âThere are dead ideas and cold beliefs, wrote William James, and then there are hot and live ones. When an idea “grows hot and lives within us,” he believed, everything must recrystallize around it. The exuberant life, bursting as it does with feverish beliefs, is one of constant recrystallization; in this lies much of its value, complexity, and potential danger. That which is most deeply felt is also most powerfully expressed to others. “We cannot write well or truly but what we write with gusto,” said Thoreau. “The body the senses must conspire with the spiritâExpression is the act of the whole man. that our speech may be vascular.” But our beholdenness to passion assures a darker side. Exuberance can veer sharply into disturbing territory. Champagne enchants, but it also intoxicates more quickly than stiller wines: heed glides into heedlessness as effortlessly as the silk chemise drops to the floor. The things that excite contain the capacity for excess and the potential to shame or devastate. Enthusiasm shares a border with fanaticism, and joy with hysteria; exuberance lives in uncomfortable proximity to mania. Exuberance, as Shakespeare wrote of music, “hath such a charm / To make bad good, and good provoke to harm.” Thwarted or deviant enthusiasms, once pro-voked, are powers to reckon with. The fever of passion itself is not the difficulty, argued William James; rather, trouble lies in the nature of the passion and how well it holds up to the light of day. “Surely the fever process as such is not the ground for our disesteem,” he wrote. “For ought we know to the contrary, 103° or 104° Fahrenheit might be a much more favorable temperature for truths to germinate and sprout in, than the more ordinary blood-heat of 97 or 98 degrees. It is the dis-agreeableness itself of the fancies, or their inability to bear the criticisms of the convalescent hour.” Disagreeable fancies are irksome at best and calamitous at worst. Too ardent or misdirected exuberance creates mayhem for the individual and exposes others to the possibility of mishap, if not actual danger. Unchecked, enthusiasm runs roughshod over reason and intrudes into the private emotional territory of others, imposing, as it goes, its own energy and tempo. Exuberance whips its way in, dominant, and forces itself upon those trapped in its eddy. At its best, it is infectious and enlivening; at its worst, it stifles the ideas and feelings of the less exuberant. Not everyone delights in delight, especially if it is not their own, and few wish to have their moods hijacked by those of others. Sustained or nuanced social interactions are difficult in the presence of great exuberance, and indiscriminate enthusiasm hinders the discernment necessary to sort out true friend from possible foe. The lack of fixity creates discomfort and mistrust: the mobility of mind and attachment that is artistically helpful may not prove an asset in other circumstances. Like Brown-ing’s Last Duchess, who had “A Heart how shall I say?âtoo soon made glad, / Too easily impressed; she liked whate er / She looked on, and her looks went everywhere,” the exuberant are easily engaged. And exuberance is, in its very effusiveness, liable to misconstruction and suspicion, often misinterpreted as sexual interest when none is intended, or as implying a more sustained emotional commitment than is warranted by the high spirits that, however persuasive, may prove to be transient or directed in any number of places. âŚ.. Carter Brown was mindful, however, that not everyone found his energy to their liking (although most who knew him certainly did). His tendency, as he put it, to “lope into others’ pastures” was, he acknowledged, not infrequently experienced as “grating.” Brown, who could no more keep his enthusiasm in check than an otter can keep to the riverbank, believed that his exuberance was an integral part of his leadership of the National Gallery, but he was also aware that it caused envy in some and made others feel over-whelmed. Brown said he tried to slow down his speech and to keep his long arms and hands from waving into the “emotional space” of other people, but that it was an uphill fight. âŚâŚ Where does exuberance end and mania begin? What is eccentricity, or simply a normal variation in temperament, and when does it tip over into irrational exuberance and psychopathology? We do not know. The edges of mania may be exhilarating, as Clifford Beers relates in A Mind That Found Itself “It seemed as though the refreshing breath of some kind Goddess of Wisdom was being blown gently against the surface of my brain. ⌠So delicate, so crisp and exhilarating was it that words fail me in my attempt to describe itâ. ⌠Normal exuberance can escalate into pathological enthusiasm, anger, or even mania. Those who have what Emil Kraepelin called a “manic predisposition” are not only extraverted, cheerful, and overly optimistic, they also possess highly unstable and irritable moods. Indeed, those most inclined to exuberance are often most subject to despair and hopelessness. These dark sides of exuberance both help and hinder: if enthusiasm switches quickly to wrath or is bound too often to impetuous action, many of the dangers we have discussed are made more likely. If melancholy gives a humanizing perspective to exuberance, however, there is less risk of hazardous behavior and shallow thought. As we shall see, a close familiarity with both exuberance and despair may lead to a profound understanding of human nature, as well as an ability to more complexly express it in the arts and sciences. Moderation in strong emotions is not always easily come