Category: Mind and matter

How can I remember what I was doing ten years ago when all of the atoms in my brain are being replaced every couple of weeks?

All of these atoms inside of my head are vibrating and colliding with each other. Their movement allows the intricate web of electrical impulses scatter and come together in new designs never thought of before.

These are some more thoughts that have been inspired by Richard P. Feynman in his essay The Value of Science which like most of the other stuff he wrote I enjoyed immensely.

"So what is this mind of ours: what are these atoms with consciousness? Last week's potatoes! ... To note that the thing I call my individuality is only a pattern or dance ... the atoms come into my brain, dance a dance, and then go out."

Sometimes positive thinking alone is not enough. In fact, overusing positive thinking in situations where it is not relevant let alone effective can just as easily back fire and make things worse.

Thoughts create moods which influence behavior and finally express themselves directly and/or indirectly as physical reactions. The body is connected to the mind and they communicate intimately with each other.

Just thinking positively may distract us and make us avoid the more important signals our bodies are trying to tell us: hey, something is wrong!

Let's say you have a problem and it is so frustrating that it is making you feel mad, letdown, depressed, irritable. By considering the situation from as many angles as possible, negative and neutral as well as positive, your thoughts are reformed to view things from a new perspective.

This reprocessing of mind can lead to new conclusions and solutions that make you realize that things aren't as bad as you thought, pushing depressing thoughts away and opening you for healing through change and improvement.

Mind over mood: the book and the website.

Who are those unfortunate souls out there who are the most predisposed to depression?

Those who are excessively dependent on close personal relationships, a constant need for reassurance and support from others, as well as an inability to cope with stress.

Perfectionists who are not in touch with their inner feelings.

Those masking the truth with a fabricated world of thoughts and actions molded towards what one thinks other expect one to be instead of what one actually wants to be.

It's a dangerous world out there, so be very careful.

This evening the moon looks so close that I can almost touch it if I reach up high enough. The night sky is clear and cold and the silvery moon is just barely dangling there by a single celestial thread. Welcome into my mind logical moon. Tell me something interesting and inspiring at the same time.

The poor guy over there has been left to himself to figure things out, deal with the daunting situation on his own, which is not easy. Do you see him? There he is sitting on the oversized sofa. Nobody in the near vicinity feels even the slightest urge to give him a hand. A low-flying bird flutters by in front of the window and no one seems to notice. Not that he couldn't handle it himself, but it would have been nice if others beside himself would take the initiative. He already knows that that will never be the case, never happen. Ten minutes later. Same bird is now high-flying over there in the distance and everyone notices. Because that poor guy has gathered up enough courage to raise his voice and point to it. "Over there, that's where it is. Have a look!"

The trick is getting things to work like they are supposed to work, but that can be a real challenge. Remain adaptive, flexible in many regards, and aware that unpredictable events may define things slightly differently than originally planned.

Alright so it is the true owner of the subtle knife who has the unique ability to cut through the thin fabric separating one universe from the other, allowing you to enter one of the infinite other worlds running parallel to ours.

This is a powerful and treacherous tool which needs to be used solely by the wise, otherwise the worlds will be destroyed many times over, for no reason at all.

Do not let this powerful tool get into the hands of the undeserving, for that will be the end of us all, no matter how hard we try to make things happen otherwise.

That is the reason that the child named Will has taken it upon himself to make sure that things happen like they were always meant to be.

"But Will knew without the slightest doubt that that patch on the other side was in a different world..."

This will not prove to be a very easy task, but as readers of this endearing piece of fiction, we remain glued to the edge of our seats in the hopes that good will prevail.

We will just have to be patient and wait.

The name Aleph comes from a fictional point of singularity described by Jorge Luis Borges as "a point in space that contains all other points. Anyone who gazes into it can see everything in the universe from every angle simultaneously, without distortion, overlapping or confusion".

See also: www.dott07.com.

For some time now they were saying that the time had finally come and was about to happen at any moment. They being those kind wise folks who knew everything better than the rest of us.

Not that everyone was as prepared as the other, I certainly was not. The group had as a whole succumbed to the inevitability of the situation, providing a collective consciousness that prevailed in more ways than one.

Let yourself go as an individual bubble and become a better part of the whole, it's pretty much up to you. That's what they said, suggested, or whatever.

