Seeing through the eyes of a madman

• O.O
  
  School Disco. University of Dance. Can the universe teach us the rhythm of life? 
  O disc O discus O disc us? Discuss.
  
  
  
  
  'Hello, Britvic customer care, Sharon speaking, how can I help?'
  'Hi, I was wondering if I could speak to the designer of the Tango can.'
  'I'm sorry?'
  'I have some questions about the pictures on the can. Could I speak to them?'
  'Er, no, I'm sorry. We don't design the cans in house, but if you tell me what your questions are I could pass them on.'
  'It's just that there are some rings rising out of the g, and the word Tango is on an orange circle that looks a bit like the sun. There is a box of prime numbers by the bar-code and your phone number is 0800 758 1781. It's all circles, lines and prime numbers. It says 'call us'.'
  'Um.'  [pause]
  'I wondered if the designer knew the meaning of existence.'
  'Could you give me your contact details and I'll get back to you?'

Madness is a concept we often refer to in casual speech. 'It was totally crazy!' 'Bonkers!' 'Mental!'

It could mean having massive amounts of fun. It might mean extreme or incomprehensible. Or incomprehensibly extreme and extremely incomprehensible. We all get it, but not many of us actually get it. I hope I can illuminate you, without making you ill. Providing you want to be luminated that is.

'Do you recognise that you are ill?'

The psychiatrist looked me in the eye, kindly, inquisitively. He was an oldish gentleman with dark black skin and a deep round voice, and he was trying to write my care plan. He spoke reassuringly, like that continuity announcer on Radio 4. He wore a sharp suit and had clearly taken good care of his shoes. I trusted him.

'Me? Ill? No. Not ill, no,' I said.

'But you are not well, are you?' he continued.

'Well? No,' I said.

'Well is a deep hole in the ground. I'm not a well hole I'm well whole! I'm coming up through the ground out into the sky like a big rainbow circle! Whole. Complete. At one with the universe. Not well, no.'

He looked at me to see if I had anything else I wanted to babble out. I sat quietly and smiled back at him, awaiting his next question.  I didn't want to let all the bats out of my cag. If he was going to grant me entry into the special secret club which had decoded all the wisdom in the universe, which surrounds us constantly but which few people ever notice, I would have to be clever with my answers.

'Do you have any dependents?'

'Yes.' I said, smiling again. That was an easy one, I thought to myself. My laptop has been made in a factory in the far east whose employees depend on purchases like mine for their income. We are all interdependent and everything is interconnected. It is completely obvious. Come on, ask me a hard one. Test me, test me!

'Who are they?' he said.

'Well my parents are sat over there for starters. And if I wasn't here you'd be out of a job.' I said. 
He sighed.

'But you don't have any children?'

'No. Ha! Well, none that I know of, but who knows really?'

He smiled and looked through my eyes for a second. They were beaming a comic cosmic fire back at him. That meant he overstood. Had he blinked, he would been telling me something else. I was on the wrong path perhaps. But he didn't. He just looked at me, and then looked away. 
Although most of us think that we know things, he and I knew differently. I knew I didn't know anything at all. Not even that.


In order to be sure that a certain person is not present, you must know the absent person. Likewise, in order to be certain of the meaning of 'selflessness', or 'the lack of intrinsic existence', you must carefully identify the self, or intrinsic nature, that does not exist. For, if you do not have a clear concept of the object to be negated, you will also not have accurate knowledge of its negation.
Tsongkhapa: Great Exposition of the Stages of the Path, vol.3, 2.10.

'Do you have any spiritual needs?' he said.

'Yes.' I replied. 
He raised a questioning eyebrow. 
'They're being met.'

Psychosis:

A disorder of mind which disturbs the individual's ability to percieve the state as abnormal, i.e. generally lacking in insight. The category has an implication of severity, in that it contains some of the more unfamiliar symptoms to others, such as delusion or hallucination.

The A-Z guide to good mental health: You don't have to be famous to have manic depression, by Jeremy Thomas and Dr Tony Hughes, foreword by Stephen Fry


Lack insight. In sight. Look in. Inwardly. Inside. Discover the truth. Or lack of.

