Religious Beliefs ARE Mental Illness

“Science flies you to the moon. Religion flies you into buildings.” --Richard Dawkins

I have long been fascinated with things like psychology and sociology, learning about the things humans do and, to some extent, the reasons for their thoughts and actions. “Mental Illness” is, of course a vast subject, so much so, that most of us have had some direct personal experience with it in one way or another. Some ‘mental illness’ is very subtle and even the best experts might disagree on whether a particular person doing a particular thing is or isn’t ‘mental illness’. Other things are abundantly obvious to everyone, such as, when a couple allow their child to die from starvation and sickness when plenty of food and medical care were readily available; when some guy ‘snaps’ and cuts off his wife’s head because she has ‘dishonored’ him.

You might notice the examples above are likely to be associated with some kind of religious belief. It is this specific kind of illness that I want to point out in this blog.

Of course, most mental illnesses, whether they have any religious component or not, are not violent. But it is not necessary for delusions to be violent in order to do great harm. Yes, there are many kinds of delusions which have nothing to do with religion or religious beliefs at all. But many do.

I understand religion about as well as one can, I think. I don’t mean all the technical and academic details of theology, hermeneutics, etc., but religion. I was a devout Christian for over thirty years. I believed in God as much as anyone possibly can. I spoke in tongues (yeah, still can of course), felt the spirit of God move in me and around me. I considered it a great privilege to get on my knees and pray fervently to God, thanking Him for all His blessings, and sometimes asking for direction and guidance. I know what it means to “know God” and to talk with God and to listen to his voice. I was a very content Christian, happy with my life, until one night something happened. I stopped believing...almost. Just like that. I say ‘almost’ because I had to think about it for a little while; why was I suddenly terrified that I was going to Hell for turning my back on God, prayed more fervently than ever in my life to God to “help my unbelief”. It took a little thought to realize how goofy it was to be scared of and praying to a critter I didn’t believe existed in the first place. Then I started to grow.

Eventually, I concluded that religious belief is actually a clinical delusion. Not in some smart-ass insulting kind of way, but in the same way that other delusions are delusions. Most delusions are either somewhat or extremely rare. You can find a list of examples here. The DSM-IV is often called the “Bible” of psychiatry, as it is a listing of many various disorders, and illnesses. I cannot say that I was truly surprised, but was very disappointed when I learned that the APA (American Psychiatric Association), or whatever body is in control of the publishing of the DSM, had succumbed to the same greed and corruption as most other such groups. Why?

Because, according to the DSM, a delusion is: A false belief based on incorrect inference about external reality that is firmly sustained despite what almost everybody else believes and despite what constitutes incontrovertible and obvious proof or evidence to the contrary. ''The belief is not one ordinarily accepted by other members of the person's culture or subculture''.

This is very sad. They inserted a phrase in there that should have never been there: “despite what almost everybody else believes”. The honest definition of a delusion is the rest of the statement, minus that phrase. A delusion is a false belief based on incorrect inference about external reality that is firmly sustained despite what constitutes incontrovertible and obvious proof or evidence to the contrary. Why is this sad? Because “what almost everybody else believes” is absolutely and utterly irrelevant to whether or not a given thing is a delusion. Truth is not determined by popularity. It is determined by whether a belief is based upon evidence about external reality.

Freud had it right on this when he said religion was “A system of wishful illusions together with a disavowal of reality, such as we find nowhere else...but in a state of blissful hallucinatory confusion.” Albert Ellis, PhD, said in an interview in 2001, “Spirit and soul is horseshit of the worst sort. Obviously there are no fairies, no Santa Clauses, no spirits. What there is, is human goals and purposes...But a lot of transcendentalists are utter screwballs.”

It should be obvious there are at least two main reasons for the inclusion of that ridiculous phrase about “what everybody believes”. One is that the body responsible for the DSM is not JUST a professional one, but also a political and social one. It would not be politically, socially, or especially financially, prudent to declare that most of the population of the world is deluded, never mind that this is the truth. The other main reason, I suppose, is that a huge percentage, perhaps most, of the “mental health professionals”, are themselves under such delusions. Maybe it’s just me, but I really don’t think a person with an ongoing mental delusion is qualified to be a mental health professional. In the same way that I don't think a believing Baptist minister is qualified to lead an atheist organization.

One of the things that most irks me about my fellow atheists is the idea that religious folk are just dumb and/or uneducated. I always point to Francis Collins who ran the Human Genome Project and is currently director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). This is a genuine world class scientist...surely no one would assert that this man is just dumb or uneducated. He is also a Christian and wrote The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief.