Years and years later, we can now sit comfortably in front of the fireplace late in the evening, watching the flames assuming various degrees of awareness, reminisce about old times past, chuckling softly here and there.

Still at the back of our minds we know what had happened, was bound to happen no matter, what could have happened if things were otherwise. But they weren't nor would they ever be.

Acquiring the needed individual traits over time is something for which we need not prepare as it happens naturally as long as we let it happen of course.

The real challenge is retaining as much of one's core without compromising, without giving in, and at the same time moving forward without too much worry. Good night and pleasant dreams.

That guy over there said to me that no matter what I should just hang in there and see what happens.

Not so sure that I feel comfortable with such an approach, but perhaps that is the best way to proceed at the moment.

Or not?

Just supposing for the sake of it that I happened to be walking too closely to the edge of the platform without realizing it and at that precise moment I inadvertently poked my elbow out two or three or maybe even three and a half centimeters (just enough) over the edge right when a speeding train decides to pass by swiftly onto the next destination without the slightest consideration about any angled obstruction that might be standing in the way making painful contact with splintering bones and other unpleasant ripping and crackling sounds, what then?

Speaking of usefulness, how useful is it spending days on end trying to get that vertical white rectangular support balk in the kitchen really smooth? So perfectly smooth that there is not a single ding, scratch, groove or imaginary unevenness visible any more?

If I were to tell you that none of this is really happening, would you believe me? And then again, if I were to tell you the exact opposite, would you then change your mind and decide that I was telling the truth afterall? Either way, you are caught in a bind unless you can think of another way out. Try it.

Most people try to predict the future through logical thinking. Trends in the past extended into the future should be a relatively good indication of things to come. But is this really the most accurate means of deciding what the future will in the end bring? Intuition and plain common sense can very well balance out the boring technical details of what mathematically should occur, at least say within a ten percent margin of error. The differences are what we should actually be looking for and not the similarities.

There is a creative mind out there but it is not mine. The challenge now is somehow to harnass that little bit of whatever or whoever and reform it into something that appears similar to me.

It never ceases to amaze me how many people there still are out there who underestimate and/or are completely unaware of the power to change the realities around them. Such a shame of the unharnessed, untapped unperceptions right there at our finger tips. Have a look over there and think about it. Maybe then you will understand a little better what I mean. Actually.

In eastern cultures cracking your joints is a way to release negative energy from your body. Link.

People often try to escape the truth by complaining all of the time and doing nothing about it, as if they are the poor suffering souls who cannot do anything about it. Little do they know that the blame lies purely within their own attitudes and blindness. Simply looking the other way will never change things.

 

So you see, technology will never get the upper hand, unless of course we are not extra careful and alert for possible errors and/or changes of plan. Be warned.

There was this little picture over there inside of the mind that gave one the inaccurate impression that things were otherwise than what they should have been up to now.

In view of this situation, it became quite apparent that in oder to get past this illusion of an obstacle or whatever it was it would be necessary to assume a slightly different approach.

The trick (real challenge) would be to:

1. Just ignore it and continue as if nothing had changed.
2. Do the best that was humanly possible to change everything no matter what.
3. Choose a middle path even if that did not seem feasible at first.
4. Close both inner and outer eyes and make that mental picture go away by dreaming.
5. Not care what other people might think as if that did make sense when it did not.
6. Go back in time and relive things the correct way once and for all.

Choose one and only one of the above and please elaborate to the best of your ability.

Can't decide on your own? Try a random number if that helps.

It has been told that in order to be really and truly successful in life, you must be YOU.

Y-O-U. Nothing less, nothing more and nothing else.

This is very sound advice, indeed.

But YOU also need to survive in the real world at the same time. That's the tricky part.

So that's what you get when you bury your head in an interesting book the whole train ride to Amsterdam without even looking up once out the window. Lost in thought somewhere else when there it was all around you.

By the time the train arrived I was too far north and it was an hour later in the day, meaning that the skies had cleared and the temperature had risen just enough. Nothing out of the ordinary around here.

- Sure is hard to believe?
- What is hard to believe?
- That it snowed so early this year.
- Snowed?
- Yes, snowed - didn't you notice? (look of astonishment)
- Sorry, I didn't.

