From my personal experience, I feel anxious all the time because I was diagnosed with chronic anxiety disorder. In other words, my neurological homeostasis is throttling a little higher than the normal mid-range. The lower end of this spectrum would be euphoric relaxation. This may not be an accurate description because there are overlapping conditions caused by different natural internal chemicals like adrenaline, serotonin, dopamine, epinephrine, etc.
My anxiety drives me to search for reasons why I feel the way I do. Lo and behold, they are everywhere. Poverty, oppression, exploitation, discrimination, corruption, typhoons, plagues, I reap the emotional reward of vindication by seeking out and sharing the problems in our society. By finding them I can rationalize my emotional state. I may be putting the cart before the horse, but there is still the horse, an irate old arthritic stallion.
This was a sudden revelation to me recently because I read a post about the details of a video game character that could get a passing grade as a college essay. I was astonished that anyone could devote such an effort to entertainment when the world is crashing down around us. I guess if people believe they are comfortable and have a guaranteed future in the status quo, they should have no problem devoting so much time to fun.
It occurs to me that our homeostatic emotional states determine our social media habits, perhaps not directly, but through a series of conditions through which we are guided by the natural levels in our bodies of dopamine, serotonin and the like.
I know it's more complicated than this, having to do with synaptic receptors and such, but it seems our genes determine everything about us, even ultimately our emotional homeostasis which guides us in our decisions throughout life. From this I might believe we were all locked into Fate were it not for the likes of Timothy Leary.
The Extremely Slow Fade to Black
When you can see it coming as a logical conclusion, everything else loses importance. The things you did to occupy your time and give you purpose you now know have no purpose. You just sit there frozen. Every time you have a notion to do something you immediately think "why bother?"
You wonder what will happen to your things and then you smile realizing you won't care, even though you would like some people to have certain things, you realize it would be worse for them if the did. You remember your father's things in your possession and they only occupied dusty corners in the basement.
You ponder what happens if you can't go through with it, but then you realize not doing so will only prolong the inevitable and make the extended time more unpleasant. You think you better guarantee you can follow through or the suffering in failure will not only cost you, but everyone around you too much.
You just want to go into oblivion and be quietly forgotten, your family better off for having resources that might otherwise be wasted on your sustenance. They don't speak to you anyway, you embarrassed them enough with your inability to keep jobs and live without their help. It would probably be a good thing if they simply stopped thinking about you anymore, like turning off a light in a closet that will never again be opened. The years of ignoring their birthdays and standing quietly by while they entertained themselves will pay a dividend of mitigation for their grief.
You wonder what will happen to your things and then you smile realizing you won't care, even though you would like some people to have certain things, you realize it would be worse for them if the did. You remember your father's things in your possession and they only occupied dusty corners in the basement.
You ponder what happens if you can't go through with it, but then you realize not doing so will only prolong the inevitable and make the extended time more unpleasant. You think you better guarantee you can follow through or the suffering in failure will not only cost you, but everyone around you too much.
You just want to go into oblivion and be quietly forgotten, your family better off for having resources that might otherwise be wasted on your sustenance. They don't speak to you anyway, you embarrassed them enough with your inability to keep jobs and live without their help. It would probably be a good thing if they simply stopped thinking about you anymore, like turning off a light in a closet that will never again be opened. The years of ignoring their birthdays and standing quietly by while they entertained themselves will pay a dividend of mitigation for their grief.
The shadows in the moonlight
Once upon a time there was a man who was fed up with brutal paramilitary corporate security squads who were funded by tax payers, beating down and barricading peaceful protesters. He collected the private data on the jack-booted shock troops, including instructions on drawing them into traps and along with instructions to the various revolutionary factions.
After collaborating online with his minions, he realized he didn't need to use direct confrontation at all. A whistle blower released private data that enable squads of revolutionaries to act simultaneously at any given moment regardless of the situation, simply because the ratio was well over ten to one.
The key was the element of surprise by everyone acting at exactly the same moment.
He didn't know what to do with all of his data so he simply encrypted and uploaded the information to several servers then created embargoed blog posts with links to the data. The embargoed posts would trigger unless he checked in and extended the transmit date. Every week or so he signed on and extended the dates to whenever he felt he needed to next check in. Hopefully he won't forget about them, or be otherwise unable to delay the transmission.
It turned out he wasted his time. He didn't need to work so hard planning because everyone else was fed up and acted all at once anyway, like tree branches bending in the breeze casting shadows in the moonlight. The evil vanished without a trace overnight.
The end.
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