dr_di_rx

[this is an excerpt form an email]

 

without science artists would have no medium to create and distribute their work. 

what would happen to science without art?

 

first, i acknowledge your correctness in stating that art is what separates us from any other species on earth (i'm including computers into my definition of species). the difference between us and them is also in our ability to understand and express emotion. one might argue that our artistic tendencies are a direct result of our emotional lability 

and our drive to create is fueled by desire to evoke emotion in others.

 

that being said, what would happen if we removed art (and emotion) from science?

 

medical research today is focused at relief of human suffering from various ailments. our discoveries lead to new crutches and band aids and pain killers rather than real solutions to humanity's problems. 

 

if we took compassion out of this process, a patient who comes in with a highly contagious communicable disease would be quarantined primarily, and treatment would only be a secondary option based on statistical probability of cure, cost and benefit. all of our research would be focused on ridding the world of threats- with helping individuals only as a secondary motive. unfortunately we as a society will cease to exist because our artistic and compassionate nature and putting individual lives on a pedestal will fail to prepare us as a race for more devastating forces of nature that will inevitably present themselves to us. we find victories in small battles (against bacteria for example) but will eventually lose the war because each of our victories weakens us steadily and progressively (with each infection we treat, more resistant bacteria emerge).

 

so in the end, art is the culprit of our failure as a species. it is the inefficient consumption of resources that stimulates feelings in us providing a false sense of success as a society. it is a sin that we allow ourselves to indulge in that will eventually precipitate our demise. 

 

do i think we should rid the world of art?

 

not in the slightest.my selfish nature and innate drive for instant gratification allows me to disregard the conclusions i've made in the previous statements. i am in fact human, and to be human is to be flawed. my flaw, as is everyone else's, is my compassion and emotional lability. the only difference between me and them is that i understand why this is a major defect yet choose to embrace it rather than denounce it. by allowing myself to transcend the poorly demarcated line between good and evil i can finally see that saving a young child with a congenital heart defect will only allow this defect to exist in future generations of children. perhaps i truly am the epitome of evil in that my research is aimed at saving the child today rather than the millions tomorrow. 

 

perhaps i truly am...

an artist in my craft.

Sitting in a lecture hall surrounded by 150 undergrads i suddenly came to realize that this is not reality. this realization was supported by the professor's magnificent proclamation: "what is in your brain is not reality, it s a representation of reality."

the stock market fell, again. this time its 300 points

a ship full of soviet -era tanks was seized by pirates, who are holding negotiations as to how many millions this equipment is worth

a 1994 miss Alaska may become vice-resedint (and therefore) president of this lovely country

i had 16 family members at my house last night for dinner and everyone got out alive and happy

but besides all that...

i went out on saturday night and spent 95% of my time interacting with my s.o. after which i came home and continued to talk to him.

i woke up, and i was happy. and then it happened again. and then once more today.

one thing is rather normal though....

i'm sitting in class and writing in lj :)

it doesn't matter how good things are because i will find a reason to start  a fire. why is it when things are going so well that i feel the need to make myself unhappy? perhaps this is the reason i stayed in an ill-advised, good-for-noone, one sorry excuse of a relationship for eight years. as long as i wasn't happy i couldn't fuck it up. 

when i look at it from the side it seems silly and stupid. i was upset about nothing to begin with. i wrote him an email about it. he replied and then i wrote another one blowing everything out of proportion and over-analyzing every aspect of my situation. he responed saying he agrees with me. this wasn't enough. i got bitchy because it said that he blew it off. i got bitchy like a little girl who didn't get her way. i made him feel bad because he wasn't able to respond in a more meaningful way due to the fact that he was working. 

instead of telling me that i'm nuts and walking away, he told me why he's here to stay: (that rhyme was unintentional... but it fits)
for sucking, fucking, cooking, cleaning, playing, staying, walking, talking, watching, waiting, telling the truth, preserving youth, driving, jiving, scheming, screaming, crying, trying, thinking, drinking, dancing, romancing, dressing, stressing, sharing, caring, being square, being there, spending time, being mine, worth crushin', teaching russian, being round, being sound, eating steak, denying cake, knowing what its all about, getting all the wrinkles out, making the day much more fun, not going to sleep when the day is done, not being mean, practicing green, peeling shrimp, being a pimp, accepting love, worth dreaming of, hearing, cheering, kissing, missing, being secure, being pure, being true... being YOU........
  and for eating avocados

i used to be unhappy and always wanted something more. 
now i have more than i ever dreamed of.
why do i need to do this to myself...
why do i have to involve him in it?