Turns out that it had snowed fairly hard in the south, and an immense whiteness had blanketed the landscape for as far as the eye could see. Simply beautiful (I could only imagine).

- The earliest since way back in the nineteen twenties or so.
- Yes, pretty amazing.
- Are you sure you didn't notice it?
- I'm sure, very sure.

I had missed it because I was reading some boring book.

So why did I continue cycling past the trees when I knew for a fact beforehand that one of them would fall over on me at the exact second that I passed it?

Strange when you think about it.

While I was certain that this was going to happen, at the same time my inherent sense of logical reasoning told me that this could not possibly happen, meaning that the chances were infinitesimally small. One chance in a million, a million million to be more exact.

I kept right on cycling anyway. Onward to destiny and further (at least that is what I had expected: further).

So when that tree which was already slightly bent over towards the path upon which I was cycling decided on its own to fall over completely, I was not quite expecting it. Well, I kind of was but in another way not really.

Creak, snap and crash. Splinters all over the place, and my poor skull bashed in and my brains smashed to smithereens. That is the sound of a falling tree, just before it hits home.

Too bad. I should have trusted my intuition better, but it is now too late.

Better luck in my next life, wouldn't you say?

There's this guy out there and he wants to know everything. And I mean everything. Nothing more and nothing less. That is what he keeps telling me, what he has been telling me since I can remember. Way back then.

At first glance, this guy does not appear any bit out of the ordinary, except perhaps for the very slight limp he has on his left side. Or is it the right leg?

Well, there is also his long and untrimmed gray beard which is indeed out of the ordinary, so I am exaggerating a little if I fail to mention that also. Sorry about that. And that cap he is wearing which looks like it is about to fall off but never does. For some reason. Like it is glued to his forehead.

So this guy has to know everything. Everything, everything, everything. The only problem, and this is a very big problem depending on the way you view it, the annoying problem is that the process extends and then prevents.

Extends and prevents.

The process of knowing everything, the very process itself, extends the realm of information he needs in which to contain it all and thereby prevents the process of knowing from knowing everything. Get it? This is because the knowing part is not instantaneous, it takes time. With time flows more information which means that in the end it is impossible to know everything.

Like a balloon filling up with water but never bursting. Like the sky becoming bluer but never attaining the real blue of the sky as you would expect. Like that hissing sound over there which is a bunch of air escaping through a very small opening which does not.

Does not what? Just does not.

At least that is what I thought when this guy was trying to explain it all to me. How could I have been so very naive? He was right, and I should not have been so stubborn. Just ignoring him all of the time. Like that cap of his that would fall off any moment but never did.

So you see, the way it all really happens is a little different from what you would normally expect.

Lennart looks up from the newspaper he is reading while having a late morning breakfast. He is aggravated by my presence for some reason.

"Why do you always have to do that?!"

"What?" I ask after feeling a little shocked by his tone of voice, as if he is the boss in the house not I.

"You always have to shift things around a hundred times until everything is perfectly straight."

He is absolutely right. Lately, perhaps because of a slight feeling of insecurity, unable to communicate with the older kids in a spontaneous and normal way, I have become neurotic.

I hang around and start straightening piles of papers, plates and/or cups, pencils and pens, a crooked magazine, any article with geometry, on flat surfaces with angles and sides which can be re-oriented to produce symmetry, parallel edges, converging lines, etc.

This activity has gotten so bad that I have not been aware of it. Got to do something about it soon before it becomes incurable.

My answer then, "Sorry, you are absolutely right. I will try not to do it any more."

After I grab my cup of coffee and head on up back upstairs, I realize that this promise will be hard to keep. My idiosyncrasies have gotten the best of me the last couple of months. Need to find a more efficient way to release extra psychological energy.

What I mean by frozen in time is that while I make myself believe that I am really busy every day and every minute and every second trying to get this and that and all of this other stuff done, the fact of the matter is that I am getting very little if anything accomplished. Actually nothing to be more precise. Kind of like remaining motionless all weighted down at the bottom of a ocean with its strong current streaming by and my arms and legs waving back and forth in the turbulence but caught in this big huge net at the same time. I mean, each day is just passing me by with a blink of the eye. Then what? Okay, then let's slow things down, at least in the mind the perception of events, think things out and get focused. That's it then, concentrate and focus. Slow things down in the mind's eye.