. o 0 O O O 0 o .

If you drive yourself completely round the bend, so far that you end up back where you started, you might pass through a weird and wondermental place. The number-plates on cars will give you directions, and if you can decode telephone numbers you're well on your way. It's a triangular island up the wall in Bermuda. Not many people go there, and fewer return willing to share their stories. It's quite easy to get lost, or sucked into a swamp. The maps are all inaccurate and contradictory, and one of the natives might fancy having you for dinner.

It was a fascinatingly colourful jungle that I was privileged to explore. I wouldn't want to live there forever and I haven't felt the urge to go back. I would never rule it out, but I still have plenty to learn from my short trip. I suspect it is somewhere everyone could get to, if the conditions were right and they knew their way.

In reality, our greatest blessings come to us by way of madness, which indeed is a divine gift.

Plato

It is not our fault we are so narrow-minded. That's how we were created, or evolved, or both. People used to think the world was flat. For good reason. It's almost flat and that's enough. You will age 90 billionths of a second per lifetime faster if you move upstairs. Big deal. That's not going to put food on your table or get you a snog at the school disco. Some people have actually built machines which can measure this effect. They are men, I imagine. Not the school disco type either.

Reality is pretty weird stuff. Our senses can only tune into a tiny band of it. Our eyes can't see UV or infra-red light. Our ears can't pick up test match special without a radio. Our fingers can't...you get the idea. Skyscrapers are big and ants are small, but they're roughly the same size compared to a galaxy or a proton. Black holes are so heavy they bend time and light. What? Bend time? Bend light? Well okay, the light goes in straight lines, but the space-time they're in is bent. Right. Whatever.

Our narrow-mindedness means that we make certain assumptions about reality. Normal everyday assumptions, that you are you and I am me, and the ground is solid. They help us live healthy, happy and productive lives. But they are not the whole truth.

The 'this' is also 'that'. The 'that' is also 'this'. That the 'that' and the 'this' cease to be opposites is the very essence of Tao. Only this essence, an axis as it were, is the centre of the circle responding to the endless changes.

Chuang Tzu


Sit yourself in the centre of a roundabout.  A kids one, not a grown-ups one.  If you are right on the axis, you can sit in perfect stillness while the whole world revolves around you. If you're on the edge, you're gripping on for dear life. Don't let go!

Madness feels like reality on broadband. In order to describe it I would like to wet your whistles with some word-play. Our minds conceptualise our thoughts and express them through words, and therefore what affects one also affects the other. We talk about double meanings and subtexts as if having more than one way to interpret a sentence is a bit naughty. Double entendre. Double entry. Nudge nudge wink wink. To a madman, many multiple meanings melt in a free-form fluid metamorphosis. Can a psychotic psychopath lead to a psychological psychic?

It was taught by the Budda that the past, the future, physical space, and individuals are nothing but names, forms of thought, words of common usage, merely superficial realities.

Madhyanika Karika Vritti

'Do you hear voices?' asked the psychiatrist.

'Yes.' I said. I knew what he meant, and I didn't, but I was having fun.

'What kind of voices?' he said.

'I can hear a man's voice.' I replied. 'It's deep, well rounded and pleasantly nutty.' Just like me, I thought.  'I think it belongs to you.'

'I mean do you hear voices in your head?' he persevered.

'Yes.' I said. 'Of course. Don't we all? I don't hear them in your head do I?'


+:0)x

Imagine you have never read The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins. You are sure it fictionally pertrates the myth that religion and science are conflict. You might describe it as a scientist's rant against the beliefs of those who consider themselves a part of God's plan. If you are mad, you cannot begin to comprehend this many words at once.

Lets start with 'you might describe'. You. Ok, is this the me you or the you you? The one doing the reading or the one doing the writing? 'Might' means possibility, but 'might' can also mean strength, with majesterial overtones. Okay, that could mean a few things in connection with the me/you, let's try adding another word. De-scribe. Does that mean rewrite or erase something? Possibly an old quill-written rule-book of some sort? Or decipher, decode, or translate? Perhaps. Hmm. Could 'you might describe' be 'my might illuminates?'