my head is spinning. i never thought i'd find myself in this fairy tale land that i always make fun of. 
i need to come back to the ground.

i think its a well known fact among my close friends that wherever things are going "well" for me i try my best to find something wrong. it's like some sort of masochistic i-spy game i like to play. so here it is.

i wake up at 7:30. i shower and get dressed. i drive to the bus stop and catch a bus to work/school. most days i come home around 9 or 10.

this sounds bland, i know. but the part i'm leaving out makes it more interesting.

we wake up at 7:30, take turns showering. eat breakfast (if time allows, sometimes there are more important things to do in the morning). we catch our buses and talk on the phone on our way to school / work. during the day we communicate via chat or email. then i come home and we do stuff (movies, music, etc.)

so there, who could ask for more? ahem...
the rate at which this whole thing turned into such a structured routine terrifies me. i don't remember turning 40 in the last couple of months. why do i feel so old?

on  another note...

we went out last thursday night. we had a few drinks, danced, talked to people and each other. it was a nice night. in the car ride back we were talking and somehow my 'favorite' topic came up. i said something along the lines of a compliment to him (i think, i don't remember) and he replied that he knew that, based on something i had said previously. i asked him what it was that i said and he replied that it was a while ago... he made a joke and i said 'something' to him that somehow applied to the situation we were in presently. i was a little confused and wasn't aware that i had said anything major to him, nothing worth remembering for 'a while' so i carried on asking him what it is that i had said that made such an impact, promising that i wouldn't deny it.
-it was simple, i said something funny and you said "i like you"
-oh well that's good, because i don't like a whole lot of people, you should feel special
-i know that you meant more by that than just like. just because you don't say things doesn't mean that you don't feel them.
-fine then, if that's how you see it then how did you reply?
-i said "that's good" ... as in likewise
-i see...
 
later in bed as we were ready to fall asleep he said
-i like you too
-spasibo malish, ya znayu. spokoinoi nochi
-spokoinoi nochi malishka

I don't think it's fair that i only write when things are making me unhappy. i guess the fact that my entries are not as frequent as they could be shows that my life is generally pleasing to me. lately things have been going well, so to speak. i guess the fact that i'm writing usually implies that i have something on my mind, but i'm not sure that's the case this time. ever since i started quitting smoking i've noitced that as long as my hands are occupied with something i don't feel as strong of an urge to smoke.

the fact that he is talking to his ex on the phone right now has nothing to do with the fact that i'm typing...

see... life is not boring.

life is good. i've been able to reconnect with some friends lately... in fact i've made contact with every person i consider to be a friend within the past 2 weeks and considering how scattered everyone is this is quite an accomplishment.

i've also been able to sleep in my house the past few nights, which has been good (for me at least). i don't know how it's been for him. i don't think, in fact i know that he definitely doesn't like the commute to work. also my cat keeps him awake at night, which is bad for his work. i'm not sure why the cat does this, but i recently found that he has a wound on his back and perhaps this is the reason he's acting strange.

so tonight we're staying in shadyside. i'm not sure how 'healthy' this we is, but it's making me pretty happy so far and that's all that really matters at the moment. so there...

my hands were occupied and i made it through a lj entry without shedding a tear.
sweet taste of success

so it was pointed out to me that i have posted many 'emo' entries lately. i really don't want to look back at this and think that i was having an awful time. it's just that when i'm having a good time i don't feel the need to whip out my laptop and just start typing.

now i do.

after doing lots of thinking and rationalizing today i decided that living at home will be great. things with him have become almost routine and i do not like routine-ness. living at home will give me a chance to really see what it is i want. just because i'm comfortable in the shadyside basement doesn't mean that i won't find comfort in other situations, such as in the swissvale basement and alone.

