Monday, July 16, 2001 :::
 

I need to understand why there is pain in the world. This is not the question of an emotionally immature person - nor is it the cry of a victim, looking for catharsis after bearing strain. This is a question of general puzzlement. I need to understand why people get ill - why they get cancer - why they overdose on drugs - why they commit suicide - why there is suffering - why there are heart attacks - why people's mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, friends, acquaintances die and why we're left to pick up the pieces. What purpose does it serve? ...and don't stand there and smugly lecture me on the balance of good and bad or the importance of natural selection. And for christ's sake, if the words "god's will" even begin to come out of your mouth/fingers - I'm going to go ballistic. That's bullshit.

I've seen and heard nice words about the Goddess (or God, if you prefer) holding us all in the palm of her hand while she keeps balance between positive and negative forces...Based on what I've seen that's not the case at all. We are held firmly by the Goddess while positive and negative forces tug violently on each arm. ...and if blood is spilled, so be it. That happens to me quite a bit. Except that it's spiritual blood, not actual blood. I think I've been bled dry, too.

The grief process causes a ripple effect that takes its toll on people. You've heard the term, "always a bridesmaid but never a bride" - how about "always support, never supported". Not that I'm signing up for tragedy in my life, far from it. But I think that in a perverse sort of way, those whom tragedy touches directly have more outlet to mentally/spiritually sort it out. See, they're allowed to scream and cry and throw a big fit - and those of us on the fringes, who may be touched only briefly have the added guilt of "how can I scream and cry and throw a big fit when he's lost his mother - or she's lost her father?" without the catharsis of actually screaming and crying and throwing a big fit. My pain is worth less than your pain. That's what I mean by spiritual bleeding. ...and again, I'm bled dry.

I've had my share of pain in life, who hasn't? But I feel like I've had more than my share of spiritual bleeding, made more vivid recently with the cancer of someone that I've met, but am not close to. But she is close to someone that I'm very close to and it hurts to watch my friend suffer. It hurts so bad that my eyes are burning as I type this and my chest is tight. I want to cry for her so bad - cry for her, for my friend, for me. But I can't. So, if medication will take this feeling and replace it with me, throwing open the shutters of my two-story mind and embracing the sunlight of a new day - then, so be it.

::: posted by MetalCat at 9:53 AM

Wednesday, July 11, 2001 :::
 

The High Cost of Mental Health

The scene opens when a woman throws open the shutters of her two-story home and embraces the sunlight of a new day. The intended message is that this woman cannot perform an task as simple as opening a window without sharing her unadulterated joy about being alive. So I, ever the cynic, immediatly think to myself This is America, no person can be that happy unless there is premium grade pharmaceuticals involved. Imagine my total shock to discover that this was a Prozac commercial.

I am not against Prozac, Zoloft, or any of the drugs that even out the wrinkles in the brain. In fact, that this commercial was a Prozac commercial didn't phase me...I have seen plenty of those type of commercials, including the one that promises people with severe social anxiety a chance to get out in the world and all they have to do is accept dry-mouth, abdominal cramping, mild seizures, anal seepage, andcertain sexual side effects (I find this last side effect peculiar because that is a primary motivation to go OUT...TO GET LAID!!). No, the product itself was not what caught my attention...what did was the latest innovation with the product: PROZAC WEEKLY.

I thought is funny that people who need a medication to remain stable and functioning members of our Great Society can't be bothered to swallow a pill every 24 hours. I am aware that this is a (to over-use and over-used statement that people think they are witty when they throw it out in conversation) FAST FOOD CULTURE with convenience as its crown jewel, but Jesus, it is almost as if a daily regimen of chemical balancing is a terrible burden that cannot be squeezed into one's busy schedule.

I thought this was odd and I thought I would share it. File this away in the “Lose-Weight-While-You- Sleep-Perfect-Eyesight-In-An-Hour-Increase-Your-Bust-By-Two-Cup-Sizes” Convenience File.

