resolving memes surrounding a point

Screaming in the wilderness

"As far as we can figure it," said my cat, "you're supposed to be dead."

"Feels like it," I slurred in reply.

"I could," purred my other cat, "give you an example to highlight the point."

"Let's just assume," I sighed, "that we all understand the point."

"Are you not concerned," asked my cat, "about the ongoing nature of your existence."

"No." I admitted frankly.

"Yes," replied my other cat.

"It's not you," said my cat, "who is dead."

"Any valid documents which serve to identify identity," snapped my other cat, "would appear to apply to both of us."

"And I'm the Chief Executive," I admitted.

"This is wrong," said my cat.

"Indeed," I grinned.

"At least one of you," alleged my cat, "can lie."

"But only we know know the secret," smiled my other cat, "of who."

"And it's not especially hard," I added, "to know when."

"So it's not especially fun," grumbled my other cat.

"It's far more profitable," I explained, "weaving patterns from what's true."

"What you end-up with," admitted my other cat, "are perceptions which cannot be shown to be false."

"And yet they are just," I added, "plain wrong."

"Does the truth not speak for itself" asked my cat. "Is it not all just a matter of interpretation."

"It's not a matter of truth," I conceded, "it's a matter of presentation."

"Got sword," muttered my cat.

"It took me about three hours," I admitted, "to find the bedroom door this morning."

"Please," muttered my cat.

"It's important," snapped my other cat, "you need to listen."

"I found the front door," I nodded, "within about fifteen minutes."

"You make no sense," frowned my cat, "both were right in front of you."

"I am aware of your perceptions," I said flatly, "and are they are unimportant."

"In this context," added my other cat.

"It's the voices," I sighed. "I suspect I've always 'heard' them. An alienness which lead me to build my sense of self somewhere they could never go."

"In that regard," said my cat, "it could be said they didn't exist before."

"But since the accident I've been seeing them," I admitted, "and that makes it so much harder to assert my self-identity."

"Synesthetic bleed," suggested my other cat.

"I can 'see' who they are," I admitted, "see their effect in my affect."

"Which is how," remarked my cat, "you have such a hard time finding the door."

"There are also the other voices," added my other cat. "And then there are the other, other voices; the ones who think you know more than what's good for you."

If there is a trend to be found in humanity's approach to the future
it is to be found in the way we invest so much in the drive to build  
bigger and bigger machines to look further and further into the past


follow the trend and you begin to question the nature of your eyes
ask a question about the nature of time and consciousness
and you begin to consider that if the past is all that's out there
perhaps by looking in you can discover something profound
yet it is not a question that occurs at a moment when you are able 
to find the time to contemplate and review the resonances
but before you can find your way to the door a voice you can't see
resolves the unanswered questions with a question of form
geographical primitives of thought designed to allow a single mind
a manipulational awareness of the forces which bind time. 

I've been getting upset about the LHC for a while now. Logic tell me I'm being irrational. One of those split views of the world I'm bound to encounter from time to time. Last Thursday I found a report of Atlas going operational. I'd not checked the news for weeks. Yet there I was being drawn to a point that didn't resolve until I'd looked and seen the detector plot. Not that I especially claim to have hold of the plot. For I'd just spent two days trying to understand what had happened when I'd stepped-out to get a stamp.

Of course it's only a coincidence the stamp happened on the same day as the LHC was being spun-up. I mention it now because it's merely coincidence that I was talking to a memory of that first Atlas image when things got all shimmy just now on the nature of consciousness front; for a moment I even found myself discussing wave-particle duality with a photon; something about a branch-predictive look-ahead capability and the concept of choice within a quantum stream.

A repeat almost of what happened on my Atlas Tuesday. Like I said I only stepped out to buy a stamp. Well, buy a stamp and post the letter to which the stamp was to be attached. The letter is probably important; my response to something legal. It took me a moment to write, then a week to find a way to send it. By the time I got to the postbox reality was all bent out of shape. No matter how I tried, my perceptions of reality couldn't be made to fit known parameters. It almost became another agoraphobic day trapped inside. Until one of the cats took a hand and I tripped over a cliff.

