shift

I didn’t really know how to approach this topic. It wasn’t out of a fear of showing too much of myself to others, I feared a needlessness in ranting. If I talk about how much I wanted to kill myself throughout most of my childhood, you would either feel sorry, pat my head, or point out countless others in Darfur, or closer to home, Hunter’s Point, suffer much more than I. In other words, I wasn’t sure if I could bring anything new to this table. So instead of sharing only my story, I will share also ideas gathered in depression, and later hammered out during recovery.

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1. Truth
A messy thing to talk about. What is truth? From the outrageous to the simple definition, truth eludes and deludes. Some subscribe to the idea of truths on several levels. As in, from “change my diapers now, I want milk and attention,” to “the truth from television news,” to “the relative truth after discussing politics with friends,” to “the truth created after reading conspiracy websites,” to “the truth after talking philosophy with yourself alone for years,” and finally to “the ultimate truth you will never know of the universe’s singular reality’s mother’s origin, deluxe-platinum-unrated-director’s cut edition, only on blue ray, the best way to watch dvds, ever.” Instead of ever-expanding generalizations of thought, I think truth in reality has no level but one. In life, our relative ideas of logic change our beliefs. Truth changes the instant one learns something, or changes. The ever-expanding generalizations are actually changes in reality perception.

From the first years in a school environment, I developed an unhealthy hatred for arrogant, compensating, and cruel behavior from others (but not myself). When I couldn’t stop others offending me, I stewed in frustration, adopting dramatic versions of cynicism, nihilism, atheism, misanthropy, until breaking into a depression. I rejected everything to save my ego – whenever people agitate me for whatever reason, my subconscious reasoned, I can escape from the issue by putting myself down while blaming failures on them. I never thought about this consciously, I imagined myself perpetually inadequate, hopeless, and miserably pathetic, and everyone else always trying to push me deeper in mud, out of their sight and mind. I ironically counted on my easily-earned grades to bolster my ego now and then. So when they started to slide around in 6th or so grade, when teachers and parents gave disappointed looks, I lost my last line of defense. Meanwhile, bullies found me strange entertainment; I always so willingly returned for any remnant of attention and friendliness they gave, sincere or not. Their barrage of insults and cruel jokes emanated from their insensitivity and also my hypersensitivity – I was severely uptight, getting angry at pranks I overthought and took too seriously. Escaping further into solitude, I schemed unrealistic vengeance fantasies for the tresspasses, despairing in their impossibility. Never once then did I fairly judge their own situations, why they acted as they did, preferring to ferment in bottled hatred. Eventually, I accidentally wrote my suicide note, one stuffy, math class afternoon, in a flurry of ego-centrism and misanthropy, on the back of homework, complete with little sketches of imploding worlds, skeletons, etcetera. Then I was discovered and was plopped into a silly house. I realize now I manipulated my concept of truth constantly to continue self-destruction.

In more recent memory, I deal with truth as the inner thoughts of peoples, covered by social traditions and mannerisms. I value this over love, attention, and bliss. As for lies, or euphemisms, or question dodging, they ultimately do not solve problems, do not bring a deep understanding to a feud. I can’t believe I have to say this, but telling the truth, and even entering a minefield conversation, will resolve issues better than a well-constructed lie. The most obvious example I can think of is the discussion to children about death. Yes, we all accept truths at different speeds, but such cushy accommodations slow development – delaying an understanding of the entities around oneself, does that evoke the image of intellectual, psychological, emotional, and physical maturity? And yet, everyone lies, dodges questions, uses euphemisms – even me.

2. Pain
Surprisingly, much less messier to talk about. I’ll begin with a shorter story.

Once upon a time, I attended a private Catholic elementary school. I had a question for whoever adult or curious came across me; a very common question for Christians to ask, or so I hear. “With God’s mighty Powers, why can’t He take away the pain so many experience in their lives?” Some approached with a retelling of Genesis, but I do remember one saying that God uses pain to teach. But what of people who suffered needlessly? I don’t remember a response for that, but I entertained a possibility, after leaving the silly house: tenacity.

So perhaps pain exists to do its exact opposite – to strengthen and to teach. Most of the time, pain does what pain does, hurt. I do acknowledge the countless millions and probably billions who have committed suicide over the pressure and pain of life, when one draws the line, declaring life intolerably painful, fair or unfair, voluntary or involuntary. I realized that ultimately, the afflicted alone makes the decision to return to less painful (but not always happier) days. Others can never force this type of change, to the afflicted it won’t feel real. Pain leaves this choice up to the afflicted, to learn to learn from pain or to just feel the pain. As for situations involving “tough love”  I leave the discussion of excess pain to the audience. We may live among people so conflicted in themselves they satisfy their sadistic tendencies whilst dispensing “tough love.”

