Wrestling Psyches in the Gemini phase

I seem to have a dual personality.  Maybe it’s in the stars. After all I’m a Gemini.  Do the gods mock me with this internal striving of tastes and desire?.  I find that I go into a self-imposed exile and spend 7 months by myself to write and illustrate.  “Working on a new project.”  Making my own decisions, and staying out of contact.  But then the other personal nature wrestles me over and pins me so that my social nature can arise.

Being a creative spirit is a painful course of life.  You rarely find anything others who understand the gift.  You are living with others in isolation of soul.  There is this clawing and scratching to find a place of connection with other humans.  A place to ride the same vibe.

The closest I’ve gotten to this type of rapport is to play music with others, though that is not a true soulful connection.  But we all can catch the groove of a great song, and that seems to patch human spirits together, ever so transiently. We get great community connected through both music and food. Though you eat the same dishes and dance to the same beat, we really have trouble keeping the thread taut. It reminds me of the two cans with the cord we used to have as kids. Never worked really well, did it.

Being a writer can come from desiring this connection so strongly that you’ll do about anything to get the communication process started. Some of us have torn souls, ripped by the indiscretions of family or an evil neighbor who soiled our childhood innocence.

We spit out words and though to make a connection. We tried this as children and were often abused for trying to bother adults with our demands for shared moments. They slapped us and belittled us when we stepped forward with our fledgling efforts to make music, write stories or color a picture. But the more we (our feelings) are trounced upon by heavy sarcasm and mean-spirited comments, we grow in hunger to connect.

It’s like living as an alien in an alien world. A Stranger in a Strange Land. Jo Walton writes this review.

We then turn intelligently defensive, and withhold out thoughts and ideas from others. Or we build unclimbable walls. We then create in isolation. But that same powerful desire to connect keeps throwing us into the painful fray in our efforts to make that singular connection. Aren’t we all still looking for approval.

I’m at a place in my personal life that I’ve gotten some balance, and my soul is stronger now. It’s time to venture out into the world of humankind again. But this time, I’ll seek the company of artists and writers, poets and screenwriters, sculptures and musicians & of course, comedians.

My First Step

I’m considering joining a writer’s group. What do you think? I live in Orange County, California, so I know there are writer’s groups here.

My first search results:

If you are like me, living in your isolation? Are you sensing it’s time to step out and meet someone? Are you a writer or illustrator, poet or painter? Have you joined a community-based group? You may want to if you would like some companionship on this road to achieving success in your passion. You may want to try out www.meeting.com. On Google Plus I searched for “Writer’s Group” and got connected. But I live in OC not LA.

The LA Writer’s Group page

 

No real conversation

I have been looking at this webpage (blog) writing task today wondering if I’m not turning into a generational reject.  Coming back to these words, and splashing thoughts on the white screen is like an effort to mental masturbate.  The whole thing is like an explosion of misdirected creativity.  Who is impregnated by our heedless banter?  What senseless, soulless, drivel is going to pour out of my twisted mind?  Hell if I know.

What I do know is that we need each other.  In our breathless effort to father some original thought, we are sucked into the vortex of other’s words, works, and ideals.  We stick some tiny little innocuous teeth into a movie, a script, a photo, and album of sound, tracking some source of brilliance that erupted in ecstasy eons ago.  But the creative God never rests, he is pumped always, spilling his seed in the minds of those seeking to enjoy the strokes of creative bliss, over and over.

The leftovers of other geniuses, really paint a picture dripping with color that amazes us, sometime inspiring us to dip our own brushes in to splatter our own attempts of expression.

Without an audience, without a stage, without a readership, we suffer in the world of little closed minds, who do not even sing with the music, dance with the beat, or dare to lick drama off the spoon of life.  The world grinds onward filled with their fear and cowardice.  They are the types to bag Napoleon’s manhood.  We must not succumb to their vile ways or develop their vices, we must fight the darkness of empty minds and souls; we must think and believe.

This blog has received over two hundred thousand reads, but most of those reads are only looks.  I not that readers check out this blog from 300 plus countries too, but after all this time, I have yet to have a real conversation with anyone.  How is it that we pour over articles, blogs, news and facebook sputtering, and never stop and converse with anyone.

I think I need to strap on a nice straight jacket.  Or maybe I should watch Iron Maiden youtube videos. Try one.

Dehumanizing Children

Families shouldn’t allow abuse but they do.

Adults are jaded and sometime miserable people unless they feel they are part of some purpose and effort to improve the world or their fellow man.  Individuals with gross  self focus, hedonism, and shameful selfishness, are either grumpy, gross, dangerous or wicked, walking in a shadow of deceit and will disregard of others.

That’s why kids are so precious: why  grand kids are heart healthy to those drowning in the crass world of adulthood.