People make mistakes all the time. I do, you do. We might make statements or hold opinions that are not correct. Most of us will modify our opinions if we are presented with actual evidence. This is what distinguishes a delusion from merely being wrong or mistaken about something. There is NO amount of logical reasoning, NO amount of evidence to the contrary, that will convince a delusional person that he is wrong. It is because his delusions are not arrived at through evidence or logical reasoning in the first place, but are based mostly upon emotion and ‘feeling’. This ALWAYS trumps reason in the human mind. Hence we have the world that we do, instead of one that could be vastly better. The Capgras Syndrome is basically when a person becomes convinced that his mother, for example, has been removed and has been replaced by an imposter that looks, sounds and behaves exactly like his mother. It has been discovered that the REASON for this delusion is due to a loss of any emotional connection to his mother within the brain.

Consider the website god is imaginary.com. There is a good deal of information there that most atheists would probably like, MAYBE some that might interest an “on the fence” person, but do you really think a serious Christian or Muslim would be persuaded by any of it? I don’t. It ain’t about reasoning. As Martin Luther correctly noted, “Whoever wants to be a Christian should tear the eyes out of his reason”.

I spent most of my early life in religion of one flavor or another. I saw nothing odd or wrong or ‘out of place’ about it while I was in it. It was “...accepted by other members of the person's culture or subculture”, so what could be wrong about it? Nonetheless, it was and is a “shared delusion”, as Richard Dawkins put it, rather than a ‘bizarre delusion’ (such as believing you are Napolean). I have done a great deal of research, especially reading fellow atheists and other skeptics who disagree with the label of ‘delusion’ for religious beliefs. I have yet to find one which disagrees based on the definition of delusion, or based on the content of religious beliefs. It is not good, most say, because religious beliefs provide so much comfort to so many people.

I find this especially troubling, coming from non-believers and skeptics. While I would not argue about the “comfort” question, it is beside the point. The question is whether the beliefs fit the clinical definition of delusion. They do. Period.

By 'religious beliefs’ I mean mostly beliefs in supernatural realms and beings; gods, devils, demons, angels, spirits, fairies, ghosts, heaven, hell, etc. Things like variations of “The Golden Rule”, or “Love your neighbor as yourself” are not religious beliefs, have nothing to do with religion.

I have seen religion destroy people...one example is a guy who is (apparently) a former friend on Facebook who goes all the way back to Myspace. I recently had to leave the ‘Article and Blog-sharing Group’, which Todd started and which I have enjoyed for a long time. Todd used to be an atheist. We’ve had many good discussions over the years, some disagreements, but when we disagreed it was good naturedly. Here is a recent comment from a thread: Wesman Todd Shaw “I find it offensive as a rule whenever someone says "this is rational," or "this is reasonable." I know such comments are nothing but shit, based on shit, and designed to do nothing but be shit.” Is this self-explanatory or what? Martin Luther would be proud. I am sad that I seem to have lost a friend.

TRB

Trust issues...

I'm having them. Hurts.

The Universe

I like to understand stuff. Stuff includes the universe. I know, of course, that not even all the cosmologists and physicists in the world combined fully understand the universe....still, I want to understand as much as I can. I’m reaching out to the very scientifically minded Facebook people (especially in the cosmology area) in the hope that someone can help me answer a few questions I have. First, maths mean absolutely zip to me, so if you wish to explain something to me, it must be translated into plain English or I’ll never get it. Second, just so we’re kind of on the same page, and especially if you have not seen this, I ask that you watch the video I will link to here, just so you will understand better what my questions are.

If you are at all familiar with layperson explanations of such things that the professionals give, you have probably seen the analogy of an expanding balloon to explain our expanding universe. I understand that analogy, but it has always left me with a huge question. Galaxies, and glactic clusters. it is explained, are depicted as dots on the surface of the balloon, and as the balloon inflates, all the dots grow further away from each other. So that no matter what dot you might be observing from, you will see the same basic thing....all other dots moving away from you, as though, as Carl Sagan put it, you had committed some cosmic blunder. So far so good.

But what is INSIDE the balloon? It might well be only a case of my being rather daft about that, but I don’t get that part. Then, I watched this video. It further confused me because it depicts, not just galaxies on the outside surface of a balloon, but a sphere FULL of galaxies, galactic clusters, etc. So, which is the more correct way to see “our” universe...are we and everything we can know just as ants crawling about on the outside skin of a vast balloon? Or is “our” universe a sphere, full of such things? And where are we relative to the rest of it?

Thank you in advance, for your enlightenment.

TRB

Debate?

This is a blog I’m doing about religion vs atheism, and will post at Blogger because I can include links and embed videos there (as opposed to doing a “note” on FB or just posting in an FB thread).