3. Reality
Whatever one experiences, learns, rejects, etcetera, is reality. Like truth, I don’t believe reality exists in multiple levels, only multiple ways of experiencing it, like reading aloud or speed-reading a book. It is based on the things one believes in. If a Heaven or Hell exist…well, I’m the kind of guy that’ll settle for uncertainty and probabilities as credible evidence. I’m a loyal faithful of agnosticism – if I wake up after I die, and I see God and He says “Whoops! You should’ve listened a little harder back then buddy, see you in Hell,” then I would’ve made a mistake I wouldn’t mind making. Perhaps as I grow older and death winks closer I’ll change my opinion just in case anyone outside listened in. Standing up for select beliefs, even against conflicting evidence sometimes, just because a little voice in our heads said so, that is the other part of reality. Without change, one’s reality cannot grow. Without faith, one has nothing to relate reality with. Of course, one can believe reality doesn’t exist at all – that a sentient haze of smoke and mist indivisible surrounds our minds, constantly changing, so nothing remains stagnant. How dreadful, and beautiful.

Anyways, this idea didn’t spawn directly from a depression-laced adventure. Rather, I discovered it while attempting to sleep for the first or second night in the silly house. The pillows and blankets smelled of the kind of plastic to cover old furniture during a moving, and it was policy to keep the doors of newcomers open. I would’ve had sweet pitch darkness had the guard outside had the thick steel door closed. Slightly ajar, and luckily for sleep deprivation the ray of light felled the darkness all the way to my pillow. And in this haze I somehow started thinking about this stuff. I was probably crying about how faraway Kansas was, too. Not that it mattered, I live in San Francisco, ha! And then I realized the close if not identical definitions truth and reality shared, and went back to sleep.

4. Religion
Ahh, yes. This definitely came from colorful run-ins with the nuns and the counselors at the private Catholic elementary school. Some adults there encouraged me to try and convert my parents. My father simply staved off all attempts with questions, probing into thought systems. Eventually I found myself asking questions myself. If God forgives why do people fear Him? If God forgives, why does He sentenced the damned to eternal suffering? Buddhist ideas on belonging to multiple religions differ from Christian ideas, but to which set do I adhere to? Ultimately this contributed to my melodramatic episode during the 6th grade, but inside the silly house and during recovery, finally thinking about others, I attempted to analyze religion, specifically Christianity.

I must warn you I come to you with rather negative experiences of the clergy. The ones I have met as a child have attempted to ostracize, oppress, and normalize me and my thoughts. I am aware of some churches who advocated open-mindedness and coexistence opposing the old schools of thought, and to these clergymembers I salute you.

Religion attracts many followers because of the image it augments unto the world – a world filled not exclusively with empty heavens, bleak despair, animal emotions, and uncertainty. With religion followers can see color and shape in the skies, and take comfort that we do not behave as windblown seeds scattering. Or little groups of prehistoric amino acids acting funny from the lightning strikes into the sea. With religion people can find hope and optimism easily, and with this, happiness. That isn’t so bad. What’s more, people can find meaning to positive activities and negative activities – God is good and right, and what’s not bad about a God that advocates altruism and denounces selfishness and bad qualities?

As some high-standing religious figures in a cool movie believe, “There is no salvation outside the Church.”

So what’s so bad about religion? With religion’s great power over its followers, one may choose to take any road supported by religion. The intense amount of faith and trust placed into their leaders, coupled with the massive numbers of followers, creates a position of power ready to easily maneuver followers into a directions – personal, political, nationalistic, anywhere. And, because of religion’s self-perpetuating nature, we have prompted ourselves to change many facets of life, sometimes temporarily, according to religion – gladiator matches, vengeance-murders, laughter, music, dancing, happiness, expression of self, gays, tolerance, free thought, accountability. That intense power to change societies – without great responsibility great injustices breed. One completely devoid of selfish or hurtful prejudices must man such a powerful state. And what of the followers themselves, imagining chaos and despair without a religion? Worse, some use religion as a crutch to run away, delude themselves into a simpler, clean-cut, sugar-coated reality – “God, not chance, made the world,” “we all have a purpose in existing,” “all sinners will get their punishment,” “Through God’s Will, have I succeeded through trying times and ended up with a cushy job and a comfortable existence,” “All are equal under the eyes of God.” And what of these that a religion labels good and bad? What is “good” or “bad?” That is one of religion’s many potentials for abuse and injustice – an imposing of beliefs onto others.

