I reflect on change and the concept of what it is, and how I react to it. Change can be ploddingly gradual, or lightning-quick, but it always elicits a reaction in one's psyche. And also, usually that reaction (or reactions) ends up influencing one's decisions and subsequent actions. For several years there seemed to be what I call a "Murphy's Law-times-(X)-Catch 22" process slamming me mercilessly in my face, to the point where I'd been flattened so many times that I'd "been down so goddamn long, that it looked like up to me," to quote Jim Morrison. What I mean is that everything that could have gone wrong DID, then it would recur over and over, until I finally thought I saw the light, then I would realize it was the light of another speeding train wreck hurtling towards me at warp speed, no less. Hit bottom motherfucker! Now again! !Sufre mamon! Now there, have you eaten enough crow, had to grovel enough just to live, had to take enough shit for forty lifetimes dealt out by hypocrites, blowhards and fascists? Yes, for God's sake, yes! Well have another, boy! You must keep apologizing continuously for the heinous offense of being who you really are! Know that it is the one thing the bastards will not tolerate at all. Just one more mission to fly, Yossarian. Shred, destroy all dreams and hope, lather and repeat. Have you, dear reader, ever experienced such a PAINFUL series of causation-waves?
I hope not, for your sake. It is bloody hell! Life becomes pointless. A bad "Groundhog Day" nightmare, where just when you think you'll be okay the damn alarm clock plays that same old song again, and you are back at square one. And don't feed me that standard new-age explanation for this phenomenon. "The universe was correcting me." God was showing me that I was on the wrong path, and kept knocking Saul off his frikkin' horse until he saw the light. Yet I stand unrepentant for my actions. I stand by them, live or die. Better to die on your feet than to live on your knees (Zapata.) I was not wrong--I was just being all that I am, and I'd be a liar, hypocrite or worse if I claimed otherwise.
Rage against the screwheads! Speaking of screwheads...several of my so-called "friends," "advisors" and "supervisors" turned out to be anything but helpful or supportive. It is astounding, but once you go down, it is hard to believe how many people you trusted pile on to get a few kicks in! I deal with that in my memoirs (Apeshit and two others) without naming the guilty or innocent. The folks I am speaking of have infinitesimally meager capacities to see themselves or to at least compare what they say with what they DO. And this despite Harvard educations, doctorates, Board-certifications in psychiatry and similar high "credentials!"
And I can speak frankly and clearly about these hypereducated folks because I was one of them too.
Yes, I was a Board-certified expert in psychiatry. I don't do that gig anymore. I don't know if I will ever go back to it. But the difference between me and the backstabbing weasels that I refer to above, is that I would not compromise my principles. And I was crucified for it. It hurt. It hurt so badly that eventually I quit the fight. I concluded it wasn't worth the misery. Eventually, all that ever mattered to me in my life was taken from me. At that point, I realized that the only logical thing to do was to "drop out" (as Dr. Leary put it) and give up the "game reality" the screwheads wanted to keep me trapped in, like a wolf with his foot clamped, bleeding in a steel trap.
I now am reinventing myself and being who I really choose to be. And, as Janis Joplin sang, "freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose." Exactly! Only after coming through the fire can the phoenix rise again to flight. I refuse to be anyone's whipping-boy, patsy or fool. To hell with those who would wish me to be. I choose to associate only with positive, real people--not phonies!
I close with a definition: Screwhead is a word coined by the late, great Hunter S. Thompson:
1) Anyone who has been down to the Crossroads (i.e. Faust) or 2) (modern) greedy, shameless, amoral corporate tools posing as compassionate conservatives…willing to do anything and speak Orwellian talking-points gibberish to seize and hold wealth and power.
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