I was recently in the Facebook group Debate and Discussion. At the time I was apparently the only atheist rep in the thread and there were, I believe, three Christians. I have been in many other threads in which there was a mix of both sides and in a few where a lone Christian was trying to answer several non-believers. It was an interesting experience to be “The Lone Atheist”, even in such a brief and limited context as an FB thread, which only involved four people, for that period. Even with the “safety” of being online, as opposed to being physically in a group of Christians (not that all Christians are the same, of course), I began to experience just the barest twinge of unease. It would not be accurate to describe it as “fear”, but perhaps a precursor...a sense of unease.

Of course I knew absolutely nothing about the persons on the other end of the texts, except to take at face value that they were genuine in the things they were saying (as opposed to playing a troll or some such critter). To be clear, no one said anything nasty or threatening to me, at least in the ordinary sense. It was more the general tone of the thing...it came through quite clearly, that these people saw me as “one of them”... perhaps one to be pitied, maybe to be saved or convinced, but there was another undercurrent which suggested that if I did not show some signs, at least of what I would think they would see as ‘humility’ or a willingness to listen, in the way a student would listen, then shortly they would simply conclude that I was “lost”, and I would be abandoned to my (what they see as a) terrible fate.

Again, I have never met any of these people except in that online thread, so I cannot say with much certainty what kind of people they are. I can say only how I felt...and I felt unease...that perhaps I just might be in an “unsafe” place; that were we actually physically together sitting someplace...um, it might not be nice.

One of the things that I think cause this feeling to begin to show up was that they began hurling questions at me, in what felt like an accusatory manner; “Temy, have you ever told a lie?” “Have you ever lusted in your heart after a woman and committed adultery in your mind?”. To which I answered, by the way, “Yes, I have told many lies, and yes, I very much lust after every attractive woman I see, especially the ones on the porn sites.” A thing that seemed so surreal to me, especially, about that last question, was the assumption that, if I said “yes”, I should somehow feel embarrassed or ashamed or guilty. I know that in their world view, that would make perfect sense. As I told them, I was a devout Christian for over 30 years, and that was certainly part of my own worldview for most of that time. Now, of course, the notion that I should feel bad or guilty about looking “lustfully” at a naked woman is to absurd for words, and I’m fairly certain that the kind of folk I was dealing with would think that this is one ‘symptom’ or result of atheism, though actually, I can see that even if I had remained a Christian I would have matured enough to think that was just silly. That is just a part of my personality, not necessarily having any connection whatever to the fact that I am atheist.

There was some mention of science, and one person seemed to think rather highly of her own scientific knowledge, (though most of what was mentioned would leave an actual scientists shaking their head). Then, as often happens in such an exchange, videos started to pop up that they wanted me to watch...I’ll try to find the link to one to include at the bottom. It was called “180“ or something like that, and I began to watch it. I got just over 2 minutes in and could not get any further because I saw that it was Ray Comfort and Hitler and the Nazis were in the background, and I simply could not go there...not with Ray Comfort. I can sometimes watch a debate between atheists and Christians, and sometimes I can see a Christian making some good points here and there, but this man is just simply either quite insane or just a charlatan, one or the other. I have no doubt many Christians would agree with that assessment.

I found a video of Ray being interviewed via phone on the Atheist Experience program and I include that here to give a sense of Ray, if you are not familiar. I found it tolerable because there was some counterpoint to his madness.

The Christians I was dealing with in the thread I mentioned, apparently think highly of Ray and think in similar ways, hence they posted one of his videos. Several things were said about evolution which sounded much like the kind of things Ray would say. I hope we all know that many Christians understand evolution and have no problem with acknowledging the facts about it. Many, perhaps most?, don’t. I’m going to also include here a video by an actual scientist called “Why Evolution is True”. I know, of course, that such a video would be received by these folk in about the same way I received the one of Ray they posted. From their perspective, I am an amazingly deluded (and lost) person, unable to think clearly.

My request of you here is that, you get to know Ray a bit (if you don’t already) and then listen to the man explain why evolution is true, and then if you perhaps still do not “accept” evolution as a basic fact of life, I would surely hope you would deeply question your own self.

G’night Johnboy.

TRB

180 Changing the Heart of a Nation

Irony

Sorry...had to take a minute to go look at Jennifer Aniston’s nipples. You want irony? Well, here’s some anyway...

In about 4 hours the most ambitious mission yet will attempt to land on Mars. The amount of technical, mathematical, engineering, and other kinds of knowledge necessary for that is almost staggering. And the coordinated work of thousands of people. It makes some of us kinda misty, hoping for a safe landing for Curiosity. Ray Kurzweil has correctly pointed out that billions of people now have smart phones...they are so cheap and powerful that a bushman in the Congo has nearly the collected knowledge of humanity, literally in his hand. Even many of the literally starving people in the world have such phones....