5. Choice & Freedom
Good allows people to think, investigate, conduct experiments make their own decisions, and bad doesn’t. Life, however, introduces many situations that call for exceptions to such generalizations.

When people believe they can speak for others or a whole population, I’ll make the line very, very clear with the following example: I believe we must provide women with the choice for abortion, and have that choice easily obtainable. Each of us have our own voice that tells us right from wrong. Granted, this voice differs in everyone, and to people who believe life exists the moment a sperm cell enters an egg cell, abortion is morally unacceptable. For others who value women’s rights over the proposed infanticide, abortion must exist. But the option itself must exist. I want the government to fund the option to kill babies. When have I seen pro-life supporters give babies considered for abortion a loving home, or a home at all? Where have I seen them help out the new family if the father bails like a bank? Where have I seen the pro-lifers combat the social stigma associated with teen pregnancy? And I haven’t even talked about education and employment and health care insurance costs after pregnancy, what about those? Where have I seen large majorities of the new, unplanned families get back to their feet and survive their forever changed lives in this Land of Opportunity? Where have I seen this become so common people worry more about the father’s role than the economic aspects? Where have I seen any of this? Where have I seen the benevolence, the forgiving nature, the thoughtfulness, the kindness that the oh-so-Christian condition sells itself and themselves as possessing?! I might start to accept a pro-life movement if anyone tried to do this, and made real, noticeable, country-wide change. If I was still Christian I would pray to God that somewhere I am horribly wrong, and I just haven’t read the mountains of success stories, just hidden from my middle class life-obstructed view. Now I just hope, because ladies and gentlemen of the jury, the fact of life is: girls can get pregnant, guys can’t. What if both sexes could get pregnant? Would that make guys bedding down women like sodas on hot days not cool anymore? Giving them a bit more responsibility with their own bodies, would that change the whole of society, would that make society wake up from its dream? No? Than girls shouldn’t have some sort of guilt over killing their babies. None at all. The advantage that we men have because of our inability to get pregnant, should not make women unable to use us as freely and frequently as we use them. Yes I said use, go on and call me cynical. I wish you would. Or serve the godforsaken.

Sorry, I was in a happy place. I’m back now. Let’s talk about freedom! What is freedom?

I thought about freedom inside the silly house’s room. I thought about the idea of freedom, looking at cars from barred windows, watching the other patients play volleyball in our roof…surrounded by 8ft-tall fences. Maybe this is how a prisoner feels like. Al Capone could smell the culture and the food from Chinatown, drifting into his Alcatraz cell…I remember thinking about how we are all limited by imagination and social rules and impulses and fear, and what would we be without rules, watching clothes falling forever in the washing machines. My world view expanded that day, and for once, I didn’t think about myself that day, my condition, or my future. I saw how the idea of freedom defined people’s goals and personalities, making them cynical, optimistic, selfish, and depressed.

Freedom to me is choice of the individual to choose freely how to exist, but can people have that much responsibility over themselves? And what of education,  critical thinking, social norms, and terms of engagement? Would that die too, with absolute freedom? Can society benefit from such a setup? I do not know these answers yet. I know the anarchists believe that people do not naturally want to do nothing forever, and this makes sense. To them, we always realistically dream the impossible. We wouldn’t have spread from Africa if we weren’t infected with some sort of curiosity, nor would we innovate so many useful and useless tools. The anarchists believe that the human spirit will constantly seek to learn and discover. And maybe, maybe that’s why we chose to go to the moon. But we had a government when we went to the moon, and so did the Soviets with Sputnik. And so the discussion within continues.

