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This
page is completely out of date and requires
a TOTAL re-write! @ 29/09/2007
Right
Now
(right this minute .
. . but liable to spontaneous and infinite variation)
I am currently 'in between jobs' and am managing
to survive (just) on a modest pension which I think is a little
less than unemployment benefit and is below what recent news
reports claim is the pensioner poverty line.I claim nothing, I
owe nothing (with the possible exception of voluntary National
Insurance contributions which I don't currently pay! Why invest
for 'no future'?).
Right now, right this minute I am consumed with the desire to
build a website presence. Why? I have no idea.
It is perhaps my way of stroking my ego and if that is so then I
make no apology for it. It needs all the stroking it can get.
Or maybe I am hoping that if I put enough here I will find
someone who understands me . . . at least a bit.
I have of course played amateur
psychologist and after years of self-analysis have developed
various conclusions, right or wrong. There is no simple reason
for having ended up the way I have and there is obviously
therefore no simple remedy.
Genes - I believe I have inherited a genetic
propensity toward depression and dysthymia, the strongest
evidence on my mothers side of the family, in her own behavior
and because an aunt apparently committed suicide. There may also
be subjective evidence on my fathers side in his fathers drinking
problem.
Depressive episodes seem to occur at random and appear out of the
'blue', often intrinsically unconnected with any causative
events.
Behavior - I believe behavioral conditioning has
created my 'personality disorder'.
Parental criticism and attention to what others would think
resulted in low self worth and lack of confidence and feelings of
rejection. This was compounded at critical points in, adolescent
development by a physical assault and in early adulthood by work
relationships.
The lack of physical contact and displays of affection in
childhood, together with late and inadequate sexual education,
confused and compartmentalised my needs and desires.
Deeply fearful of violence, rejection and failure I have
withdrawn from further social contact.
Lacking effective role models I have not matured emotionally.
In isolation there is no room for movement or change which
bolsters learned feelings of hopelessness.
My depressive episodes center on my general unhappiness born of
the life style I 'choose' to lead caused by my behavior and the
one feeds off the other and vice versa.
Hocus Pocus - Currently,
although always open to accepting a preponderance of contrary
evidence, I see the world existentially.
Recent scientific evidence suggests that all of humankind has
centers in the brain specifically inclined to thought patterns
that can produce extremely powerful, broadly similar, 'spiritual'
type experiences. Feelings of acceptance, belonging,
connectedness, love . . . all powerful emotions. Incongruous with
life's harsh fight for survival and the day to day reality of
meaningless suffering, the emotional pain of such existence seems
lessened by means of 'faith'. A way of retaining at least a small
part of the original feel good, spiritual experience.
From an evolutionary, Darwinian perspective, the survival
benefits in such a powerfully (self)destructive social species
are clear.
With neither faith nor a strongly survivalist attitude, the
ultimate lack of meaning in life can make the pursuit of its
transient desires seem utterly pointless, neither worth the risk
of the inevitable suffering nor the effort.
To change this view would mean to ignore a lifetime of
experiential learning, and in the absence of empirical evidence,
to embrace a new unknown world . . . on faith.
- - - - - UNFINISHED - - -
- UNDER CONSTRUCTION - - - - - -
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