So you have finally decided that you want to look representative and professional. You say that this is necessary in order to come across in a more positive and convincing manner. Alright, I can relate to that. The first thing you have to do is have a look at your hair. Yes your hair. Go ahead and have a look in the mirror. This is one of the first things the person over there or the potential customer or the secret lover sees, and like all first impressions it can be a big disappointment, for him or her as well as for you or me. Take my own hair for example, what little there is left that is. Last summer, I decided to be cool and to shave it real short. Like what they used to call a butch. This was alright for a time and it did look sharp and clean for starters, but one big disadvantage was that I looked balder and thus older. About ten years older than I really am. Not that that is important but you know how it goes. Nowadays I want to compete with other young bucks who are dynamic and enthusiastic junior entrepreneurs, but an old man sticks out like you know what. No way to compete in the world this way and expect to win. Gotta look younger and energetic and pretend I can keep up with them. The answer then is simple you would think: just grow your hair. And that is exactly what I have been doing for about two months now. At least, trying to do. But look at it now! A large ball of see-through hair tangled in a gossamer mess of nothingness and a half, pointing all over the place. Not very representative at all, unless of course I am trying to sell cotton candy or want to land a job in the circus. This phase is a necessary evil in order to grow my hair to the proper length, a middle path to success, a half-way house along the way. I will put extra effort in extrovert motions and expressions in order to distract the potential customer or distant lover from the way things are. Hey what's that giant bird doing over there? This will be good practice for me since by nature I am an introvert trying to prove himself in more ways than one. Looks are a big part of it, but actions and imaginary tendencies are more than enough to keep you going. I have had enough of the halfway house for now.

In The Psychopathology of Everyday Life Freud recalled that in "the days when I was living alone in a foreign city ... I quite often heard my name suddenly called by an unmistakable and beloved voice; I then noted down the exact moment of the hallucination and made anxious enquiries of those at home about what had happened at the time. Nothing had happened." Freud stated, "I must confess that I am one of those unworthy people in whose presence spirits suspend their activity and the supernatural vanishes away." This is untrue, both of Freud and of his institution. Even this denial gives itself away, in Freud"s awareness of telepathic messages from phantasms of the living and in his reference to the Spiritualist argument that the presence of sceptics disturbed the spirits. Freud knows not to know; a perfect instance of disavowal.

-- CG Jung Page Weblog (from The Invention of Telepathy: 1870-1901 by Roger Luckhurst).

Like I said, I am NOT crazy. According to the experts, if you really think that you are crazy then you are NOT. This is because you have the mental capacity to make such a hypothesis, and therefore you are by definition of sound mind, eg. NOT crazy. However, if you do NOT think that you are crazy then you really are. Out of your mind that is (or is NOT). So what does that mean for me now?

Do you sometimes worry that you are too much of a perfectionist? Well, visit the BBC Science Human Mind web-page and take the Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale (MPS) psychology test to find out out how much of a perfectionist you really are.

For those readers out there who might be interested, here are my scores:

Concern over Mistakes - 3
Personal Standards - 5
Parental Expectations - 1
Parental Criticism - 3
Doubting of Actions - 4
Organiz(s)ation - 5

I scored above average or above on five of the six aspects, but was not that bad of a perfectionist at all. Howabout you?

Hey, just in case you were not already aware of it, we are all in on this thing together. What thing are you talking about? This thing and that thing and all the other things around you and me and the rest of the world. Everyone in the rest of the world? Yes, everyone and everything. But that is impossible, I do not believe it, how can you explain it? Simple, once you can figure it all out and have faith in what you know has always been true. Nonsense. Yes, nonsense is a good word for it I would say. Ridiculous. Another description that overlaps well with what I mean. Impossible. Sorry, but you already used that word. You must be kidding. I am and I am not. Stop it, I hate it when you start talking like this. Sorry, but I cannot help it now. You're crazy! Could be, but I think I am crazy also, but because I think that I am crazy that means that I am NOT crazy, so there. I give up, I'm getting out of here. Alright, that's fine with me. See you next time. Yeah sure. Bye.