i made all of this clear to myself throughout the day. i even wrote him an email expressing my feelings of worry and confusion to which his response was quite reassuring. and so i was perfectly prepared to ease in to my new living situation. he was going to stay there with me this weekend and then it would feel like home.

while i was at work he sent me a message saying that he's going to seven springs for a friend's going away party tomorrow (friday) night. i think it's really nice that he at least gave me a heads up...

not only does this mean that the plans we made to go to gallery crawl and nightcrawler are off, but i also get to spend friday night alone in my house. i told him that i'm not happy with this. and he asked if he should not go. i told him that he has no reason to ask me for permission and he should do whatever makes him happy. he needs to realize that not everything that makes him happy will make me happy and that's ok. i really hope that he didn't take it as a typical female thing to say 'oh go ahead honey... go to your party... have fun with your friends' while secretly meaning that you must stay here and entertain me. i honestly do want him to make the choices in his life that make him happy because i would expect him to want the same for me.

it's one am and tonight is the last night i will be spending here. he's sleeping (i think, at least he should be because he has an important day at work tomorrow). i'm writing. i wish i could enjoy this night here like i did the other nights, but obviously this is not the case. perhaps the thing that made me more upset than anything is that he didn't want to talk to me. we laid in bed and i just rambled on about  why i am the way i am and he had no response. i know what he was thinking about and it upsets me even more that he didn't want to talk to me about that... this topic will end up in a more private entry....

i really wish i had someone to talk to now. not that i need anything specific because i feel like i have things pretty much figured out. i just need a response. note to self... lj does not respond when you need it to.

i think i need to keep typing but will do so with a little more privacy and an alcoholic beverage...

oh by the way... how come i didn't get invited to go to this party?????

i apparently never posted the entry about the awesome time i had at the dirty ball, but it doesn't matter now since i have other things to talk to myself about.

here i am writing in lj from his bed again. this time it's different though. this time i actually have a house i could go to. now that this is no longer a necessity, and i have no one to blame for my having to stay here, things are... confusing.

it's amazing how easily i got used to the idea of going to bed and waking up next to him. somehow it's so comforting to hear his alarm clock in the morning, even though i don't have to get up. i don't quite understand.

but this is ok. this is what needs to happen. i need to go live at home. sleep in my bed. alone.

i spoke with my mother the other day. she told me if i want to find a man (rather to 'get' this one) i will have to learn how to cook and clean. i asked her if she thought it was healthy for me to be 'looking' for a man so soon. i asked if she thought that maybe i should be alone for a little while. without hesitation she told me that i will never be alone. i'm just not the type. whatever that means.

so yes, i have to leave this cute basement room in the heart of shadyside. soon. he said he would spend next weekend at my house with me. and then i guess i will just stay there. he will stay here. and things will be 'normal' in the eyes of everyone else. 

being me, i like to question things... motives, desires, needs.  i question my own and cannot seem to get a clear enough answer. so let me try now. i am motivated by things that are fun in life: dancing, drinking, good conversations, new people, new experiences, buying expensive things that i now can afford... i desire...  everything i thought, felt and had before last saturday night. no, this isn't any kind of regret... i have nothing to regret. it's just that things have changed since last saturday and i'm not sure where to go next. so at this point i guess that for the future i desire to continue sleeping in the same bed as him.  but this isn't going to happen. i wrote a while back (feburary i think) that this one will hurt. that was before i knew how much. what i need, i think, is to be independent. to learn how to survive on my own. i need to learn how to spend time with myself without constantly thinking about other people. i don't know how to do these things. i will have to learn.

i guess the logical thing to do is to look for a roommate. next week after the clean the place up and make it presentable i will post on craigs. it could be entertaining to interview potential roommates. i will also have to put some locks on inside the house. with the expensive entertainment equipment that will soon be there i wouldn't want anyone around my basement when i'm not there. it would be so much easier if i could just live with someone i can trust...