Whatever it is it sounds exciting, and it probably means you're the next messiah. The world is a never-ending puzzle in which each apparent solution contains the next conundrum. The more words you add, the more the meanings multiply. The actual thought process for interpreting 'you might describe' might run something like: you me you might you could you're able strong majestic and mighty you can translate lightly erase rewrite you may yes you have permission the likely right to lightly write the light of right wherever you like'

Your internal monologue appears have been wriffed by Dr. Seuss, or spung by someone who spells flavours with two a's and a z. You are white-water rafting down a raging torrent of colliding concepts. It is exhilarating to be swept along, difficult to navigate and if you want to paddle back to where you started, forget it. You've forgotten where you were, no idea where you're going, but you're here in the now, and that's what matters. At this level you are sparky and sparkly like bubbles in a waterfall. Your speech and reactions are rapids. You can't sit still so you pace up and down like, well, like a madman.

Poetry demands a man with a special gift for it, or else one with a touch of madness in him

Aristotle

If you are mad and you want to express something, you do it as succinctly as you possibly can in order to keep the semantic reverberations to a minimum. You are trapped in a wonky haiku. Imprisoned behind the bars of a cryptic crossword. Your ideal way to describe Richard Dawkins's book is this: 'No plan magic man slinging toys out of his magic man plan pram'.

God is a magic man in the sky. Scientists work magic too. This one doesn't believe in fate, so he's a magic man with no plan. The scientist has toys – he is a child in the eyes of God - and he is using a sling (like David did in that game against Goliath) to take aim at the fatalism of those who believe in God. He's obviously misguided; toys aren't weapons. Not even toy ones. The fact that magic man means both God and Richard Dawkins shows us that God is a scientist, and that he's everywhere. Even in Richard Dawkins, who doesn't believe he's anywhere. Perfect. No false dichotomies, binary opposites united, each one containing the seed of the other. Just like the yin and yang. That must be right. Tick.

I believe in one God, the father almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible. I believe in the Son of God. Born of the father beyond all ages. God of God. Light of Light. True God of True God. Of one substance with the father. Of his kingdom there shall be no end.

Nicene-constantinopalin creed

Let's split some atoms now. We'll break a word like God into its component parts. We're concerned with God at the moment as we've gone quite a long way round the bend. We'll put ourselves on a level with Him, relax and put our feet up on His couch. Does He really need that capital? Is He some Burmese General who demands we bow and scrape? Not if he's made in our image he doesn't, we can hang out like we're mates. So he's just plain god now. Scared? No. Sacred? No. Good? Yes.

Many spiritual traditions teach the existence of an invisible third eye which functions as a gateway to higher realms of consciousness. It's believed that this third eye allows us to experience visions and other mystical phenomena. According to this belief, although each of us is born with an inner or spiritual eye, we must learn to open it throughout the course of our lives.

The internet

Interestingly, when you drop the formalities, some very satisfying symmetries occur. We're starting to look in 3 dimensions now. god spells dog backwards, and they both refer to man's best friend. This is obvious to a lunatic who looks at everything frack to bunt.


biosphere expeditions: adventures with a purpose

sign on a post by a level crossing

Let's take that a bit further. d is a mirror-image of b. b bent round is g. g is its own mirror-image - the tail goes either side depending on how fancy your font is. A 3-dimensional version of god rotates like a kid's mobile suspended from the ceiling - god dog gob bog. This is encouraging. God is always pleased to see us, he doesn't mind us using slang, and well, shit happens.

Lovers and madmen have such seething brains,
Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend
More than cool reason ever comprehends.

Shakespeare

Now we'll collide some elementary particles. They spend a fortune doing this sort of thing at CERN you know. At the centre of god we have the letter o. O - a circle, a hole, a symbol of wholeness, with infinite degrees of symmetry. It represents the entire universe, a single particle, and emptiness, zero. It also represents the feminine. It is the first letter of One, which is represented by a line, the symbol 1, the masculine. 