That’s why we need to protect kids from adults, to stop them from harming the kids, sullying their innocence.  Vilest are the sexual predators, but their wickedness is no more horrific than those neglecting and psychologically abusing kids.  Adults telling kids they won’t succeed, that kids are dumb and worthless, they too take the beauty from many lovely souls.  Alcoholism is a well-known problem for kids.  Second hand smoke is one that you wouldn’t think of quickly.

The aftereffects of long-term societal abuse of children occurs when kids are brainwashed to believe lies for truth.  I won’t go into details, but any teaching that undermines the value of each human life that is taught systematically is worse than individual sins.   When kids a blowing themselves up, getting involved in drug culture, learning that one group of people are inferior than others, you have systematic societal teaching dehumanizing kids.

Kids taught to devalue human life, kill.

America’s Mental Wasteland

It’s time to wake up America regarding the inhumane treatment society is giving the mentally ill.  Of the 740,000 homeless in the United States 250,000 are mentally ill.  These individuals make the downtowns of many major cities a nightmare for everyone.  The streets are America’s mental ward.  This needs to stop.

Since  the Reagan administration mental illness (Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act in 1981) which was treated in intuitions like psychiatric hospitals, the country has given in to neglect of the mentally ill.  The idea was to save the cost of institutionalizing the mentally ill, but according to studies, the cost of leaving them on the streets is still around $40,000 per individual.

But is it sane?  Are we as Americans sane to let those we know are crazy out in the public centers, the marketplace, the city centers? Is it not extremely crazy to have the mentally ill loose on the streets?    There is this song about Los Angeles with the lyrics “nobody walks in LA.”  But the streets are full of the homeless.  Why do people allow this?  Why aren’t the politicians doing anything about this – “public servants,” the term is laughable.

Where fo art thou brother?

The real public servants, the police, firefighters, emts, the paramedics, the homeless shelter workers, the lay ministers, the emergency room staff, the clerks at the stores, they see these people up close and personal.  Why aren’t they crying out to get these mentally ill off the streets.  They are a national embarrassment, a blight on society.

The Police have been cited so often for police brutality after they beat or kill the homeless that they look like goons.  They aren’t trained to deal with these mentally ill people.  They cannot control the city streets filled with sick mined folks.  They should be enforcing real laws, and these sick people should be cared for.

People are saying:

Mentally Ill Patients Strain EMS Resources by Tony Plohetski in Mental Health News

“As emergency rooms continue to be crowded by mental health patients who can’t get beds elsewhere”

Paramedic Perceptions of their role.  Journal of Emergency Primary Care 2009: Volume 7, Issue 3

“The removal of people with mental illness from an institution based system of care to the community has not been accompanied by an appropriate level of community service development resulting in a growing need for prehospital care.”

Dealing with the Mentally Ill and Emotionally Disturbed in the Use of Force Context, by Jack Ryan, Public Agency Training Council

Homeless in Los Angeles by Jerry Drucker, LA Progressive

“In 2011 the census count of the homeless (in Los Angeles County) was 51,340, 3% less than 2009 at 52,931. A looming problem that Arnold brought up was homeless veterans.”

References

Accordino, M. P., Porter, D. F., & Morse, T. (2001). Deinstitutionalization of Persons with Severe Mental Illness: Context and Consequences. Journal Of Rehabilitation, 67(2), 16.

http://mentalillnesspolicy.org/consequences/homeless-mentally-ill.html

Mental Confusion

It’s been a while since I had my mind, not that anyone missed my blogging.  I really am just writing to myself.  Seems I have too small of a life.  Cooped up at home with two teenaged boys, and a wife who is reversing the clock.

Yes, my opinions are my own, and I’m writing them here in this small space to get them out of my head.

Most recently, I’ve been suffering from a phase of “What the hell do I do next.”  This is a syndrome for adults who are beginning to question the reasons they are where they are.  Like wtf, as my youngest would say.

Now I love my family, but routines begin to wear me down mentally.  The ruts, they are the ruts, are the ruts … That disc gets old, and so does a career when you’ve climbed no further than yesterday each day you go to work.  Nothing new really, nothing exciting.

You see it all started when I realized my career was over.

So I found out when I decided to interview for some jobs.  Yes, there are jobs out there to apply for.  But my middle-aged self realized when told “you are over-qualified,” that I was really too old.

Retirement is just to far out of reach, too.  What I would do if I could retire is to write.  I illustrate and write music too, but for now that paycheck  keeps a roof over my head.

Do you escape?  I have, and I’ve realized that escape doesn’t work.  I don’t do drugs or alcohol, and I don’t cheat on the wife — I don’t need the added emotional strain of trying to build another long-term relationship, and besides she is moving forward, ever it be so slowly.

So blogging and writing is what I must return too.  Not that my voice is significant in the sea of internet confusion.  But, blogging releases within me a better sense of who and what I am to me.  Brings clarity, don’t you think?

Change what you think to change your world!

_________________________________________

The art on this piece came from: http://mirrorimageart.blogspot.com