But they can’t eat them. Does it help them get any food, clean water, medicine, sanitary toilets? Where’s the “profit” in helping such people? Where is the motivation for tens of thousands of people to work together for the sole purpose of providing the basic necessities of life for so many destitute people? It just ain’t there. There is perceived to be no profit in it. God, my species is sick.

TRB

Your Penis Is NOT Your 'Manhood'

Sexuality, sexual organs and anything to do with sexual behavior seems to be among the things which illicit the most completely insane and irrational thoughts and even laws among humans, especially if there is any religious involvement. Currently in the USA, it is considered much worse for a young child to see a naked woman’s breast on television or other media, than to see the blood and gore of war and accidents. This suggests a twisted mind to me; one who values pain and death more than the beauty of sex and life.

For most men, it is hard to imagine anything that could be more ‘emasculating’ than comments about his penis, even if the comments are completely false. It also can be source of much ‘pride’, ridiculous as that is. For most men, their penis is the focus of a lot of attention long before they are consciously aware of what a penis is and that they have one. It is still very common for males to be physically mutilated - on their major sexual organ, of course - mostly because of ancient religious beliefs and misguided notions about cleanliness and hygiene. When I ‘Google’ the words ‘penis’ and ‘manhood’, the first link presented is for a product called Manhood, which is, “an undergarment acting as a foreskin substitute.”

There’s that word again, ‘manhood’. The word ‘manhood’ has come to be almost universally synonymous with ‘penis’. This is an outright statement by virtually the whole society that, if you do not possess a penis you are not a man. Several implications follow, the main one perhaps that, the smaller your penis the less ‘manly’ you are. No, really. So much so that a ‘celebrity Mohel’ wrote only a couple of months ago about what he called a micro-penis...he said: “Today I circumcised a baby with the smallest penis I've ever seen – a 'micro penis'," wrote the rabbi and added: "Just so you understand, it was slightly thicker than a matchstick; at first I thought it was a girl… May this small one grow to greatness." . Source. Poor kid...little does he know he can never be much of a man now, thus sayeth the Rabbi.

Luckily, for most men who may not measure up physically, there is one last chance to be a man. Esquire magazine (and what better authority could there be on the subject?), had an article in 2009 called “How To Be A Man”. The first sentence of that article? “A man carries cash.” Source. You know it’s true too because how many times have you seen middle-aged to old funny-looking bald guys with pot bellies with babes on their arms. There you have it guys; as soon as you’re old enough to realize you don’t have a big dick and prolly are gonna be poor as dirt, you might as well dig a hole (if you’re man enough) and get in it for good, cuz your life is just fucked (and not in a good way).

Of course, many poor guys do have sex (after all, someone has to continually replenish the supply of useless eaters, right?), and I’ve personally known of guys who are police officers, firemen, etc., who were ‘small’ who managed to survive. I know of a cop whose hard erect penis is less than one inch, but he is happily married to a lovely woman and has three children. What’s “average”? “Ninety percent of all men[’s erect penises] fall between the extremes of 14.5cm (5.6 inches) and 17.5cm (7 inches) despite any claims to the contrary.” Source.

What does it mean to be a man? What is ‘manhood’? There may be myriad answers to such questions but I do hope you guys (and girls) will keep it in your heads that ‘manhood’ is NOT a physical object that can be cut off. I hope you will question why anyone would find even the thought of a small penis remotely funny or amusing, as though its owner had a brain fart and just forgot to grow a big one. I would hope that we can eventually make this kind of absurdity as socially unacceptable as belittling gay people.

TRB

Privacy

To me, a phone is a tool; a nice thing to have when you need it...like a hammer. I like to carry a phone in the car with me for the same reason I’d like to have a hammer with me...in case I need one for something. It’s unlikely I will need to use one. I certainly don’t want anyone else calling me on one or hitting me with their hammer if they have one. Most of the time when at home, I like to keep all phones turned off because I really don’t like the idea of being interrupted at any moment...it’s stressful to me. I only turn it on when I feel up to dealing with it if it rings.

I was flabberghasted when I first saw how many people seem to grow a phone from their ear and are constantly talking on one no matter where they are. Normally, I can go many days without ever needing a phone. Another thing is, I hate it with a passion, when I have to talk on a phone and other people in my presence can hear what I’m saying. I’m a one to one person...I can only deal with one person at a time. If I’m talking on a phone, I want to be out of earshot of anyone else, so that I can pay all my attention to the person on the phone. It doesn’t matter who I’m talking to or the subject, it just seems a private thing to me. Likewise, I also hate hearing someone else’s one-sided conversation. When reasonably possible, I like to remove myself from the vicinity of another talking on a phone. I don’t want to hear it...I don’t want it intruding into my hearing unless I am being addressed or it involves me somehow.