There was once this guy named Abraham Maslow, and way back in 1943 he devised an interesting theory about human nature. Based on his research, and having read alot of stuff by earlier psychologists like William James, he came up with this pyramid structure that can be viewed as a form of personal development, progressing from the bottom (the starting point) to the top (the ultimate goal). The theory is called the hierarchy of human needs. Before the next stage above can be reached, each progressive stage underneath must first be completed. Each deficiency is detected, dealt with and then removed before progressing to the next level. In fact, all basic human needs are based on the following two universal groupings: deficiency needs and growth needs. These are the levels of the pyramid from lowest to highest:

1. Physiological: hunger, thirst, bodily comforts, etc.
2. Safety/security: out of danger.
3. Belonginess and Love: affiliate with others, be accepted.
4. Esteem: to achieve, be competent, gain approval and recognition.
5. Cognitive: to know, to understand, and explore.
6. Aesthetic: symmetry, order, and beauty.
7. Self-actualization: to find self-fulfillment and realize one's potential.
8. Transcendence: to help others find self-fulfillment and realize their potential.

This may all sound nice and dandy but is it really true? Well, the interesting result of this so-called model of human behavior is that while there has not been that much hard evidence to support this theory, it has however received worldwide recognition as a usable model in explaining and coaching human growth across cultures and age groups. For me, the bizarre and inspirational fact is simply that such a "symbolic" model is not the least supported by so-called sound empirical facts but can still successfully reflect the way we are or the way we are meant to be. I can accept that without any difficulties.

So tell me, on which level do you now find yourself? I have studied this all very carefully, and I see myself as vacillating between level 4 (41%), level 5 (33%) and level 6 (17%) with the remaining 9% distributed randomly everywhere else. I still have a long ways to go before I occupy level 7 (2.2%) and level 8 (0.3%) on a more regular basis, but that is the ultimate concern (purpose in life) for everyone else including me, myself and I.

So if we are expected to relate this fine theory to a real life situation, then how does one define the keys to success? In other words, in view of the Maslow's pyramid, how are we to avoid the temptations of failure and/or the pitfalls that weigh us down too much by groveling at the lower stages? There is a natural resistance, but once the lower levels are satisfied there is a world of opportunity opened up.

For the real-life situation, I have chosen the concrete example of implementing a successful customer relations mind-set as described in the article The Human Dimension of CRM by Bill Brendler. In this article it is stressed that not all change is technical. In fact, the most important changes are never technical at all; rather the changes take place on the level of perceptions and feelings. One can say that there is a company growth required, fueled by a collective growth of individuals (the employees), a number of phases that must be passed.

There is obviously an excellent match with Maslow's pyramid. First of all, one must move away from the lower, more physical needs in order to adapt and accept external changes. These are satisfied. There is a movement towards a customer-centric attitude, and it is a welcome change that can best be confronted head on. Indeed, it is a phase transition for the whole company, during which management plays a vital role in prioritizing the "human" issues. People resist change because they do not see that it is in their self-interest, the lower levels of the Maslow pyramid. Resistance is the weight that pulls one downwards, but it is not bad. Through growth one recognizes that resistance is typically an energy that can be redirected and geared towards the more noble pursuit of helping customers.

The deficiency needs of the employees are taken care of by the company that provides the basic "physical needs" like the working environment. From here, the growth needs of the individual are fuelled with passion in order to stimulate a customer-centric energy source. In a sense, keeping customers and making them come back again and again means acquiring significant capital gain. After all, customers are humans also and each and every one of them is undergoing the very same pyramidal phase transition.

The key to success is thus matching the internal phase transition within the company with the external growth of the customer with whom one is building a changing and evolving relationship.

Note: this entry was written in the form of an executive summary for a course called "BCR - Building Client Relationships," and covers the topic "What and why of client relationships."

The whole world around me was ready to crumble. Everywhere I looked around me, reality was just barely in balance. Each item I touched, where I walked, the wall I barely brushed by, they all cracked and then crumbled. Like the hand of Midas, except that instead of gold it all turned into dry powdery dust. Even a simple glance caused cracks to appear, the crumbling motion barely starting but not quite starting, a slow motion abruptly halted by a snapshot of what could happen. A carefully directed forefinger and a jab anywhere to the surface recreated the motion abruptly halted, so that the crumbling motion finished off where it began. This is all pretty strange to experience first hand, especially when you realize that you are the reason for the crumbling in the first place. A huge burden of responsibility presses down on the mind. The mind that is the brain that is a collated and convoluted surface of cellular matter causes cracks and fissures of its own device. The surface of everything looked the same except for a form it assumed, just like caked mud which has dried and is already starting to crack and crumble. Crumbling all over the place that will never stop. The cellular matter will not stop. Fissures and cracks and crumbling motions and sound are everywhere and nowhere at the same time.