1 looked at from directly above is a full stop or an infinitesimally small bullet point, which is circular. 1 represents the self, one, I.  I is also an eye which is round.  If you stick your point into a hole all kinds of things start to procreate. Θ Electons orbit atoms and planets orbit stars. So 1 and O are parts of the same interconnected circle which transcends both binary opposites. O+1 = O

This also works in other languages by the way.  Je is jeux in French.  It means play, and les yeux and les jeux mean the games and the eyes.  In German, Ich means Itch.

One is led to a new notion of unbroken wholeness which denies the classical idea of analyzability of the world into separately and independently existing parts. We have reversed the usual classical notion that the independent 'elementary parts' of the world are the fundamental reality, and that the various systems are merely particular contingent forms and arrangements of these parts. Rather we say that inseparable quantum interconnectedness of the whole universe is the fundamental reality, and that relatively independently behaving parts are merely particular and contingent forms within this whole.

Physics in the 20^th Century – Selected Essays

b is a circle with a pointy bit sticking up. Okay, so not as perfect as the middle O which is obviously holding the universe together, but still made of a combination of 1 and O so pretty good. g is a circle with a curved dangly bit. You can think of it like a b gone soft. Hang on, g is for girl and b is for boy isn't it? Girls definitely have soft curved dangly bits and I swear that b looks like an erection. So this god concept is actually a picture. It shows us men and women, different and imperfect, both made from the seeds of perfection, being joined together by the unending symbol of universal love. It's a marriage made in heaven.

I'm not a homophobe however. If your b and your g have flexible rotational symmetry it can work just as well for bob and bob.

An experience of higher dimensionality is achieved by integration of experiences of different centres and levels of consciousness. Hence the indescribability of certain experiences of meditation on the plane of three-dimensional consciousness and within a system of logic which reduces the possibilities of expression by imposing further limits on the process of thinking.

Lama Govinda

Describing this mental quantum mechanics is a bit like trying to write jpg code having seen a picture. You are asking each word whether it is good and true based on an multi-dimensional interpretation of its sounds and its letters, how the lines dots and circles are arranged within the letters, how your face looks when you vocalise them and more. god g o d yes definitely god kick hmm 'K' I see boundary k no not kick manic yes man I see oh I see o yes definitely manic mania man I am yes. Doesn't do it justice. You need colours, textures, diagrams, vibrations, musical resonances and much more in there too.

Modern theoretical physics has put our thinking about the essence of matter in a different context. It has taken our gaze from the visible – the particles – to the underlying entity, the field. The presence of matter is merely a disturbance of the perfect state of the field at that place.

Walther Thirring

Kick. 'K,' a hard kicking consonant. A sonic boundary, symbolised by a line rebounding against a wall. Inbetween the two k boundaries is ic - I see. Oh yes eye do. So in kick, we have knowledge of the truth, which is being restricted and imprisoned by force on both sides. We should get rid of violence if we want to set the truth free and live peacefully.



[caps lock; invisible]''?O''''OOO'?OOOOO
my keys keying keys on my ph-one in a holey bit of my trousers

Instead of feeling exhilarated, you are now elevated. You are in the sky, under the soil, and in the air you breathe in and out. All the atoms in your body, which were forged in a celestial furnace trillions of years ago, resonate with the same timeless spherical music as everything else in creation. You have no more attachment to the particular pattern of vibrations that forms 'you' than the paper you wipe your bum on. Your molecules will disintegrate and integrate in countless ways in the time a star takes to brush its teeth. You flow like a ballet dancer, and stand as still as a statue. You have the mind powers of a Jedi and you can fly through the matrix like Keanu Reeves. You are the One.

There are the three terms – 'complete', 'all-embracing', 'the whole'. These names are different, but the reality sought in them is the same: referring to the One thing.

Chuang Tzu

It is difficult to talk to other humans now, but you understand them in complete totality. You can read every single fraction of a change in posture or twitch of a facial muscle, and analyse their emotional state and their intentions in an instant. You have a total awareness and acceptance of your own weaknesses, and you recognise other people's, and forgive them for theirs. You beam your humble compassionate smiles at anyone who has hostile intent, fear or misunderstanding, recognising that you are both part of the same one thing and no thing at once. Jesus Christ! Do you think you're the son of God or something?