For many years I had two really good friends, Jimmy and Sam. I could spend hours with either one and be just fine. When I ended up with both of them at the same time I was anxious. They were not the sort of people who would ever have been friends unless they had a friend in common...me. I've always been that way...one person at a time is fine, two at once are two many.

I hate the idea of having anyone come to my house. It’s not about being embarrassed about the house, nor about not liking the person in question, or spending any time with them. I don’t want anyone with me in my house (except for my wife who belongs here) for the same reason I don’t want anyone with me in my pants. It’s too personal. I’m not at all thrilled about going to anyone else’s house either...it’s almost like I’m in THEIR pants with them. To me, ‘home’ is that one place in the world which is sacred, not to be intruded upon; a place in which all anxiety can be released. I like it fine if I can visit with a friend at some neutral place...although I’m not big on eating with other people either. I can eat or I can visit and chat, but not simultaneously. I sometimes manage it for short periods, but it’s quite stressful.

I’m not much of a drinker (of alcohol), though I do enjoy having a few beers or mixed drinks on occasion. I just want to do that alone too. I’ve often heard in movies and shows that it’s generally not good to ‘drink alone’. To me that’s the only time it is good to drink. When I drink I want to do that at home...I detest bars, even more so if they are noisy. When I have been in a bar I have always tried to be sure to have my back to the wall, preferably near an exit. People are even more unpredictable and potentially hazardous when they drink than otherwise. I like avoiding potentially dangerous interactions with other humans whenever possible.

Recently I saw some show in which a person had made themselves a magazine rack in the bath room reachable from the toilet. I was very surprised when I first knew that many people like to read on the toilet. I still don’t get it. I wonder if they have some bowel trouble. To me, I want to get in, get that done and get out as quickly as possible. If I’m going to read, I’d much rather do that sitting on the porch or lying in bed. Less stinky. I see people brushing their teeth or shaving on shows all the time, and other people coming in and out of the bathroom. To me, those are very private things...I no more want someone else seeing me do that than sitting on the toilet.

Were I ever to be in prison, my only possible chance of surviving it would be in solitary. It seems most people hate that and some consider it a kind of torture; it’s even been said that a few have become insane from so little interaction with other humans. If the only choices I had were general population or solitary, the solitary would be bliss for me. I have a very full and active internal life, and can get on well for long periods with almost zero interaction with other humans. I do like to have SOME interaction, which is why the Internet is great for me.

It’s the best of both worlds. I can shut out everything else and read or watch videos, or I can go on a ‘social’ site and laugh and talk and visit with others, but without the anxiety of other persons being in my physical space, or me in theirs. Most people seem to have a ‘personal space’, typically about 2-4 feet, which they don’t want other people to violate. Many will get angry if you get very close to their face while talking to them. For me, this ‘personal space’ is my home. I call my online friends my push button friends. This does NOT imply that I care nothing for them, or less for them, only that I have the option of instantly vanishing, at the push of a button, if I need to. I don’t feel cornered or trapped in a situation I can’t easily get out of. I used to have daydreams about being able to interact with people ONLY on a mental level, and the Internet made that (kinda) possible for me.

These are my notions of ‘privacy’. I care nothing for the kind of ‘privacy’ in which one never wants Jim to ever know what you said to John, etc. As for government or the corporatocracy, I really couldn’t care less what all they may know about me. I think it hardly matters...the days of that kind of privacy are long gone in a digital age.

TRB

Immersion Therapy

The Tell-Tale Heart scared me the first time I read it.

If I had not been able to emerge from the theater into the bright afternoon sun, I might have bee in trouble after first watching The Exorcist. Even so, it took a little while to calm down; my heart was beating fast.

Immersion therapy is a psychological technique used to help patients overcome fears, such as phobias. If one suffers from acrophobia (fear of heights), a therapist might gradually take the patient to ever greater heights, over a long period of time, acclimating them to the conditions around them and getting them to more accurately perceive the degree or level of danger they are in within a particular circumstance. In some cases, such a therapy might even allow a former acrophobic to work on constructing giant skyscrapers, or skydive, etc. For this person, the fear they may once have had about walking up a flight of stairs now seems silly and childish.

All of us have been in a kind of accidental immersion therapy for our whole lives; a relative few have become aware of this fact. Some of us have become aware of the real threats and dangers; that there is no realistic escape from them other than death, and so, trivial things like ghost stories are, at most, a momentary amusement compared to the real genocide in the abattoir that is our world. Most of us are shielded, most of the time, from the atrocities; sometimes physically, usually psychologically. Ignorance, quite often, is truly bliss.

