"Leviathan Monster or Leviathan Mother?"

I have found a really good lecture on youtube about various political/economic philosophies. I was just writing about how Leviathan governments are not so bad because they protect me, a former mental patient, from angry, prejudiced mobs waiving pitch forks. This video looks at several philosophers, including Hobbes, Rawls, and one other philosopher whose name eludes me at the moment.

I found it to be both entertaining and intellectually stimulating. It is easy to follow for a non-political scientist and it even has little animations alongside the lecturer (which is good because I  have no attention span).

The link is at the bottom of this blog entry.

As a former mental patient, I feel a strong connection to the "Mother ship," the entity that protects me from the wrath of ignorant cretins that like to post their prejudices all over the yahoo comment section. This "Mother ship" is the government. Ironic, is it not? I, a paranoid schizo-affective, who once believed that I was going to be framed, tortured, and revived only to be tortured more, now surrender myself to said government. Why? Because, between the State and well, you maybe, I pick the State to decide my fate. This is not to say that I have total faith in the State, that is far from the truth. The reality is that I have even less faith in the general population, especially those who leave comments on Yahoo news articles. The general population would love to get their hands on my womb and sterilize me so that I cannot breed (because mental patients are hated and scorned by society and they are deemed as Untouchables, the lowest caste of people, worse even then felons). Furthermore, they would like to dismember me and perhaps perform a bizarre exorcism on me to rid myself of whatever imaginary demons religious people believe causes mental illness. FYI, it is just a genetic propensity towards neuro-chemical imbalance, but that takes all the fun out of hating an otherwise innocent population.


But I digress, I surrender myself happily to the State and the great Mothership named mother Leviathan for the following reasons:

1) The government decreed it would pay for my undergraduate education and continues to pay for my education during my current stint in the Master's program. In case you think that no, you the taxpayer paid for it, then you are wrong. You did not volunteer your taxes, the State mandated that you pay taxes because otherwise people would not pay taxes and we would have no freeways, no public education, and no hope for future generations.

2) The government pays for me to get treatment through the county. Again, if you think it is the taxpayers, it is the State that mandates said taxpayers to fork over the cash, and will enforce this mandate if you decide to abstain from your duties.

3) This blog is likely being monitored (wink wink) and being the paranoid I am, I chose to play the little Teacher's pet rather than start ranting about class warfare and how I cannot afford simple dental care and how it's not fair and is totally a violation of the bill of rights concerning class, race, and disability equality. So, instead of saying those things, I say "I chose you, Uncle Sam."

Thanks for reading!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mm8asJxdcds

Assured I am Graduating from University

I went back to see an academic adviser. He checked with three different University employees and assured me I had completed all the requirements. I sat there, clutching my Fossil handbag to my heart, and smiled at the adviser. I am done with my B.A.! Done! Belated, botched, and barely sane, but done nonetheless! It has been a difficult decade for me. In and out of school, in and out of the psychiatric hospitals, in and out of minimum wage jobs....until now, when my future actually seems promising.

I can still remember telling my psych ward psychiatrist that I wanted to go back to college and complete my Bachelor's degree.
"No, no, you can't take the stress. Schizophrenia is very serious! Just rest." That image, of myself lying a bed seven days a week, getting up only to eat and paint little pictures, was more stressful than the actual process of going back to college and achieving my B.A. in linguistics!

Now, I have been assured my degree will be granted, I can enter next semester as a graduate student in the field of linguistics, and my life will not be spent becoming a hermit with a little aluminum foil hat. My summer is open before me, free to paint, write, draw, read, watch movies, surf the internet, blog, and enjoy free time, temporarily of course, as I return to college in August.

With my new life as a graduate student, I suddenly feel like life has a purpose. The purpose is to gain knowledge, study, make contributions to the field, and succeed. I could not have done this without my out-patient services. Despite the view (as discussed in the previous blog entry) that out-patient services create government aid-dependent, docile, chronic mental patients, I have found that these out-patient services have been a vital part in my recovery.
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I tried re-reading "The Center Cannot Hold" but I found that the descriptions of hospitals, restraints, stigma, and suffering is very triggering for me. I love the book, but right now I cannot read it because I will end up blogging about how unfair the system is, how depressing and dehumanizing it is, and I am not in the mood for negativity right now.

Instead, I am reading a layman's book on game theory. As you may know, Game Theory was created centuries ago, but was fine-tuned and perfected by John Nash, the famous mathematician, paranoid schizophrenic, and Nobel Prize winner who I idolize. Game Theory is essentially the study of minimizing losses. Pardon me if I butcher the theory, but I only got through Trigonometry and I went insane while taking precalculus, got hospitalized, had my precal book confiscated by hospital staff as contraband, and never finished the class. So, I am not a mathematician and my writing on math will reflect that...but I still have an attraction to Probability, Game Theory, and computer programming that I intend to pursue this summer. So in case you stop by the blog one day and find a random entry on Game Theory, it is because I am trying to be productive with my free time.

It figures that a paranoid schizophrenic was the one who mastered the fine art of making paranoia a field of mathematics. The Prisoner's Dilemma is the most famous example. James and Janet committed a crime and they are being interrogated separately by police. The police need a confession from one or both of the criminals in order to lock them up. They are willing to plea bargain with whichever one confesses. Now James and Janet are paranoid that the other is going to confess. James and Janet do not want to go jail. What do James and Janet do and why?

I always wondered why there are not more paranoid schizophrenics in the field of Game Theory. It seems to be fine-tuned for their paranoid and suspicious nature. For example, while slightly paranoid, I devised an excellent method of home surveillance. My natural paranoid nature was perfect for thinking about all possible entries into the home. My method involved not one, but four cameras, each located at a different part of the home (one attached to the garage, one pointing across the front of the house, one perched hidden in a tree pointing at the front yard, and one guarding the side windows). Then, my plan included two motion-activated spotlights for flooding the premises with light when intruders walked onto the property. In the backyard, more motion-activated spotlights. Motion-activated alarms would be attached to all major windows, so that any attempt to lift the window would trigger an obnoxious alarm. I was very happy with my plan, but unfortunately my mother was not pleased and discouraged me from spending a ton of money to guard our cheap possessions. Still, it was a good application for my natural paranoid tendencies. If only I could somehow build a little moat with alligators to guard our house....