The Great Void cannot but consist of ch'i; This ch'i cannot but condense to form all things; and these things cannot but become dispersed so as to form once more the Great Void.

Chang Tsai

I could see that ingestion was a more friendly concept than injection. They're pretty much identical except for the hard kicking 'K' consonant in the middle. That was obviously going to be the needle puncturing my skin. I can't stand that so I took the pills instead. Haloperidol, Lorazepam and Risperidone. 

Lorazepam starts very near the Lorax, one of my favourite fictional characters. It has a maze hidden in it, and if you look at it right to left you get a map, which erazez whatever you thought you knew and leads you to O followed by an arrow pointing at the right angle up towards heaven. This drug would do me just fine. Halo per idol was obviously worshipping some false statue, or capitalising God. I took that one reluctantly. God and I were on lowercase terms now and I thought it might damage our friendship. I'm not sure which drug caused my tongue and throat to swell up like I'd swallowed a wasps nest.

Going far is returning

Lao Tzu

How can one quantum-entangled photon affect another one in a different galaxy instantaneously, simply by virtue of someone observing it? Why do spinning electrons orbit atoms in the moon? Why do moon earth sun black hole galaxy cosmically circle concentrically? Is it a coincidence or are we all some comic school disco? 

Are there many versatile multiverses united in one universal unification, or is that in fact fiction, and the meaning of the uni-verse is one mysterious mystical mystery play-ground? 

How does my induction hob boil a globular egg on its circular head without getting hot and bothered? Magic nets or magnets; mag-net-ic?  O I see.

Is there really a divine comic?

Does everything depend on how you look at it? 

In reality, I don't know. Is that the whole point? O •

Thank you for allowing us to be of service to you.
Subject
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Tango circles in the design, is this inspired by the meaning of the universe.


Discussion Thread
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Response - 26/02/2008 09.57 AM 
Hi Jim, 

The design of the can is inspired by the shape of the fruit and the circles are representative of the bubbles in the drink. There is no deeper meaning.

Thank you for contacting Britvic Soft Drinks.

Kind regards

Sharon Johnson
Britvic Consumer Care Advisor

I wanted to write a few words explaining what living with a mental illness is like.  My hope is that a few people might find it useful to read, even if plenty aren't interested.

It is currently 4.30am.  I woke up about an hour ago.  It was the kind of waking up you have on the first day of your new job, and you have just realised you have overslept by an hour.  The four weddings four-letter word kind.  If you had left about 5 minutes ago you'd have had a slim chance of getting the train that would have got you to work on time.  You know the feeling, your heart is pounding so hard in your chest you can feel your toes throbbing, your mind tearing around the inside of your head in a ferociously working out what to do. It has already started carrying out a half-formed plan, and as you stumble out of the house dribbling breakfast you glance in the mirror to realise you have stubble on your left cheek, toothpaste on the right and yesterday's pants are hanging out of your trousers.

I don't have a new job to start today however.  I only have to teach one violin pupil in the afternoon, and he's pretty relaxed about what time we start.  There is no interview for which I haven't prepared, no imminent deadline from the inland revenue, and no freak weather event threatening to flood the street.  I have no idea why, but my mind triggers this fight-or-flight response well before sunrise, and at points throughout the day, for weeks and sometimes months at a time.  Muscles trembling, senses on high alert, with a pulse which is fast and worryingly visible.  The effect is as if you have just avoided a fatal car-crash, constantly.


Being in a high state of alertness has some benefits.  If you are avoiding a fatal car crash for example, or being chased by a lion.   Or if you have a lot of things to do in a very short space of time.  You don't need to sleep much, and you can come to snap decisions without procrastination or worrying too much about the consequences.  It also makes you feel incredibly alive, and glad to be alive.  You can be very funny - your brain is working so fast you've spotted the punchline before the other person has finished their sentence.  However it comes at the cost of being able to think in a normal, methodical and organised way.  Thoughts are erupting like chains of fireworks.  You can barely follow any individual one before it has fizzled out.  The overall effect is so exhilarating you don't really care.