Most have no realization that the only reason the protagonist in The Tell-Tale Heart - and most readers - experience guilt and fear, is because that is “the norm”, but those who experience no such things; are not hampered by such internal restrictions, will ALWAYS be the richest and the most powerful, the ruling elite. No matter what era or geography, this will always be true as long as humans are humans in the current sense. It is the height and epitome of foolishness to think that such a fundamental fact of human existence can be changed by “education” or “culture”. If you sit down to play a game of chess and you are restricted to the actual rules of the game but your opponent can ignore, change and make up any rules he likes...do you seriously have to be a mental giant to understand what your chances of winning the game are?

TRB

Escaping with salty tea

Sometimes it feels like I am a vessel, poured full of pain and sorrow, up to the overflow points, the eyes, and then, the liquid hurt just spills over and runs.... I’m tired.

The landlady’s grandson showed up with a tractor and bushhog to cut the grass here...some of it was well over my head. She had asked when she collected the rent earlier, what I planned to do about all that grass. I told her I had no idea. Then we got a wild hare (the one that sometimes runs through the backyard naked singing Janis Joplin tunes) on Mother’s Day and decided to go splurge at Waffle House. The car’s starter died.

My starter, still somewhat functional (dammitall) was wondering what would happen next. A nice young guy pounded on the starter for a while, as I kept trying to start the car and it finally worked...suddenly the engine was running and I realized I could let go of the key. We got ussuns and the car back home. Wasn’t about to risk getting stranded again even if it started again (it cooperates sometimes, and didn’t ever start again), so all the doc appointments were canceled. Still got 15 days till any money shows up. A friend sent another friend with a care package of half a carton of cigs (sans alcohol).

Slept as much as possible, then wakefulness bitch-slapped me and I was forced into the day. Drank the thermos of coffee. The fan in here died and it’s so damn quite I nearly hear the cosmic microwave background radiation over the air conditioner and my own wheezing. I crave Thorazine. I don’t think I would give a shit if I had enough of that. It’s the grind...(special house blend) I’m just about ground down. Things that should be, at most, only temporary and minor inconveniences get to be too much. We got about six big-ass garbage bags of garbage collected in the kitchen. No one comes to pick up garbage here, you carry your own down to the dumpster. If you can’t carry it... like if you can’t wipe your ass you sit in it. Funk startin’ to stank up in heah. Like a few grains of road salt dragged across bare nerve endings. Escape. I escape as much as I can.

Still watch Netflix a lot. Today went with concerts...not just little snippets and one song videos, whole concerts. On Youtube. Note...if you’re gonna watch an Elvis concert and a Bee Gees, do the Bee Gees first...those chipmonk voices are a little shattering after an hour of Elvis. Had some John Mayall, some Carpenters, Joe Cocker, and just to round up any stray neurons not quite melted yet, poured on a little Buckethead and That1Guy. Damn fly sitting over the “File” button on the tool bar.

Can’t believe I got through all those years of quiet before I had noisemakers...course I didn’t wheeze as much then. I wish, instead of just going immediately black when I kick, I could do a cool fade out, traveling outward to a God’s eye view of the planet first. Meh. Elvis tossed out scarves at his concert. Buckethead is handing out stuff from a garbage bag...what the hell is that? Should I want one? Anybody know something that can put you out fer a couple weeks? Little Joe Cartwright never had these problems...’course he was rich. See if I can be on Facebook for a couple hours without getting too fluximated. Tears make the tea taste weird.

TRB

Anything's Possible?

Why do people say that? Maybe, for some, it’s just a throw-away phrase, something that seems agreeable and supportive to say to fill in an otherwise blank conversational space. I wonder if there are people who actually give it serious thought and actually believe that anything really is possible? Maybe. Some people are just unconnected to reality. How many people have been injured or killed jumping off high places because they genuinely thought they could fly...maybe, if only they believed it hard enough? Besides the ones under the influence of drugs, I mean.

Imagine: You’re standing on the ground beside a twenty-story building. Is it possible for you to jump hard enough to land on the rood of that building? The question is not whether it’s possible to get to the roof. Not whether it’s possible to devise or use some sort of device like giant springs, or maybe a jet pack, to get you there. The question is whether it is possible for you to stand on the ground and jump hard enough, using only the power of your body, to get to the roof. What about people who would say that’s very unlikely...leaving some shred of doubt, however small it may be, that you could make that jump?

There are many things that are flatly impossible. Not things whose possibility is remote...things that are impossible. There are people who will argue that there is nothing that is really impossible. Why? There are people who genuinely, and with all seriousness, do not believe that the earth is round, rather than flat. Why? Does the sincerity of their belief give the belief any more credibility...any more chance that they might be right? How would YOU refer to such a person? Just mistaken? Deluded? I don’t know what label, if any, the mental health professionals might attach to such a person. I do know, no matter whether they have any sort of official label or not, if they believe things like that they are not perceiving or interpreting reality as it is. Don’t you?

