Isolation, hyper-connection, mental decay

I feel isolated, completely. Cut off from the rest of the world. No one to talk to about this. I don’t have the words to formulate my trajectory anyway. No possibility to reach out or to mediate my thought.

Trapped in my own head.


At the same time I’m not left alone, I’m haunted by the history, discourses, insights, reinventing the wheel, redefining concepts, replacing one understanding with another, constantly having new revelations. Hyper-connected, like my mind is tapped into an immense database of human knowledge.

Tortured by my own brain.


I have long periods when I can’t sleep. I’m so tired I feel dizzy, still I can’t sleep. And then I go into another period when I do nothing but sleep, for endless hours, and then I can’t wake up instead. But not even in my sleep I’m left alone; the brain is processing concepts and I dream about epistemological issues, understanding them better when I awake.

Held captive by my own body.


So I walk around, tormented, sad, ecstatic, exhilarated, involuntary pondering. Reading, having insights, thoughts processing, the brain constantly active, like a perpetual motion machine, becoming weirder everyday. Soon to reach the destination of mental breakdown or transcendence ... or both maybe…

Formulating the problem II: a more specific evaluation

This part more specifically deals with a problem of someone dear to me, but also extremely similar to a problem I faced myself. This is my proposed solution, and also how I handled my demon. The issue can be formulated as below:

How to define and deal with the atrocities and injustices of the past?

The problem here is to formulate the nature of the event that has taken place, to dress your understanding of the past in fitting words.

I shall take an quite spectacular event as example; the holocaust

There are (at least) two major narratives about this atrocious historical event: one secular understanding of the holocaust as the height of human cruelty, an evil deed and unnecessary loss of numerous human lives. The secular strand builds museums, and teaches the history to prevent that something similar from occurring in the future. And another you can find embedded in the orthodox and ultraorthodox Jewish communities, phrasing the holocaust as an intrinsic event occurring due to the sinful living of the Jewish people, a punishment from god. The Jewish strand builds communities, and teaches the scriptures to avert the reoccurrence of similar events in the future. The Jewish narrative, blaming the Jews for the holocaust, can be perceived as extremely provoking for someone with a secular understanding of the event, but the secular understanding is also unthinkable for many Jews as it would render the past a manifestation of pure misery and evil with no meaning and reason to it, and that would be truly difficult to handle.

I would say that the question is creating the answer in your case so think carefully about how you formulate it, or if you formulate it at all even. The latter would be my suggestion, leave it - don't let the past destroy the present as well. Depending on the question asked the answers can be pretty nasty, blame can rightfully be pointed in several directions towards others as well as towards you.

To be more specific about the problem I can say that it has to do with the question whether a period of time was wasted or not. Since we both like logic I’ll put my solution to the problem as a syllogism:

All wasted time are pointless.
No thing described as pointless has meaning
No period of time that contains any meaning can be classified as wasted

Now, conclude that it wasn’t meaningless, maybe it wasn’t the best spent time of your life, but was it wasted? I don’t think so, and also, does it matter now? Maybe, but only to the extent you allow it to matter. Don’t let the sour grapes of your past poison the air of the present, instead; lift your nose and realise that not only can you see beyond it, but also use it to scent the fresh breeze of the future.

Time is scarce, to use it to dwell on the wrongs of the past would truly be to waste it, and that my friend would, strictly speaking, be idiotic.

Formulating the problem I: General reflections

To define the problem, the question, defining the outlines of the appearance of reality can be a disturbingly efficient exertion of power.

I think that even people who aren’t in the slightest inclined to relativist thinking would agree to this. And they seem to do so since they usually tend to believe in the notion of true or false; in a certain (to me) repugnant, almost platonic sense. And thus believe that things can appear in false way, and that a quibbler can use sneaky sophistic ways to make the false ostensible appear to be true.

This is not what I’m referring to at all, I’m talking about the effects in a different, non-essentialist way. The definition of the problem actually shapes the way that the reality is perceived, and the course that the future will set out for us.

For example; is the problem the criminality and violence amongst immigrant youths?

Or is the problem sited within the structures of the homogenously biased nation state, rendering these youths outsiders acting in despair?