I have this thing about doors that are slightly ajar, that is those that happen to be open just a crack. For some reason it drives me absolutely crazy. I cannot stand it, especially when for example I can hear a door upstairs which is slightly ajar and swinging back and forth. An innocent draft causes an unpredictably rhythmical clicking sound as the breeze tries to close the door but cannot close it completely. Click, click, and (wait exactly 4.7 seconds) click. When I was a small boy and went to bed, I would call my mother about ten times to come back and make sure that my bedroom door was completely closed, until it clicked. "Mommy, did it click shut?" When I became too old to be acting so childishly, I would get out of my bed myself ten times before I slept. I would grope my way in the pitch-black darkness and feel where the doorknob was. I gave the knob a quick jolt back and forth, rattling the door to insure closure and completeness. No crack. This is order to check and double check and triple check (plus seven or more additional checks) to make absolutely definitely sure the door was really closed without the slightest possible doubt. You can never know with absolute one hundred percent certainty now that the crack is gone, can you? This obsession and/or phobia and/or psychoses about cracks have extended themselves later into my adult life. It now includes any other items that might happen to express some kind of crack or slit or other thin opening that allows lightness or darkness to show through. Life is not that complicated after all. Life is full of cracks and that is the nature of things. When you walk on the sidewalk be very careful. Step on a crack and you break your mother's back. A desire for perfection and absolute certainty makes life less perfect and more complicated than it should be. Let's not get too cracked about cracks now, okay?

So I decided to go jogging for the first time this year. Normally I start much earlier in the season, but the cold weather, snow or rain or lots of wind, has not provided the ideal jogging experience for me. The ideal jogging experience, what is that anyway? Good excuse, but pure laziness nonetheless. The official "first jog" is a yearly tradition for me, and in a way I certainly look forward to it very much. The route is a thirty-minute run in a large circle along the Dutch countryside with lots of water to look at for extra inspiration. In order to prove to myself that I am still not getting too old, too bald, too fat, too weak, that my dynamic mind processes are still in control and that my body heeds to every electric neural spark to push onwards no matter what, I unleash mental orders to my youthful self in the hopes of not stopping. Believe it or not, I did not have to stop, huffing and puffing at the very end ready to collapse at every downwards pounding of my right and then my left foot, but I did not stop. Quite an accomplishment I felt, at least for myself. I did not stop, good job. You are still as young as you feel. Let it remain so far as long as possible.

The mosaic mind is a funny thing, a (religious) poem really. While the darkness enters and then leaves again, the mind mosaic keeps on running, running and running. Some chips and blocks and other funny shapes, floating and emanating, scintillating around. Oh dearest mind ever so mosaic, it leads the way. Mosaic is the mind that splinters and swells and opens up. There are a bunch of images which pop up all of the time, most of them fading away as quickly as they came. Other images and thoughts and stuff the very few only worth it remain and dazzle and provide warmth in mosaic forms. They foster the intertwining shapes, aha. Look for smoothness, roughness, with sharpened edges, and broken glass. Cutting inside and reshaping. The pieces of the mosaic are broken and reformed. Funny thing, yes, it is indeed a very funny thing. Something of a poem really. But it does not stop right there or here or where you might expect it to, not just yet. Continue and then continue some more. To the end. It is time to go. Going is time to it. Time it to going is. To time is going to. Words rearranged and put back together again, like the thoughts, of the evasive actions and purposes of the thing called the mosaic mind. This was a (religious) poem.

What am I talking about? This disease of the brain is one of the most disabling and emotionally devastating illnesses known to man. I am not insane.

Why am I talking about this? Misunderstood for so long, this mental illness has received relatively little attention and its victims have been undeservingly stigmatized. Forget about "split personality" but rather think of it as another rare and very different type of disorder. I am insane.