It’s much harder to say that “impossible" would apply to human behaviors that would not violate the laws of physics. Is it impossible that I could marry Valerie Bertinelli and we could live on the moon? No. There is no violation of the laws of physics in that. The likelihood or probability of that happening is vanishingly remote...but not impossible. If there were sufficient motivation for enough people for this to happen, it could be made to happen. Motivation is not relevant to the jumping to the roof.

TRB

Rat

Thursday evening:

I was lying on the couch watching some show on Netflix. I saw him by the time he got almost even with my head...I was startled and almost said something. Then I noticed he wasn’t moving very fast. I see him/them almost every evening scurrying along the baseboard, or making the mad dash to or from the old console TV set and behind this couch. Sometimes I watch while one runs by Tucker’s food bowl, hides behind it for a few seconds then jumps in and grabs some food and hauls ass with the loot.

But this one wasn’t really scurrying...or trying to hide. He was also smaller than what I’m used to. A lot of thoughts...should I shoo him away? Should I grab something and smack him? Should I try to trap him with something? I watched as he took tiny little spurts of running and eventually made it to the base of the little bookcase next to me. Stopped...sniffed. Whirled around for no apparent reason (is he related to me...I do stuff for no apparent reason).

I’m wondering if he is a rat or a mouse...I don’t really care but it nags at a corner of my brain. Maybe he’s a baby, too little to be on his own. Maybe something is wrong with him (rabies!). Maybe he got into some old poison somewhere back there. I picked up one of the novelty back scratchers Melinda got from the Wild Animal Park and poked him. I decided a rodent living in my house is a rat...period. (Stop niggling me already.)

He doesn’t run away when he’s poked. Whirls around again. What to do? Tucker hasn’t noticed...what if he ate him? The wind from the fan moves a wrapper from a pack of crackers out from under the couch. I push the wrapper over toward the rat. Doesn’t move. Tucker’s up from his nap...maybe he won’t notice.

Friday evening:

The fan died. Just simply stopped...like I suppose we all will. Not really surprising since it was very seldom turned off since it came here. Been running almost continually for over a year I guess. I like some white noise and also REALLY need some moving air. Doesn’t matter if it’s fifty degrees in here, I still sweat unless there’s moving air. Crap. I check to see if rat has gone...I thought he might have a few more of the little spurts of running left in him. Guess not. He’s still there, curled up in the little pile of Tucker hair and dust and dirt collected by the base of the bookcase.

Melinda gets out the tiny little fan we got for some reason. It works but it’s...tiny; a 12-incher. Yeah, the party in my head is laughing at “a tiny 12-incher”... I blame Facebook. It’s ok at night, when it’s pretty cool anyway. But quiet...almost TOO quiet. I hear wheezing...is that me? Turn up the volume on Netflix...working our way through all of Law & Order: SVU and Criminal Intent...already up to Jeff Goldblum. What? How did he get in a story about a rat? Oh...poke the rat with the back scratcher...he doesn’t move. Tucker isn’t wise to it. I cover him with the cracker wrapper...his shroud. How many rats get a shroud?

Saturday afternoon:

Thought the landlady might come by for the rent...she usually goes to the house next door and sometimes comes over here on Saturday morning. She never showed, so after the pills and shot we went to sleep. Didn’t sleep long...damn, it’s only noon. Haven’t heard from my friend Jordan in what...two days? He’s having a VERY rough time since his mom died on Sunday. I go check the Facebook peeps and get a few smiles. I check the email and still nothing from Jordan.

The rat is stiff as a board...he’s in full rigor. Odd how that sounds like “vigor” which...well. I’m about to collect rat and dispose of his remains...rats have remains too, right? I thought I heard someone say something. Glance out the kitchen window...crap! Landlady has shown up in afternoon!? Melinda and Tucker are still in bed...no, it aint like that. I had the foresight to have her check already written out yesterday...the landladys’...Melinda has no need for a check from me. I grab it and hurry to the door. I want to go out quietly and shut the door without waking up Tucker so I don’t have to deal with putting him on his string.

Follow the landlady to her truck for the receipt. “What you gonna do about all this grass?”, she asks. I feel the blood pressure...seems like it goes from my belly to my head and rings a bell there, like one of those attractions at the Fair. A dozen responses wrangling furiously around in my attic...wondering which one might get out through a window. “I have no idea....I thought I might get the sling blade and whack some of it down after while.” It was an acceptable response...better than running back inside and collecting the rat and shaking it at her and yelling, “What the hell you gonna do about these rats!?”

Damn, I’m sweating now...blogging. Oh the rat? Yeah, I’ll get it into the trash in a minute. Happy weekend, y’all. I like the third of June better than Cinco de Mayo for two reasons: 1) It’s the date in “Ode to Billy Joe” and 2) the third is check day...but we’re past the rat now, right? *sigh*

TRB

Writing a Book

“So. How do you write a book?”