6. Human Nature

We are naturally inclined to…what? We’ve seen herbivores live together peacefully, and we’ve seen carnivores fight against other carnivores and scavengers for food. But we are smart omnivores, so what does that make us? To look at our chimpanzee ancestors, they’re not so different. So does some sort of control, some set of rules have a place in “human nature?” What will we be, truly free from all chains of conformity? The id side of our personalities represents the side of us that desire immediate pleasure and happiness. The superego desires a realization of our inner dreams, derived from living among others, a moral perfection. The ego desires a compromise between the two that will result in eventual longterm happiness. So…if if the ego and superego appear after social interaction, will the id enslave us once free from everything? Bonobo monkeys, who are “behind” chimpanzees, use sex along with or accompanying negotiations in everyday, bisexual life – different societal rules. These behaviors are technically older than chimpanzee behavior, so maybe that’s what we truly are! Why? Because it feels good, that’s why! And when I thought about it, ultimately, all of our exploits around the world, from understanding the universe to understanding one’s lover, reward in pleasure. Maybe we aren’t hiding our human nature at all, and this is who we really are!

What I’m trying to say is, is that there might be no single definition of human nature that circumscribes the whole of human activity yet. We are not all greedy pigs. We are not all altruistic angels. We are not all degenerate psychotics. We are not all cold calculators. We are not all idealistic artists, dreamers, revolutionaries. We are not all depressed.

I started thinking about human nature during primary school and middle school, watching those labeled strong exploit others labeled weak. Perhaps personality is predetermined, to some unknown factor. I forgot the discussion when seriously contemplating suicide. In high school, I discovered several facts of my personality that stretched back into the first few crushes I had on people, that made me return to this current idea of human nature. Whenever I crushed on people, I used to assume (or more accurately, fantasize) my crush having similar personalities. The more probable opposite, the simple fact of life, didn’t come to me until…well, very recently, during winter break, 2010. Worse, when I crush on the physically attractive, my behavior changes to gain their favor, as if I already knew them, and exactly why I liked them. I feel disgusted for treating pretty people so shallowly, but it feels bitterly redeeming that at least I am aware of things, now. Luckily for me, I have other weird, depressed, cynical, emotional, twisted individuals I like to call my friends, to bring such matters to light, and a handful to sit with me as I change. There is no single human nature.

7. Society

Sometimes, the ego may consider “eventual longterm happiness” as happiness a few years later, instead of decades or possibly even millenia later. In corporations controlled by their shareholders, what once might’ve existed as a well-intended group of individuals has turned into a slave for those viewing the stock market as nothing more than a rigged casino. In other words, anyone who views the stock market’s share prices as just an opportunity, and not a company employing actual people, assists in companies acting they way they have.

Or perhaps I give the masses too much slack, and people who desire nothing more money that truly exist. In middle school I felt depressed enough to believe that, to ignore wealth’s ability to compensate. And yet, the amount of billionares grow – if I had just one of a billionare’s money, I could do so much better than they could. What is American society build on? Short bursts of gratification. That makes money. That rules our world. But does that truly rule everyone? With the advent of the internet, people nowadays can exist in and stay simultaneously connected with several societies at one time, some with different ideas than others. Different people traveling different paths to different pleasures, as a whole superorganism, or as fractured factions interacting, evolving. Traveling around, these groups of similar-thinking people, with variable amounts of tolerance for individuality search for new recruits, for immortality, like a meme. All thoughts are naught but viruses, for viruses require a host to reproduce.

What are words without a reader?

What are emotions without a soul, heart, or pathways in a brain, immortality?

After the initial shock and awe of the suicide note, Mom took me to some kind of clinic, where doctors called me clinical depression. There they sent me to a silly house, and inside I began treatment. You would expect staff inside there loving and thoughtful. No, they stiffly followed their rules, schedules, papers, made sure nobody broke anything, suggested medication more than conversation, and gossipped about which patient proved more obedient. Most or all of my treatment from the other patients themselves. Coming from all different backgrounds, people just started to open up and talk with each other. The staff took all of the credit, and we let them; our pride didn’t really matter…or did it? Soon I observed the same behaviors I sought refuge from – we ostracized “different and weird” members, seriously humiliated each other, thought one superior to another, and even grew materialistic with the little materials given to us – what were we doing? What sort of recovery is this? Some of us helped the more physically attractive ones. We seemed desperate to feel good. Perhaps that caused our ruination – the clinic degenerated from an ideal and open group, into an apartheid condition, divided by freaks and somewhat normal, with neutrals and extremely socially awkward people truly without a home. I don’t know what else to call this behavior, this sort of society. The burning desire to such useless games in the face of trying times? Panic?