Like cancer and diabetes, it has a biological basis; it is not caused by bad parenting or personal weakness. In fact it is a relatively common disease, with an estimated 1-1.5% of the U.S. population being diagnosed with it over the course of their lives. While there is no known cure, it is a very treatable disease. Most of those afflicted by this disease respond in some way to drug therapy. Many are able to lead productive and fulfilling lives. I am not insane.

Any idea about what I am talking about? Click here for more information.

My father, who was a psychiatrist and himself very fascinated with these kinds of disorders always told me the following:

"If you think you are crazy then that means that you are not crazy."

I am not insane. And if I insist that I am NOT insane, then what does that mean then according to my father's theory? Well, while you are carefully ruminating about that dilemma, please have a look at the following links which I think may be of interest to you:

• The Experience of Schizophrenia.


• Famous People with Schizophrenia
.

• A Beautiful Mind.


• Interview with Sylvia Nasar
.

• John F. Nash, Jr. - Autobiography
.

By the way, I am now reading the book "A Beautiful Mind" by Sylvia Nasar (Faber and Faber; ISBN: 0571197183). So far I have read the first two chapters and it is pretty good. After I finish the book, I will go and see the movie.

My half-brother suffered from some form of schizophrenia so I guess that means that it kind of runs in the family.

So I am part mental magician.

Heaven is inside of your head. Somewhere not quite in the mind. Try to find out where that is. Make a note of that place, and do not forget that your heart is where it "really" belongs.

Wandering down the street, I decided to turn the corner on my way to the grocery store. From the shadows an old man suddenly appeared. He held out his blotched hand to me and grabbed my collar. His face was completely wrinkled and he had two meager strands of gray hair dangling over his forehead.

"The human brain is nothing more than a bag of chemicals." His voice wavered ever so slightly.

He held his mouth wide open for a second or two and then continued. "A bag of chemicals."

I learched to the side and pulled myself loose from his grip, brushing his invisible impressions from my sleeve. Step, step, step on forward. The old man fell back into the shadows and disappeared completely. Except for his voice and the words he had spoken.

Even now they continue to ring inside my head. What could he have meant exactly? Surely he must be some crazy man, or was he? Perhaps this was some message, a warning to which I should heed. A bag of chemicals.

Later on I figured it out. What he was trying to tell me. What he really meant. The message.

It's all in the mind.

You may have never realized this, but it is true. Ninety-nine percent of the world around you is created by the mind. Your mind. Just thought you might be interested to hear this. Some more ideas:

• Sounds perceived are mostly made up of the many periods of silence inbetween the vibrations.
• Movement is defined in relation to what is standing still.
• Emotions are always triggered by thought patterns.
• A beautiful piece of art for one person is an ugly splashing of paint blobs for the other.
• Success cannot be measured by facts and events.

To make things even more confusing consider the fact that while the mind creates the world around it, the world is influenced by the act of creation and/or perceiving, and in the end, the mind is influenced by the world it perceives. This is the universe of entertwining circles of awareness.

Normally I really hate getting junk emails all the time. It seems to be getting worse and worse lately. I am of the opinion that the perpetuators of this heinous Internet crime deserve the worst punishment imaginable. However, once in awhile a real gem comes through and makes me stop and think. What is the real message behind the advertisement? What does this symbolize regarding who I am and what I want to be. That is why I am including parts of a junk email advertisement I received this morning. For analysis. Check out the following:

So what is the secret meaning of all this you may ask? Most normal people (without back pains, that is) would not hesitate a millisecond before deleting such a useless message from their mailbox. Not me.

Back pain and sore muscles have little if not absolutely nothing to do with your physical condition. The origin of tenseness is purely mental, something the human mind fabricates in order to give itself the illusion that it is accomplishing something in a world that expects it. Acupoints.

SpineAlinePRO^TM. Nice name for a wonderful product. Take a look at that name more closely. Rearrange the words and you get: Aline, PRO, Spine. Mix up each individual word and you get: inAle, ORP, niSep. See anything interesting? Look more closely, meditate on that combination of sounds, hit true to those separate acupoints that come together and intertwine like pages of connect-the-point coloring books. Long enough and in silence. And then all of a sudden you will figure it all out, all of it, what it really means. The world is NOT what it seems.

Still fed up with all that SPAM despite this inspirational blog entry of mine? Then you might want to check out the Spam Fighter's Toolkit.