise the 'voices' as my own (even though they technically are).
The things the voices say are the result of my primeval brain attempting to grapple with the modern, let's say unnatural world we live in.
I am fortunate in that I can separate these voices from 'me', so I can take a step back and watch them happen without feeling guilty about having things like them in my head.
This is important because ordinarially the thoughts would possibly get acted upon, whereas I am able to put them in a box for you to see.
I hope you will see them and realise that we are mostly (some people are just bad eggs genetically of course) not to blame for our actions as it is the world being unnatural and incompatible with our primeval brains that really fucks us up.
The worlds population is growing out of control and consuming more and more energy which is destroying the planet. Unless much more is done we will eventually reach a point where nature will take its course and only the fittest (if any) will survive - who will they be?
A physical example: People have been able to survive illnesses like thyroid problems because of medication. If societies collapse then no more medication will be made leaving the 'weak' to die slow painful deaths or avoid that fate by taking their own lives.
In her TED talk (link below), Temple Grandin talks about how we all
have something different to contribute to society. So naturally I began to
think about what it is that I contribute.
I like to draw and play music and learn about things and
understand them. You could call it putting things into boxes and you would
probably be right on the money.
(Is there anything wrong with doing that?)
I realise that I won’t be able to develop new scientific
technology or cure things like cancer; but what I can do is allow the world
that I experience to be filtered through me and all of my experience so that
when it comes out it is in the form of insight that can have some prevalence in
the lives of others.
Why am I so embarrassed for people to know that I am on
benefits because of a mental health condition and why do I constantly feel like
a cheat whenever I think about claiming?
I don’t work at the moment because I am physically unable
to do so - I know, this sounds like a cop out even to me; as though I am just
making excuses and I could actually work if I were to simply put in the effort.
But I shouldn’t feel that I am being stigmatised (even if
it is all in my head).
Yet I still don’t want people to know that I claim
benefits because somehow it feels like I’m doing nothing for something whereas
they are working bloody hard for their paycheque.
I have a freedom pass (which lets me travel, as you
guessed, for free) however the fact is that it isn’t really for free because I have
to pay, not by money, but by the torment of not being able to earn my own way
like other people and also by struggling in everyday life.
Throughout most of our history as humans on this planet
we have lived in small groups. There was no knowledge of the wider world, yet
alone the vastness of the Universe.
If our brains have evolved to deal with such a small
world then is it any surprise that this sudden (in evolutionary terms)
expansion of our awareness of things has left us feeling a little shell-shocked?
What if our brains just can’t cope with the world on that
scale?
Could mental illness be a consequence of that inability
to cope?
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.
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?
“Are you such a dreamer to put the world to rights?”
They say you’re not a fully paid up member of the Schizo
club until you’ve been Jesus. Why on earth do I feel a sense of achievement
that I can say I have been? For a long time I believed I were the reincarnation
and the second coming.
I did try and argue; for instance I thought “hey, I have
no special powers and no angel has come to tell me I am to be crucified to save
the souls of man”. But a voice somewhere inside me immediately sprung up; “there’s
no evidence Jesus had any powers either, people must have made that up to keep
things interesting and as for angels, well, men are living longer nowadays so
the angel probably thinks he has time before he need appear to you, right?”
Any way I looked at it there was always a comeback. I
should stress that this back and forth was almost subconscious. I was aware of
it as I would be a conversation going on at another table in a busy restaurant;
sometimes I’d catch a few words but I wouldn’t always be aware that people were
talking.
You could blame that particular delusion on my religious
upbringing – although it is probably seriously blasphemous to have such a
belief. I’ve been hearing a lot recently on how it cannot be psychosis to
believe in a creator - and all of the dogma attached - so long as there are
many beside you who also believe; safety in numbers.
I grew out of the belief that I was the Christian son of
god, back after 2000 years as Chris de Burgh sung. I like to think that I don’t
believe in anything supernatural and I feel comfortable in that Universe.
I based my entire belief system on this lecture above by
Lawrence Krauss. Although it mostly went over my head I did make out was that
there everything can come from nothing. This changed my whole sense of life
overnight. I suddenly discovered a world that I could conceptualise, where
morality was essentially evolutionary and where I didn’t need a meaning beyond
nature.
Judging by what I have seen, heard and read the vast
majority of people don’t have the impulse to desire that knowledge. They are
quite happy to get on with their lives, dealing with whatever is thrown their
way. That is exactly how nature intended it. Evolution by natural selection
takes a long time but unfortunately the evolution of society doesn’t. We live
in a modern society and yet have primeval brains.
(For example our brains are designed to deal with scarcity.
That is why when food is abundant you have the problem of obesity because the
instinct says “eat eat eat, who knows where the next meal will be!”)
And yet I find myself aware of desiring that knowledge.
My initial reaction was that there had to be a natural explanation for this. A
complicated concoction of genes and environment – maybe even the head injury I
had experienced when I was younger had caused lesions in my brain. But then a
voice somewhere inside said “hey, what if you are special? What if you are
destined to make a difference? What if you are the one who will start a new
religion of knowledge and lead the world out of the darkness? What if?
It feels like a very naïve idea when I write it down like
that. Of course I watch the news and see the situation in the Middle East and
North Korea and the overriding worries of Climate Change. I was told you should
never base anything on divine revelation and this certainly has that aroma
about it. But what if we stopped valuing and wasting money on material things?
Religion seems to glue communities together but they have
a dark side as well. But what is there in place of religion? I see young people
leading hedonistic lives and it makes me feel sick inside. Is knowledge the way
forward? Will it get better if people are made aware of their place in the
Universe and realise that there is nothing beyond nature and causality? There
need be nothing else because that in itself is so incredibly humbling.