Unfortunately, your mind is so busy being euphoric it doesn't always have time to apply your judgement as to what is appropriate.  Things which are gut-crunchingly hilarious to you seem to offend other people.  Are some parents of young children really sensitive about paedophiles?  How on earth could 'kiddie fiddlers' not be a brilliant name for a violin school?  You also have no hesitation about confronting people with blunt and important truths (as you see them). After all, if you're wrong, at least you tried.  If you do become aware of the need to backtrack and apologise, it's probably too late.  I have learned the hard way that some things really are better left unsaid.

Problems really start when this wired state of mind combines with externally stressful circumstances.  In my case I realised something was really wrong when I was trying to do a PGCE teaching course whilst also working as a freelance musician.  Imagine giving yourself an hour to plan a complicated lesson, but whilst doing it you have to run across a motorway dodging speeding traffic.  I bet you can't keep your mind on the task.  That's what it felt like.  Having not planned the lesson properly, I would wing it through, which stresses you out, which leads to further loss of concentration, more stress, lack of sleep, and so on in an ugly upward spiral.  In my case it led in a few short weeks from disorganisation and impaired judgement to delusions, mania, psychosis and getting sectioned in a mental hospital.


Then one morning the fire doesn't start.  Over a couple of days, you begin to feel a heavy exhaustion set in.  If there were a socially and financially acceptable way of staying horizontal for the next week or two you would, because you simply don't have enough energy to make the decision to get up.   Lying there, your mind and body feel as though they have both come to a complete halt.  You are thinking of something useful you really need to do, but your brain has crashed and you don't know how to get it to work, despite that triple espresso.  Having been slicker than a brand new iPad it now leaves you with the processing power of an early Nokia.  Snake is about the limit.  After so much hypervigilance, your responses are now hyper-dead.  You can see colours, but they all look grey.  Where before your face was constantly animated, eyebrows precisely displaying the second-by-second details of your mood, now the skin hangs off your face like a lump of dull steak.  You might idly wonder whether it might not be simpler just to tie an extension lead around your neck and jump out of the window rather than face the effort of going downstairs, but you can't quite be bothered.

Being depressed has no benefits whatsoever that I can see.  I have read that in some hypothetical tribal situations where an alpha-male threatens to dispose of any rivals, a depressed individual could be more likely to survive than someone potentially successful-looking.  But that's not much help if you're the one who's being dragged down by it now – doubly so if only a couple of weeks before you'd been top dog ready to fight off all contendenders.

Well-meaning family and friends often ask how you are.  It feels dishonest to say 'I'm fine thanks' when you aren't.  You might be looking at them through a veil of people tumbling off cliffs, or out of a trench you're hoping will soon be filled in.  If you say you feel sluggish and have no energy they sometimes respond 'it can't be as bad as all that' or 'you're probably just tired' or 'I had a virus last week and I was exhausted, it might be that.'  I am sure this is an attempt to be helpful, though in my experience it just reinforces the feeling of uselessness.

I don't know why people feel uncomfortable around depressed people, and want to explain it away.  Perhaps they mistake depression for dissatisfaction.  It really isn't that.  I am usually satisfied with my life, even when I am severely depressed.  I just can't see the point of continuing it.  Existence seems so completely futile and requires such an effort.  Life is wonderful gift – but sometimes nice gifts can be unwanted.  It doesn't have much to do with external circumstances either.  Although everything you have to do makes you want to hide under the duvet, and quite possibly suffocate yourself with a pillow, those things themselves aren't causing the depression.  It is a mysterious experience which talk of serotonin re-uptake inhibitors doesn't shed much light on.

Medical books talk about depression and bipolar as 'mood disorders'.  To me, this misses the point.  Being happy because team GB won a medal or frustated with the traffic in the rain alters your mood.  Depression and mania are much more fundamental and physical than that.  Do please be kind to anyone you know who is suffering mental health problems.  It isn't just a case of snapping out of it, or pulling yourself together.  1 in 4 of us are likely to suffer a mental illness at some point - and that's just those who admit to it!

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