Into the Mystic.

I had a direction for this post two days ago, but I didn't have time for it. Now I have time for it, but I forget which direction I was going to take. So I'll start rambling and hopefully it comes back to me.
Jung wrote of the 'participation mystique'. Anyone that's ever watched a technicolor sunrise spill orange juice and grenadine over fast retreating darkness will understand this implicitly. In layman's terms the participation mystique refers to the sense of oneness and unity that humanity had with the environment when we were primitive active participants in it. The magic of the universe is somehow more palpable in natural places than it is in our urban islands of insanity. It's why walking to work seems so much more refreshing than biking, why a good thunderstorm is more exciting than the best hollywood blockbuster.
This week I'm disconnecting cable and my land line. I'll be using just the internet and my cell phone for all of my family's communication and entertainment needs. I'd love to say that this comes from some noble motivation like going off grid, or raising less media dependent children. I'd love to say that it's an attempt to reconnect with nature. It's not. It's cheaper, and I can get movies and tv over the net.
That being said, I'm an optimist of the highest order. The big telecom and cable companies are struggling because a lot of people are doing what I'm doing. I like to think of it as a form of evolution. The further integration of humanity and technology. Unlike most hippies, I believe that science and technology won't bring about the destruction of mankind, but that they are our best hope.
I read a fantastic article this week. Organic light is a reality already, with bio-luminous trees a very real possibility in the not too distant future. Imagine a world where instead of streetlights our roads are lined with glowing trees. Instead of lamps you'd read by the light of bio-luminous palm fronds. I see a world where all our devices become hybrid organics, giving back oxygen, taking away greenhouse gasses, and perhaps more importantly, returning our species to a partnership with nature as opposed to a battle against it. Not going to proofread this, because I'm pretty tired right now. Those are the thoughts in a nutshell anyway. Maybe not as coherent or flowing as I'd like, there they are.

One Flew East, One Flew West.

I have had a difficult time over the years, due primarily to the efforts of my worst enemy. The enemy in this case being myself. I've had a delightful condition called bipolar mood disorder that I've loved with a passion despite the damage it's done me. In 40 years I've rarely held a job more than a year. I leave jobs for myriad reasons, but I've come to realize over the past year that it's all related back to my brain chemistry. There has been the odd time I found the world so bleak that getting out of bed and going to work was simply too much to ask for. Getting dressed, walking out the door, at some point having to talk to another human being...more than I could face, and another job bites the dust. There have been other times on a manic upswing, compelled by a higher calling I'd leave the menial and meaningless tasks of whatever 'job' I had, convinced that the only path to a creative life would necessitate the burning of all bridges behind me.
By far the most common reason I've left jobs however would be a combination of high anxiety and low bullshit tolerance. There's a period somewhere in between the highs and the lows where an all encompassing loathing and irritability permeates every aspect of every relationship, task, thought, feeling. At times the anxiety peaks into a near paranoia. The fear of losing a job, combined with the anxiety of trying to read everyone's motivations drives me to quit, just to ease my mind. Or the grave insult of being talked down to becomes an unforgivable slight that only a fool or a wimp would tolerate.
That's the way things were. I've since started on an anti-depressant, and I've been on and off of it for the better part of a year now. On it I'm complacent, conformist,calm, collected, conservative and practical. Well, more so than at other times anyway. I've held my job for more than 3 years, and it's a stressful and demanding job with more than it's fair share of bullshit. Twice since starting the meds I've weaned myself off of them. Both times I saw the promised exacerbation of symptoms. Once I exacerbated up, once into that horrible fucking gray area of permanent dystopian aggravation.
I realized that as a provider for my family it's pretty imperative that I stay on these pills.
Today has me a bit nostalgic for the brilliant madness again however. I've just recovered from some pretty painful throat surgery, and today was really the first day that I felt good in long time. I got a good amount of sleep last night after a 20km run on my longboard, and I woke up enervated and optimistic. At work I had a coffee and the caffeine went straight to my bloodstream, which is something I haven't felt in a long time either. I decided I would get 'jacked' on caffeine and I had a couple more pints of coffee. Soon I was rolling in a state bordering on hypomania. I had racing creative thoughts, I was meeting strangers and hitting hard and fast banter that brought huge smiles and that mixed look of bewilderment and amazement that inspired rambling tends to elicit from normies.
I miss that. I miss being able to energize a whole room. I miss having a mainline to the divine where puns and poetic turns and prosaic prolific ideas come at you warp 9 and gaining. So fast, so brilliant, so many ideas and all of them setting off a pyrotechnic cerebro magnificent firestorm in the brain that leaves me amazed I have such thought processes.
I miss it. But I know where it leads too. It leads to explosions of rage at any attempt to control or harness my energy. It leads to dangerous obsessions with ridiculous things or people, to sleepless nights and exhausted family members sick of trying to keep up with me. It leads to flirtations s(without consummations) that risk my entire family's well being and harmony.
I've just taken my little white pill again, before writing this. I'm wired and I can feel HAARP style bolts of neuro-electric blasts rising in tempo and temperament and I know that I could be taken somewhere simultaneously magnificent and horrible if I just let it ride. The temptation is there, even knowing the seriousness of the consequences. It's there because this ordinary life, when I'm not somatized into domesticity is stifling. So I'll take the soma for now. And in a few days I won't miss this anymore. I won't want it. I won't want much of anything, because I'll have a carefully metered contentment that turns me into a well behaved ordinary citizen.