::: posted by Mike at 12:01 PM

Thursday, July 05, 2001 :::
 

Candy For Weak Minds

Metal Cat is inching her way towards one of the biggest land mines buried in
the sand of society's playground. Propaganda is the cattle call for all the
drones inhabiting this consumer plantation called America. But what it is now
is not the same thing it was. In fact, it is a different animal altogether whose
movements are stealthier and whose teeth are a wicked kind of sharp.

It used to be, back in the good old days of America, that the government held
the monopoly on propaganda and perception altering misinformation. MetalCat
referenced a wonderful example of this in her previous post "SOMEBODY TALKED".
The posters in question told the viewer that to leak secrets about the goings on
within your great nation's backyard would bring about death that YOU would take
on your résumé with you straight to a flaming hell of unpatriotic murderers.
THAT was the magic and power of governmental propaganda. There were no
subtleties or soft mentioning in causal conversation. YOU WERE A MURDERER. YOU
WERE A COMMUNIST. YOU WERE A DISIDENT HELL BENT ON THE
DESTRUCTION OF LIFE IN THE US OF A. End of list, That's the Ballgame,
Say Goodnight Gracie.

Times change and so do the motivations to corral and shape the minds of a
nation. With all the wars having been fought, the threat of communism fading
with the dismantling of the former Red Soviet Block in the late 80's, the
government lost its impetus to maintain and control the thoughtscape of its
citizenry. This left a huge population whose weak minds had been trained to hit
the bar for a delivery of mind-numbing candy. Some evolved, others joined
cults, but most wandered the wilderness of shopping malls and micro-breweries
looking to fall in-step with the beat of a new drummer. Any drummer. Enter the
mass media.

It is not my assertion that media hadn't already been a major force of
molding the ideas of the masses, but when compared to the government they were
mere amateurs. The medium of television started small by giving what appeared
on the surface to be genuine information between the commercial product ads that
promised the country wizz-bang products with easy credit terms. In the grand
game of casting new mind molds, however, this brand of methodology was benign
and innocuous against the churning machine of managed information created by the
established regime. But as the aforementioned decline of the government's
"need" to manage information became apparent, the media was ushered into the
seat of power.

The country needed direction to replace the dissipating song of that famous
cattle call. The media was faced with a dilemma of how to round up the strays
and divert them to the feeding troughs of this new brand of Candy. They answered
this by engaging the age old vehicle "sensationalism" known to you and me as
"hype".

Superman has the Krypton sun. Lenny had Squiggy. And the media has as its
source of momentum and energy: the runaway freight-train of Hype. Hype is in
watercooler talk. Hype is in the talkshows. Hype is a staple ingredient of
what a friend of mine (one far smarter than me) calls "The Dateline Effect".
Hype makes heroes out of the mediocre and ordinary people into villains. Hype
tells us to wear green when we prefer blue. It makes us spend when we know we
should save. Hype is the most inventive smoke screen every to curl away from the
fire of propaganda.

From where we sit today the government is out of the propaganda business.
They might occasionally get involved in a cover up or two, but at the end of the
day they are in the business of counting dollars and hiring mercenaries, not the
wholesale brokering of hidden messages carrying hidden agendas. They have
outsourced that job to the most able mercenary body on the planet, the media.

This is a new age of Propaganda we live in. One whose reach is not obstructed
by borders and not limited to old methods of communication. The internet was
once a geek network of high level techies...now pre-schoolers send e-mail and
grandmothers log-onto porn sites. This medium, like all before it (save
CB-RADIO...good buddy), has succumb to that Darwinian pull that evolve all things.
Dot Coms harbor their own blend of misguidance with unknown drivers at the wheel.
It is now only in small pockets in the dark under-belly of the internet where
anything unbias still exists. Take this site for example. mikehaddon.com is
nothing more than me trying to warp the lens of reality and make my self seem
something more than what I am....propaganda is a human thing.

There is much more to all this than can be covered here. Look for my article
about "The Booming Real-Estate Market of the Mind" on the main page
of my website in October. I hope to drill a little deeper into this topic...
either that or I will just rehash everything I have said here.

I Welcome all those to my attempt at a BLOG and I openly invite anybody to
join. Thanks to Rob and Metal Cat for being the first to sound off. I hope to
have a few more folks on board soon.

::: posted by Mike at 3:13 PM