8. Humbleness & Debate
Humbleness, or the idea of reacting calmly, assertively, without violence, during conflict, certainly seems powerful, but to what extent of assault must one tolerate before launching into aggressive action? Should I even think of humbleness as a strategy to win an argument and more of an expectation? Discussions flow smoother when one does not react as the id does, defending against any all perceived threats against self-confidence and self-control. People find humbleness so hard to adapt, because of the weakness people imagine, ignoring that humbleness takes much more energy and effort to maintain. Strength and decisiveness seems to rest in more visible, aggressive actions, than controlled beings. Perhaps, individuals go through a path of realization, where little details push people along a path of patience and humbleness, forward, to eternal calm.

This I gathered through constant humiliations. In arguments against wittier folk, against my parents, against tree and building, I constantly seem to fail. Depression clouded my judgment on the situation but after, I realized I was fiercely defending my id and ego.  When I understood this I understood the true purpose of discussion: to benefit all parties. 8 1/2′s Catholic Cardinal spoke truth: “Why should you be happy? That is not your task in life. Who said we were put on Earth to be happy?” A line exists where selfishness ends, and humbled, serious discussion take place, where participants concede and reject ideas after analysis of facts presented, not arguments presented.

9. “Basic Rights.”
Throughout the recovery process directed by the excellent counseling from a Dr. Frances, I thought about people in less fortunate situations. When people find themselves into such a situation with absolutely nobody to relate to, how many return from that place alive or happy? When people find themselves in situations where only money can  save them, and that they watch whip away in the wind? When governments promise to serve and protect in times of strife, and fail to prevent or encourage the opposite? What and where are our basic rights now? I think someone else said it much better and eloquently a long time ago, in a galaxy far far away:

It is our duty now to begin to lay the plans and determine the strategy for the winning of a lasting peace and the establishment of an American standard of living higher than ever before known. We cannot be content, no matter how high that general standard of living may be, if some fraction of our people—whether it be one-third or one-fifth or one-tenth—is ill-fed, ill-clothed, ill-housed, and insecure.This Republic had its beginning, and grew to its present strength, under the protection of certain inalienable political rights—among them the right of free speech, free press, free worship, trial by jury, freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures. They were our rights to life and liberty.As our nation has grown in size and stature, however—as our industrial economy expanded—these political rights proved inadequate to assure us equality in the pursuit of happiness.We have come to a clear realization of the fact that true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. “Necessitous men are not free men.” People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made. In our day these economic truths have become accepted as self-evident. We have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all—regardless of station, race, or creed.
Among these are:

The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation;

The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;

The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;

The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;

The right of every family to a decent home;

The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;

The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;

The right to a good education.

All of these rights spell security. And after this war is won we must be prepared to move forward, in the implementation of these rights, to new goals of human happiness and well-being. America’s own rightful place in the world depends in large part upon how fully these and similar rights have been carried into practice for our citizens.
-President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s “Economic Bill of Rights” – January 11th, 1944′s State of the Union

10. The Future

On the day of my planned suicide I mindlessly wrote a note explaining my hatred for the world and my plans to kill myself. I say mindlessly because I did not plan to leave any note; I believed that my tormentors knew their crime, and I needed no such attention-whoring article to win any people over to my side. I didn’t care about who went to my side. No people existed anymore to me, only futile exercises in restraint. It’s been about 6 or so years since then, and I still feel the irony burn – I am a much changed person now, with a different set of ideas of the world. I believe cynicism, especially the denouncement of others’ attempts to prolong life or a complete lack of trust in people, have no place in me. That serves only to depress further and paint me an asshole or someone in desperate need of help. Who wants to befriend one who never reciprocates trust and suspects betrayal, despite all efforts towards friendship? I believe a more matured person takes the leap of faith, the gamble, knowing the future remains uncertain, and works towards the positive, despite all of this.

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So that’s it. I still wonder why the hell I thought so much about such silly things. I suspect this was my way of trying to find purpose, trying to save myself. Or maybe I was bored. My therapist tells me nothing can cure the background noise -  Dysthymia, but it’s the mark of an “intellectual.” She’s probably saying that because she has dysthymia as well. A friend of mine recently reminded me that depression attacks, regardless of economical standing. And suddenly, I know I wasn’t frustrated at a richer friends’ petty inconviniences they labeled as depression; I was jealous of their material wealth.

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This is my personal reflection on the challenging topic of Self-Preservation vs. Self-Mutiliation. Our entire group has contributed to this SHIFT (our written symposium on challenging topics), and we would love it if you read through each of our reflections, and added your comments, experiences and perspectives to the discussion. We also encourage you to reference our list of Resources, should you or someone you know need help.