"i have a feeling this thing you don't want to call anything is going to last the next three years"

if this thing lasts for the next _______ i will be the happiest person. i guess that means that this is, in fact, my utopia.

after over a week of staying away from my house i finally decided that it's time for me to spend a night here. i chose to do this because one, i find it ridiculous that i own a house and still find myself homeless; and two, i felt that my current living situation was starting to become a burden on others.

after a lovely dinner at my parents house, full of very uncomfortable moments in russian, we came to my house and watched a movie. we talked. it was nice to feel so peaceful and happy in this place for a change. it was nice to be able to speak and have someone to listen and understand what the words coming out of my mouth actually meant.

then i was alone. after chasing the cat down the street i curled with him and patiently waited for the washing machine to finish. i sat there, looked at my computer, looked at the television. i thought about things...

the door opened and a dark loud body stumbled in drunkenly. he seemed surprised to see me even though i made sure to talk to him before coming home and made sure he wouldn't be there. he yelled. he called me awful names. he threw some things (not at me and they were his).

i sat there. i could have yelled back and thrown things. i didn't. i attempted to say a few things, but they just hung there in the air with no one to hear or understand them. i wasn't afraid of him, but for him.

he kept on repeating words and phrases and all i could think about was that i was responsible. i know that i did the best thing for me. my life will be better off. now those feelings of sadness are coming around, but they are different from what i expected. i feel really bad about sending him on this downward spiral of self destructive behaviors. he drinks daily. he fucks random girls. he wakes up in random places. all of this really bothers me. i told him he needs help. his phone rang and someone wanted him to go out. he got his stuff together and almost walked out the door. as much as i wanted him to leave, i couldn't let this happen. he was incredibly drunk and could have hurt himself and others had he left the house.

so i told him to stay and talk. so i sat there and listened to him yell. in fact, he is still doing it and i am still here. i know he thinks i'm an evil awful person but i could have just let him leave and not sacraficed my sleep. i have to wake up in two hours. if he stops talking soon i will sleep.

aaahhh how i miss this place....

I'm writing this not because i can't tell you what i want to say, you know very well that i can tell you anything. no. i am writing this so that i can listen to what it is i want to say to you.

you are my friend. it sickens me to think about the number of times i have called people that who were not nearly as deserving as you are. i have so few real friends in this word and none of them are as close (physically or mentally) to me as you are right now. i've known you for so little time and yet it feels like you've been right here my entire life. there's not one thing that i can think of that i do not want to share with you. maybe there is. just one. it's something i never wanted to share with anyone, not even myself. perhaps one day i will be able to verbalize it and it may explain a lot about me. it may not. but that is not the point. the point is that i've never felt about anyone this way before.

i want you to be happy. that's such a generic statement, but it is the only way to say what i really mean. i know that since you've met me your life has been turned upside down. and obviously mine has as well because of you. i can't thank you enough for what you've done for me. my only real fear is that now you somehow feel responsible for the situation that i'm in and feel obliged to help me. yes. you are responsible, but i do not want you to feel as if you owe me something. what you have done for me already is incredible and i will forever be in debt to you.

our relationship has been intriguing. i've never met anyone who's on the same exact plane of existence as me in a completely opposite way. you are so important to me right now and i can't imagine what it would be like to lose you. nevertheless, i DO want you to be happy. at the moment your happiness means so much more to me than my own. i've never in my life been able to say that and mean it before now. this is exactly why i cannot lie to you. when you wrote her that letter and asked me to read it, it hurt me. you know that i understood perfectly what you were trying to say to her. in fact i'm not happy with the way i dissected it and encouraged you to change it. i understand that the reason you asked me to read it is because you are, as i am, confused. i'm so afraid of giving you relationship advice because i don't know whose interests are being represented by the things i tell you.

and then you talked about us. as much as i can see myself being happy with you at the same time i'm afraid of you not being happy with me. i think what we have right now is so beautiful that altering any aspect of our relationship would lead to certain doom. i know that what we have will not last forever. but you know that i don't like to plan forever. i plan today, tomorrow, and maybe the next day. when you talked about telling her that you could see yourself with her in the future but not now and i insisted on the fact that that is the absolutely wrong thing to say i hurt. i hurt because that is what i want to tell you. i hurt because telling you that may alter our relationship.