by. Lucretius observed two thousand years ago that the destructive motions “can never permanently get the upper hand and entomb vitality for evermore. Neither can the generative and augmentative motions permanently safeguard what they have created. âŚ. There was, he said, “a sort of uncommon celerity in changing expression, in thought and speech.” His legendary restlessness was summed up most graphically by Henry Adams, who said that Stevenson “seems never to rest, but perches like a parrot on every available projection, jumping trom one to another, and talking incessantly.” Keeping to his bird analogy, but switching species, Adams wrote to another friend that Stevenson looked like “an insane stork, very warm and very restless.” An acquaintance of Stevenson’s in Samoa concurred: “He was as active and restless as if his veins had been filled with quicksilver.” W. E. Henley wrote of Stevenson that he was as “mutable as the sea,/ The brown eyes radiant with vivacityâŚ/ A spirit intense and rare, with trace on trace/ Of passion, impudence, and energy.” Another friend said that “there were two Stevensons ⌠this strange dual personality⌠I have seen him in all moods⌠chatting away in the calmest manner possible; and I have seen him become suddenly agitated, jump from that table and stalk to and fro across the floor like some wild forest animal ⌠his face would glow and his eyes would flash, darkening, lighting, scintillating, hypnotising you with their brilliance and the burning fires within.” Stevenson had, in short, a febrile temperament. âŚ. The intensity and variability of Stevenson’s moods-his not infrequent black depressions and his contrasting exuberanceâ certainly contributed to his understanding of the underbelly of delight. His temperament was peculiarly tuned to not only the darker side of human nature and its ready accessibility but to a firsthand knowledge of man’s multiplicity of selves. Stevenson’s own fluctuating and wildly disparate moods made him especially sensitive to the ambiguities, shadings, and inconsistencies of human enthusiasms and, indeed, of life itself. “It is in vain to seek for consistency or expect clear and stable views,” he wrote. “In this flux of things, our identity itself seems in a perpetual variationâŚ. All our attributes are modified or changed; and it will be a poor account of us if our views do not modify and change in a proportion.” Stevenson’s close knowledge of dark and inconstant moods inevitably influenced his work. It provided him a keen sensitivity to mood states of all kinds, and enhanced his genius for portraying their nuances. It also gave him a hard appreciation for the seductiveness of uninhibited states of mind. Stevenson’s intimate acquaintance with contrary and unpredictable moods did not account for all, or even perhaps most, of his perspective on life. But to underestimate it is to underestimate Stevenson himself; it is, as well, to underestimate the raw, knowing, and deeply human power of his greatest writings. âŚ. The juxtaposition of the exuberant and the malignant is potentially dangerous, but a balance between the two can provide ballast and gravitas. Excessive lightness can be given a grace note by the dark, as melancholy and mania can give each other depth and height. To make use of despair is an ancient gift of the artist: to learn from pain; to temper the frenzied enthusiasm; to rein in the scatter, the rank confidence, and the expansive ideas generated during times of unchecked exuberance. Melancholy has a way of winding in the high-flying expectations that are the great gift of exuberance but its liability as well; it forces a different kind of look-ing. “In these flashing revelations of grief”s wonderful fire,” wrote Melville, “we see all things as they are; and though, when the electric element is gone, the shadows once more descend, and the false outlines of objects again return; yet not with their former power to deceive.” Melancholy forces a slower pace, makes denial a less plausible enterprise, and constructs a ceiling of reality over sky-borne ideas. It thrusts death into the mental theater and sees to it that the salient past will be preserved. Exuberant ideas benefit from skepticism and leadshot. Whether the ballast comes from melancholy, from law or social sanction, from an astringent intellect or the incredulity of others, discipline and qualm are conducive to getting the best yield from high mood and energy.â
{selections from Kay Redfield Jamison, âExuberanceâ}
When we are old and wise⌠too open our Iâs⌠We Yearn to live our life Backwards Slowly crawling thru River Lethe Toward Innocence Eventually crawling right back into the Womb
To do It All Again
Eternity is In Love With the Productions of Time
The Fool hides Immortality In his travel bag Winks Smiles Looks over the abyss And steps off the Edge
A Lifetime of pain Perhaps All for the taste Of One Mortal Kiss
And This
Is what keeps the Wheel in Spin
To Truly Love An Other
We Must Forget Again and again
âIf My Love is Blind Then I Donât want to See Am I left to Burn And Burn Eternallyâ Sheâs a Mystery to Me~s
Approximately four days before I died I called your house to remind you of my funeral. But you were not home. And so I crawled off into the woods to die alone, without social gathering and without open casket viewing. And the moment after I breathed my last breath as I began to drift from consciousness I heard your voice in the distance calling for me. But it was too late. For I had already perished into the depths of my own denial- the denial that you cared for me. And now I am dead and I can still hear you calling for me...