“Hallie Phino. I guess you just start off writin’ like you would a letter.”

“Naw...you need to have some limits on it. Like...what it’s gonna be about. You might use one o’ them twelve dollars words like ‘parameters’. You can’t just chunk a bucket o’ words up there and expect to have a readable book. And why would anybody try to write any book if they didn’t want someone else to read it? You gonna write about history or math or religion or some other fiction....?”

“Yeah, I see yer pernt.”

“I think if I was gonna write a book it would prolly be ‘technically’ a ‘biography’...meanin’ about me. After all, I think I know more about that than anything else.”

“Yeah...but you ain’t famous. I can see why somebody might want to read a book about Johnny Cash or Oprah but who would wanna read a whole book about a funny lookin’ weird fat feller from Felton that no body ever heard of?”

“Yeah, I see... HEY! Some folk have heard of me! I ain’t completely invisible yanno!”

“Oh sure, but like 17 people and most of them already know all about you they would wanna know, and you wouldn’t want the other 14 knowing too much.”

“Look, Sedgewick. You startin’ to press on me nerve, son. Jeebers. It wouldn’t have to be ALL about me I guess... Maybe have some other stuff about what I think about things.”

(Flash warning look at Sedgewick)

“I’d have to figger out how long a book too. I know a feller recently wrote a book and it ended up being published in three volumes. All told it took him something like ten years. It was actually published too, even if it was by one of the “vanity publishers”. Hey, it’s actually three physical books you can hold in your hand and you can buy ‘em on Amazon and stuff. Ten years...cornflakes, I’d be pushing it to go ten days doing something like that.”

“Short book.”

(snort pfffft)

“They got them E lectronic books now...can ya write one like that?”

“Prolly more my speed, only I dunno the tech stuff about publishing it in that format. You know, even though it’s cool to have a physical book, I wouldn’t want to even try to make any money or sell it. It just ain’t me.”

“Ok, so you wanna write a book you want somebody to read it, you want it be about you and....some other stuff. You do know some HTML and maybe a few other furrin words, right? You could write it in a website and tell folk where it’s at and then them what was painful hard up fer sumpin’ to do could come over and peer at it fer a while.”

(The stare bores through Sedgewick like a split beam phaser set on fuk up.

“You know, Bloomfeld, sometimes I think you do have a few brain cells left after all. A’ight. Less giver a shot and see if she falls over.”

“Ok, but besides being about you what else ya gonna chunk in there?”

“I guess some o’ my philosophizin’, throw in some stuff about religion and polly ticks (You know they have thousands of books just on them things)...”

“Yeah, so why would you want to do another one?”

(Back up Fernbank.)

“Yanno, it occurs to mah three brain cells, if you wuz gonna write a book and you just started off writing one, you’d have a couple pages by now, instead of a couple pages about how you might write a book.”

“Ok, Lum Bar. Youzza pressin’ me.

....and so it goes....

TRB

Blogs

Having a personal web site and/or blog are their own respective gradients of hell/insanity. You can work on both an entire lifetime and they are never any closer to finished...when you kick off they’ll just stop in mid-sentence, like the rest of you might. Some people have a web site to sell stuff (Gawd I hate monetary system), some bloggers get big bucks (the size of Cadillac Escalades) from someone somewhere. I suppose some use a blog as a drainage valve; if some of the crap that builds up in yer head can be converted into words and poured out onto a page, even a digital page, it seems to relieve the pressure for a while. Trouble is, if you have a blog readership, unless you’re famous and/or highly paid, your readership is small and it’s not too long before most all of them have heard your various drivels before...then the blog is almost literally a personal drainage valve. *sigh*

I’m working on totally reconstructing my web site over at Lycos/Tripod because they changed platforms a coupla times and some of the stuff there went poof. It’s still an embarrassing mess at the moment. Trying to force myself to pay attention and do the work to get it right. They also have a blog option there, but any blog which does not allow embedding of videos sucks swamp gas, so I’m sticking with my blogger site for that. Funny how, even if I were rich, I wouldn’t pay 12 cents to make a beautiful home in which to host visiting guests....but I’ll spend days trying to get the HTML right to make my web site purty...to me anyway.

My best friend here in town is having a rough time...his mom died on Sunday. I try to stay out of his way...say supportive stuff if/when we talk. When I write stuff online I wanna link to EVERY DAMN THING! Plus I’m scatterbrained. It’s partly why I couldn’t write a print book...no frackin’ clickable links. Meh. That’s a word I never would have learned except for the Internet. Maybe I’ll see if I can blog on a topic...or work on the site HTML some more. Drink ‘em if ya got ‘em.

TRB

Boo!

Just making the earthshaking announcement that I am back here to blog again. Guess I gotta go write one now...be back soon.