right now i am in your bed. i can think so clearly here yet i cannot make any sense of my feelings and thoughts. i don't believe in fate. i don't believe in luck. i don't believe in love. but somehow thinking about how all this happened is nearly impossible for me to comprehend. since i've met you i've talked to you more than i have talked to a single person in the past eight years. that entire time period seems like such a blur to me and this month seems like it lasted way longer than those ninety-six. it possible that that was all a weird dream and now i'm finally waking up. just as it's possible that this is all a dream and when i wake up.... i don't know how to finish that.

in fact i don't know how to finish this. it seems that i'm looking to reach some sort of conclusion, some kind of understanding of how i feel or what i want to do about it. but i can't. i want this. i want to stay in this state of peaceful uncertainty. i'm so scared that if things ever become certain or clear it will hurt. i'm usually pretty good at dealing with pain. this is a kind of pain that i am not prepared to handle. i'm so afraid. i think you know that and i don't want you to sacrafice anything present or future in your life because of this fact. i don't think i could ever live with that. i know you don't think this, but i'm starting to think that i am bad for you, physically and emotionally. i keep you up at night and compromise your ability to perform at work. i send you signals that make you question the decisions that you attempt to make in life. i know if you read this you would disagree but i can't help but think that this is really true. perhaps this is the point of the entire entry. you make me so happy and without realizing it are destroying your own life in the process.

i could be wrong, or course. unfortunately i see you changing. you aren't the same as you were when we first met. i know that you know this. i don't want these changes to be detrimental. i can't live with myself knowing that i am accountable for destroying your ability to have the future that you desire. i can't live with myself knowing that i single-handedly altered the course of history in which you could have had an impact on society. i can't take that chance. i do so many things to ruin my own life, but when it comes to yours the shear thought of causing a negative impact is excruciating. i don't know what to do. i don't think that you know what to do. this is why i am so so scared.

winter is almost over now and spring is, as they say, in the air. i find great comfort in these predictable changes that occur in life. so cyclic, so definite. some changes are much less predictable though. for example if someone asked me a month ago, i'm fairly certain that i would have told them that i don't need a roommate...

yes. this is a really big change. perhaps it's because i've been so stubborn that i wasn't willing to make it sooner. i just find it so difficult to admit that everyone was right and i was wrong. but things are different now. i am different now. i guess that means i've changed.

i am afraid. but recently i have come to realize that fear makes me feel alive. not knowing what will happen tomorrow is a thrill. overall i'm in a good place in life. i'm what people call a 'success story.' i am twenty three and i have a great degree, a house,  people i consider to be my friends. unfortunately i've found that my life is missing intangible things. it's lacking independence, self-control, freedom. i thought that i was independent because i could afford to buy my own clothes- but depending on someone else to wash them completely obliterates that notion. i thought that i had self control, but being in control of others while acting on impulse doesn't quite count. finally, the magnificent f-word (not that one). people think that they are free when they get to do what they want. i've always (for the most part) gotten what i wanted. lately i've been finding that freedom isn't quite that. everywhere i go and everything i do is connected to my needs in life. my needs stem from my monophobia, which, by default, means i can never be free. i've always recognized this in myself, but never found it to be a major problem. until now. the chain of events over the past three weeks have really opened my eyes on things. of course i didn't make any of these discoveries by myself- until now i didn't realize that i'm capable to doing things on my own. the new influence in my life has really been quite powerful.

so here i am, standing at the tip of an iceberg, surrounded by an ocean of uncertainty. i am afraid, but i embrace this feeling. it's possible that a newborn feels this way seeing the world for the first time. i'm better off than a newborn though, in part, because i realize what it is that i'm seeing. i already know that if i touch the thorn of a rose it will cause me pain. whether i would still touch it or not is another question...

as i lay here in my own bed with tears pouring down my face and a gentle tremble in my hands i realize that if i don't write this down i may never be able to tap into this feeling again.

i sat in my car  in front of the toy shop downtown listening to bjork and chainsmoking. my lack of sleep and nourishment in combination with unbelievable lack of productivity completing schoolwork had left me in a state of complete desperation  bordering on hysteria. i couldn't believe that i was actually going to let this guy see me in this condition, certainly he would realize that i am completely insane and stop spending time with me. it was dark and i attempted to quiet my mind by watching local crackheads make they way to the bus stop. i kept repeating to myself that i had to calm down so that he wouldn't get scared away. each cigarette i smoked took an eternity.