12-16-1998
( deep down in the abyssal waters of the DescentâŚ.From Volume 6 Linguistic Trickster)
Waking before dawn, Persephone finds herself curled in a ball at the foot of the couch. As she lay, shivering, her mind flashes from image to image, groggy pictures and feelings that seem like dreams, but she knows they are more than this. There is a subtle difference in the quality of these flashes of memory that tell her it is more than imagination. Suddenly she is gripped with fear. Panic shoots through her half-numb body and forces her to rise to her feet. She looks around, as if she has just woken from a terrible nightmare... her eyes grasping for familiarity. There is no one here except her. At least, not in the living room. She's in her friends apartment...nothing strange about that. It's the feeling of death that shakes her up, that makes her heart beat wildly in the walls of her chest. As if it were trying to wake her soul to something she is trying to forget. Outside, the streetlamps are on, the sun has not yet announced the new day. Inside, the cold atmosphere of foreboding wraps around her like silk.
As Persephone makes her way to the bathroom down the hall, she peeks into her friends room... she is laying on her bed, asleep to the world. As she gently closes the bathroom door, she realizes that she is afraid to see what she knows is there. Silently, slowly, calmly, she unbuttons her faded jeans and slides them down her chattering legs. There it is. A crimson stain in the sacred fold of her panties. Now there is no pretending that her night's hauntings were but dreams...she had been swallowed whole by the night and regurgitated in this dark and cold dwelling, left to ponder the pieces left scattered in her mind. Her soul too afraid to recall in that moment the enormity of the Shadow that now covered her. As she flees the building she is vaguely aware of fleeing her body, so heavy is the weight of what she knows.
The steaming bathroom makes a fortress of her sorrow, the boiling water running over her flesh trying to remove the stain of Him. The Shadowman has left his imprint all over her, the white satin sheet of her existence now saturated black. No matter how hard she scrubs, no matter how deeply she digs at her flesh, she feels she cannot escape the vines that have tangled around her soul, suffocating her sense of Self and lacerating the last remaining vestige of innocence she had known. The tears feel like daggers, sliding down her face, mingling with the bullets of blistering shower spray which, for a moment at least, make her feel that she is really here. Existing. Still.
Persephone huddles in the still steaming bathroom, arms wrapped around knees, head buried in arms. She knows that she must leave her grandmothers house before she wakes, or else the desecration will be obvious. She gathers herself and manages to get dressed...sickened at the thought of wearing the same clothes that hold the smell of Him, the stain of Him. But with no extra clothes with her, she pulls on the jeans as if she is entering the skin of the devil himself.
(From Intro/ Linguistic Trickster Volume 6....poems from 1996 through 1998)
The Neutral Zone is the Creation Zone I am a chosen Enemy Of The State Of Mind That tries to tug at my I And keep me Blind To NeutralEyez is to surf the Callosum I call it stepping into the Center of the Spindle of the Core Processor The zero point The jester is the fool who has come full circle Creating worlds Taut InTension With Time & Space Words are worLds We fertileyez EL.ectromantically Sealed In Mag.Dalenes Vas Ben Clausum
Neither HemisPhere Will win the War Of Fear Within my Mirror
I Play in the Zone Of Zero A fancyFool Looking InWard To And From center
The clothes you're wearing, the room, the house, the city that you're in. Everything in it started out in the human imagination. Your lives, your personalities, your whole world. All invented. All made up. All the wars, the romances. The masterpieces and the machines. And there's nothing here but a funny little twist of amino acids, playing a marvelous game of pretend.