Or is there really a problem with the criminality and violence amongst immigrant kids, or is this a trait actually better understood as youth-problem rather than something connected to a certain culture?

Depending on the question you get very disparate battlegrounds and courses of action.

More specific on a more personal level we are all concerned by the way we formulate our problems and define our own reality. This is also one of the combat zones were power is imperceptibly exerted between lovers and friends, in the struggle over the right definition.

Yet again; To define the problem, the question, defining the outlines of the appearance of reality can be a disturbingly efficient exertion of power. But my main point here is not the power of definitions in relation to others,- but rather how you risk to put your self in mental shackles if you define your problems negligently, or carelessly accepts someone else’s definition of yourself or your problems.

We are constantly looking for meaning, finding meaning, creating meaning, acceding our lives into the meaning created.

Hopefully we do it in a way that keeps us open-minded and happy instead of dense and unhappy, dwelling on the wrongs of the past while we’re harping on the same mistuned string.

A plead to Hermes

Hermes -You’re a biased fuck, you now that right?

You’re sloppy. You’re random. You’re immature. You’re disorderly and mischievous

But, you’re our only link to understanding, how arbitrary, temporary, defective that understanding might be; it’s also the best we can hope for.

And don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t want to be without you. While I’m struggling through the hash winds of reality over the barren and cracked surface of existence, you add the dimension of meaning and are the bringer of purpose.

Without you there would be no sunrays of hope, no sprouts of promising notions, no sprinkling drops of opportunities, and without you we wouldn’t know the joy the of sudden understanding and enlightenment, sparkling and glimmering in our minds. Moments of clarity and revision.

No anticipation of great things and ideas of improvement, nothing to look forward to.

I’m just asking you to transfer a little less misery and nuisance and a little more possibilities of prosperity

In short; give us less piss on our chips and more frosting on our cakes

Could you do that Hermes?

Connecting the dots

To know is to connect the dots- to create meaning
To believe is the same, connecting the dots to get a meaningful pattern - an explanation, exclamation, exaggeration…to achieve emancipation from the shackles of isolation and terror of not knowing.

We do it everyday, connect A with B to be able to anticipate C.

A hand on a hot surface equals pain. If we fuck without a condom there might be a child. Some words may cause someone to cry. A bullet trough a prime ministers head will probably put you in jail for a considerable amount of time, and generate a certain reputation nationwide.

We gain knowledge of virtually thousands of these causal relations during the course of our lives.

Connecting the dots to create meaning.

Some of these causal relations are simple and uncontroversial,
some are complex with a huge potion of modality to the causative,
some are problematic and uncertain,
some are "out there", still waiting to be discovered,
some are discovered but not perfected, thus in need of revision and modification

to connect the dots and create meaning.

Some causal relations deal with your relationships to other people, finding patterns and causatives in order to predict responses. These are tricky ones, varying dependent relative time, situation, matter, person, mood; a lot of different variables need to be accounted for in making predictions. It’s hard, and we often fail

to connect the dots and create a meaningful pattern.

Communication, a bridge between people, a bridge of words, carrying meaning from one person to another. Interpreting, conveying message, connecting. The science of friendship.

The really great thinkers of our time usually don’t contribute much of their own; they just look at what’s already been said and done; and then approach it from a different angle.
The really original thinkers take our pre-understanding and connect the dots in a new way – and then an entirely different pattern appears.

to connect the old dots in a way to create a new, hopefully better, meaning.

The same dots can be connected in different ways giving different causatives and answers to our questions, finding different patterns of meaning. I don’t think that one way is necessarily the only right option; I think there are a vast number of possible patterns, meanings, answers

Multiple ways to connect the dots to create meaning

And some of patterns can co-exist, not being more “right” or accurate than the others.

The important thing is to connect the dots in a way that creates possibilities instead of constraints. Finding the positive pattern, instead of the negative. Seeing the constructive causative instead of the harmful

or at least, to let them co-exist

Looking at a cluster of dots; you have the potential of finding both in any given situation… The one you choose determines the outcome: the features of your reality

if the pattern forms a window of opportunity or the bars of a prison cell.