Revival of the lickety-splittest

This isn't really a post. I know it looks like one. But it's not.

It's a blip. A ping. A chest compression.

More soon.

Rejection is the pitts...

...or an opportunity to re-evaluate the root of your motivation, and
move on to something 'better'. In this case, greener.

I recently received a rejection letter, of sorts, from an [undisclosed]
governmental organization. Despite this, I am moving forward in their
'we'll give you another opportunity within the following guidelines'
process to battle the injustices of their problematic, systematic and
tired assessment process.

This is a situation when loving, supportive people say to you, "When
one door closes, another one opens." Yes, yes. I liken these words
of well-intentioned comfort to lines like, "If it's meant to be, it will
happen." Things don't just happen. You work your ass off for them
if they are important to you.

Opportunities don't simply fall into your lap. You work for them.
You build those doors. When someone or something slams a door
in your face, it's you, who must grip the handle and open another one.

¿Vous aiment un madeleine avec votre thé?

If you want to, you can spend hours, days, treading in all the things that you are
without.

If you take the time, the list can get longer. I think perhaps I have been
investing more time than necessary on these things a lot lately. Or rather,
that is what I use to focus on throughout my days at one time, and now it
has not been so intense as for as longevity goes, so I take that back. The
surges of moments that I do turn my head to it, I breathe into very deeply.

My dad passed on a silly yet effective allegory that his mother once told
him: "The man without shoes was sad, until he met the man who had no feet."

I don't know what he felt wanton about that urged her to share that with
him but I'm sure that in those moments it shifted his thinking into perspective
as it did mine.

When getting whisked away by past or future worries, I breathe, and focus
on the moments. The moment of now. Getting to know Marcel Proust, and
reading about his lovely reference to a pastry (which I am all about, aside
from his literary genius), has been a wonderful compliment to my personal
journey.

That is what draws me to Vermeer. He captures moments. Quiet, still;
sometimes solitary moments. You can't help but get drawn in and pay
attention to the moment you are in, admiring his painting. I think of
the moments of his brush gliding over an oily canvass, the moments
that his subject gazes at an empty page thinking of a letter she received
to conjure feeling and memory to bring to the moment that she is
being rendered by flicks of a wrist. The light rustle of her dress as her
muscles ache to stand still. The hush of the sun melting through the
window.

Moments.

My new best friend, Marcel Proust...

"Love is a reciprocal torture. "

"We are healed from suffering only by experiencing it to the full."

“Happiness is beneficial for the body, but it is grief that develops the powers of the mind”

“Let us leave pretty women to men devoid of imagination.”

“Everything great that we know has come from neurotics. Never will the world be aware of how much it owes to them, nor above all what they have suffered in order to bestow their gifts on it.”




“We must never be afraid to go too far, for truth lies beyond.”

"The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes."

Reply for Elisa

Elisa, I have owed you a response for a while now, but life has been, shall we say, a wee bit crazy-chicken-with-its-head-cut-off busy. I have been thinking of your comments, though! So, I am dedicating a post to you [smiley emoticon here]:

"Death is bound by tradition and prescription. Thinking of it made me sad."

Why would that make you sad? I mean, once your dead, you will seriously not give a crap what the hell happens to your body. After death is the time of your "life" (or lack thereof) when nothing in the world matters anymore!! It's the least important time, ever.

*Maybe "sad" is not the right word there (Proust would scold me for using such a cliche and

thoughtless word). What I was trying to get at there was that some people don't have a choice

with what happens to their body after they die, while they are a live - they are bound by

tradition. So, in life, all of the preparation and awareness of what will happen to them,

whether they agree with it or not, may plague them in some way, if it is not the way that they

want to be treated after they die. Your view that it doesn't matter what happens to your body

after you die, is your view; not necessarily shared by everyone. Some religions prepare for

death or an after life all their lives, so it would be the most important time ever.

"In continuing my exploration of suicide, I see suicide as the ultimate expression of choice, freedom, individuality."

Suicide happens when one is mentally unstable or mentally ILL! Killing oneself is the ultimate expression of taking away any last ounce of freedom one ever HAD.