wait there he was so close. somehow just seeing him approach my car was making me relax. we had a brief conversation before going to the store. i didn't have to go in there but i told him that i did just so that i could be downtown when he got done with his workshop. his lack of interest in the toys was blatantly intentional, making him that much more interesting.

we then had dinner in shadyside: i picked the olives, portabellos, and roasted red peppers of my salad while he eagerly ate a wrap. we shared some stories, discussed our interests, explained how we ended up in our respective places in life. all the meanwhile i "forgot" to keep telling myself to calm down. in fact when i returned from the bathroom it hit me... this was the most relaxed and peaceful i had felt since the moment i woke up in a panic after 3 hours of sleep because i didn't know where my pager was.

i told him how incredibly relaxed he made me feel, especially considering the astonishing level of stress brought on by my supposed state of hypomania. he said that people have told him that before and it must mean he's boring. how dare he ruin this moment of absolute bliss for me by petty self-depracating remarks!?!  we split the check.

as i was pulling up to his apartment complex he decided to share with me that he was tired and had to be in bed in 30 minutes... i said that i could have him in bed sooner than that but he was quite determined to save it for tomorrow. instead he wanted to have me listen to some new songs he downloaded that he thought i would like. i have already mentioned to him that tomorrow doesn't exist and today is all that matters to me, but he insisted that it would be better tomorrow, especially since he rescheduled some workshop so that we could go see bodies together before i leave to japan.

we listened to his songs, i made out with his neck. we kissed. i never actually enjoyed kissing before him. it has always been this thing i did before moving on with the next logical step in the process. kissing him is different, it's rare enough to crave. obviously there was not stopping me there. i told him that i wasn't into time limits and he didn't say no, he just said that he was tired. i never back away from a challenge...

we were it what i believe has now become his favorite chair. he tried to play the tired card and limit his responses but it made it just that much better when a response did come, it was certainly genuine and completely under my control. in fact i actually impressed myself with my own ability to manipulate this situation from forced and unnecessary to incredible and satisfying to the sound of kryptonite blasting from the speakers.

the sex was, in fact, unnecessary. so far i got off once in his presence... he 5. but that's the thing... i am still interested

i'm interested in our conversations, the random looks we give each other that may or may not mean anything. i'm interested in his ability to induce tranquility in me during the most stressful time i've ever experienced in my entire life.

 Being with him gave me the ability to drive my car and smoke without making a phonecall. i was able to talk to the one who shares my house without any smart-ass snappy comments that i have been so generous with supplying lately.

i made it into my bed and realized that this will all be over soon. that's when the tears began rolling down my cheeks uncontrollably. anything this good cannot possibly last, not for me. things that make me feel this good are unfailingly finite and short-lived, consistently leaving me with a void. no person and no drug has ever made me feel this peaceful and good. the void that this is going to leave will take an eternity to fill... this one will hurt.

i guess that was the crash. my tears have dried and having put it on paper has definitely helped.

perhaps i wll take my friend's advice (yes you are still my friend even though you have been a jerk lately) and enjoy it while it lasts. and who knows? maybe we really will go to russia and europe together. maybe we will end up on a pacific island with aboriginees. i mean we are going to see bodies tomorrow and i certainly look forward to that.

this is from wikipedia

"It is unknown to what degree hypomanic symptoms can occur without a depressive component. Patients may be relatively unlikely to seek psychiatric treatment for hypomania alone. However, many hypomanic patients experience:

• lower need for sleep (check)
  
• racing thoughts (check)
  
• obsessive behavior, whether mild or severe (mild, check)
  
• poor judgment relative to a particular situation's judgment call (whoa! check)
  
• uncontrollable, or only partially controllable, impulsivity (def. check)
  
• excessive sexual activity (check, check, check)
  

Plus other out-of-character behaviors that the person may regret following the conclusion of the mood episode."

aaaah i gotta love science, and milk it for all it's got to offer coz this hypomania thing is really making my life quite awesome right now!