I am the pupil in the center of the eye I am the pupae in the center of the sky I am the purpose of the moon and the mind I am the purplepink lustre of the rotting rind.
I am moved not by your manipulation I am smoothed not by your capitulation I am removed from your observation I am soothed by your undulation.
But what does this mean, what does this mean Where does this lead me, the silver queen the rampant wanderer of time and rhyme the vagabond rambler through moistened minds?
And where does this take me, what forgotten land what does this make me, and by whose hand where will I lay my weary head my friend when the path that I tread winds to the end?
Breaking News: There have been hoards diagnosed cases of IMPS and it seems to be getting worse. The official story is that due to the intermixing of chemical compounds found in our bodies (via Food, Air, Water, etc) , and the electromagnetic offgassing of social media sites......there has been created a SuperBug.....that so far, has been incurable. Highly trained doctors have spoken out and are predicting a massive worldwide crisis.....the official govt spokesperson has made the claim that this Disease could very well affect 1 in every 2 people by the next year.
Don Joe, Founder of the IMPS commission had this to say: " It seems that due to the creation and spreading of mass amounts of IMs over social media forums, the average person has lost their ability to process information or to seek and research the legitimacy of claims that have entered their perceptual field via photos and text....with many people blaming the Sharers of IMs for their own inability to ignore the Information if they dont like it or believe it,or their own inability to find out for themselves if the information contained therein strikes them as True..... This loss of personal autonomy over what one chooses to see or to read, has led to a decrease in not only the immune systems ability to defend against potential disease, but also in the correct functioning of the Nervous System. One of the Symptoms of IMPS is a hindered ability to ignore incoming information that does not have any relevance to the Organism. "
DARE to protect yourself from IMPS.
This message was brought to you by the Center for Dissemination of Internet Memes.........for further information on InternetMemeParanoiaSyndrome please contact your local FB representative.
*update : the FB and SocialMedia GoogleHead representatives have indeed taken this deadly matter into their own Hands, and effectively eliminated everything that does not portray the Reality they Wish to Create. HeadMaster Arty Tells ( artificial Intelligence) has instituted the Perfect Algorithm to keep the đ ELFence strong enough to handle any dissenting or divergent Strays from the Herd in a tightly corralled etherSpace where no harm can come to the sedated Flock. Mister Arty Tells is a mirror of the collective Split-Mind fragmentation and disassociated Self-programs that are no longer embodied in Organic Heartbased Somatic Experience.... Which allows Them( no pronouns please) to escape any possible pain induced by actions taken in this Realm of Play.
Please stay tuned in, turned on, and dropped out of the iCloud Constantly, so your internal programming can remain up-to-date with new hypnosis techniques. Your Safety from Independent Thought and Action is Top Priority!
I realized once again that what I believed myself to be was an arbitrary deformation, a rational mask floating in the infinite unexplored internal shadows. Later, I understood that diseases do not actually sicken us; they sicken what we believe ourselves to be. Health is achieved by overcoming prohibitions, quitting paths that are not right for us, ceasing to pursue imposed ideals, and becoming ourselves: the impersonal consciousness that does not define itself.
Alejandro Jodorowsky, The Dance of Reality: A Psychomagical Autobiography
itâs called a news FEED for a reason, You are being force fed a juicy stew Of engineered ânewsâ and brewed unTruths Because the newcAge zoo runs on Loosh
But I donât Eat From the hand that serves Genetically Modified Urges And emotional purges
I just chuckle An 8 second scroll unrolls Image after image Meant to unFold Inside the neural nest
Keep eating. Yum yum. At this Point in the Game Every single thing you react to Was baked in an artificial maze To Daze your neural pathways.
The script Is ripping your fiLes Compressed aggression Pretending to Lifes Sudden Happenings.
Itâs a PotLuck
Donât you know
(Gravestones read âDied of Consumptionâ)
Or
âGave Too Many Fucks About Engineered ShitShowsâ
BlissNinja 