To choose to not live in this world because it's _________ (too cruel, too
overwhelming, too fake, too crowded...).
'The world' is not too cruel, overwhelming, fake, or crowded... individual people may be, but killing yourself doesn't change any of that. If you don't like those kinds of people, don't make friends with them. But KILL yourself? Jesus.

*What I mean by freedom, is not freedom in life vs. death, but the freedom to choose. I agree, when someone comes to the decision to kill themselves, they are not in the most stable place, but they don't have to be out of their minds. Sometimes they are a victim of time, place, culture...circumstance. I suggest a couple of movies: "House of Sand and Fog" and "Black Girl". These display great examples of suicide, and reasons, other than being "crazy" behind that choice. Sometimes the issues are not as small as not liking people around you and therefore not, simply, being friends with them.

"It comes down to a moral issue - not allowing research which may cause trauma for a participant, or that may result in bodily harm or

death (OK, that was paraphrased). Why do people insist on mixing science and
morality? Clearly, these are separate spheres. Do cancer or AIDS not involve
trauma or possibly death? Does it make more 'moral sense' to allow these clinical
trials, and not trials on people who live a disease called depression? These
are not moral issues, people. These are social issues. Health issues.

Human issues."
I literally do not understand what you meant by ANY of that - but I wish I did. Maybe you could clarify? Cuz I'm totally lost.

*One of the main issues with conducting research on suicide, is that; I forget which health regulation organization(?) stipulates this, but, in short, they deem research on suicide harmful to the participants because of the 'delicate' nature of it. When it comes down to it, they don't want to be held responsible for participants who may kill themselves during the research. They have made this a moral issue. It wouldn't sit right with them if this happened. Clearly, we can agree that this would not be a good thing, but the reality is, that it happens, research or not, so it is better to study it. The argument is that there has been a significant amount of research on HIV/AIDS, despite the fact that people die of it left and right. So, what is the rational of allowing this research vs. research on suicide? Hope that clears it up for you.

**

Thanks again for your comments, thanks for reading, and showing interest in a topic that

doesn't get enough public attention!

Sorry about the icky formatting - I am too lazy to fiddle with buttons and have to run!

Thu May 10, 01:41:00 PM PDT

Dying the way you want to.

I experienced one of those profoundly obvious realizations the other
night, that culture is expressed even in death. And for a moment, I
felt a freedom in knowing that I can choose how I want my shell to be
treated after all my breathe is drawn out. Some cultures don't allow that.
Death is bound by tradition and prescription. Thinking of it made me sad.

In continuing my exploration of suicide, I see suicide as the ultimate expression
of choice, freedom, individuality. It is the ultimate in personal preference.
To choose to not live in this world because it's _________ (too cruel, too
overwhelming, too fake, too crowded...). And yet, the general public is
frightened by it (suicide, and death, for that matter). So many people who
are alive, are deadened by fear, anger, jealousy; all those emotions that make
the experience of living a not-so-pleasant one. Is one more shameful than the
other?

I attended a Psych lecture at the UW a few weeks ago. It is disappointing to
be aware of the research restrictions that are in place by the approval
corporations that determine how the studies are conducted, who can participate
etc. Essentially, like most other statistics pools, the sample is whittled down to
white, middle-aged men. It comes down to a moral issue - not allowing research
which may cause trauma for a participant, or that may result in bodily harm or
death (OK, that was paraphrased). Why do people insist on mixing science and
morality? Clearly, these are separate spheres. Do cancer or AIDS not involve
trauma or possibly death? Does it make more 'moral sense' to allow these clinical
trials, and not trials on people who live with a disease called depression? These
are not moral issues, people. These are social issues. Health issues.

Human issues.

***

Children who have displayed suicidal acts are given 'clinical' labels:
"emotional distress", "anger", and children who have acted out in violence have
had their files tagged as, "suicidal." What is wrong with this picture?

"Black box" warnings are mandatory on anti-depressant prescriptions for kids,
yet kids are banned from clinical trials.

string forward

What better way
to spend a few hours
on a sunny day
with one
of my favorite buddies...