The cats are good like that for it's never malicious, and I'll always learn something of value. Not that it's ever immediately apparent. Cats and time have a peculiar relationship you see. To a cat it's always twenty-past six on a Thursday; a universal truth discovered by a committee of cats about two weeks ago. A little joke of time and mind designed by catkin to remind me how it is that I don't immediately recall what I was doing seven days back.

On this particular Thursday it was as if the veil which separated one world from another had been breached. Bringing me an awareness of the thoughts of those passing me by. Unconscious thoughts leaking into my conscious realm. Reactions to the contents of my own unconscious mind.

"We know what's coming next," said my cat.

"And we've taken steps," added my other cat, "to assert our vision of reality."

"I suspect," I nodded, "what I'm feeling is a backlash."

"You're not wrong," admitted my cat.

"And you're not wrong," said the other.

I got lost then, a road I'd been down before that had never been so alien. At the other end of this road I discover there'a a sign above a door, the number fourty-two written above the words 'Church Entrance'.

"Relax," said my cat.

"I try," I sighed. "Only when I do I find a fundamental force begins objecting such attempts."

"I would suggest," said my other cat, "it's a displacement that's been built-up over time to the extent it's become an entrained response."

"What," replied with mild astonishment.

"Viral code," added my other cat with a look. "Something from the mind of another which has modified itself to run at a higher level of abstraction."

"You're close," said my cat, "closer than you've ever been."

"To what," I asked.

"An answer," replied my cat.

"Then the question," I conceded, "must be from whose mind did it originate and how do I overcome its effect without leaving myself open to additional dysfunction."

"I suspect the answer to those questions," announced my cat, "are related."

"A Freudian," I admitted, "would ask me to recline on a couch and ask me about my mother."

"Exactly," said my cat.

"And yet a Jungian," I added, "would, perhaps, be mistaken as a Freudian if they used the same question to probe my perceptions of the Anima archetype."

"Relatives," agreed my cat, "in an intellectual realm."

"The theories," purred my other cat, of Father and Son sharing a strong family resemblance."

if there is a pattern repeated to us by nature it is to be found in the pattern which repeats within itself. echoes of a single truth scaled into a higher dimension. allow your senses to flow. listen with your eyes. see with your ears. smell with your mind. find the echoes of the beginning resonating through the dimensions.

"It's not really something you can appreciate until you experience," said my other cat, "the degree to which you allow a pattern you don't fully understand to affect you on an unconscious level."

"The mathematics of thought," I conceded.

"And mind," added my cat.

"I think it's safe to say we understand each other now."

"An explanation would help."

"if you know what you're looking for, it's obvious."

"It's only the memory that it was not so obvious which tells me you discovered something new."

"Truly," said my cat, "it's not psychosis."

"Just imagine there are phases of consciousness through which a mind passes the mind of man; the collective consciousness of humankind, as it were, is about to leap from phase-III to phase-IV."

"Okay," I asked cautiously, "where an I in all this."

"Beyond phase-VI."

"That sounds kind of grandiose."

"Not really you extrapolated reality into personal realm and found the answers you were looking for.

"I become concerned about my delusional states and begin to wonder if I merely see the answer I want."

"Four is the answer you are looking for," said my cat patiently, "if you're adding two and two. But if you want to consider you're being delusional go ahead and count zero to find a five."

"There are levels to this," said my other cat, "it's a whole lot more complex than you're currently able to understand."

"Initialization vectors," muttered my cat. "Nowww we begin to see what you're trying to say."

"Finally," sighed my other cat.

"From our perspective," said my cat, "we have always been able to see you."

"Until I woke-up dead," I admitted, "you didn't exist."

the sense of an approaching point; a moment in time
an awareness of the threads involved with the point
the archetypes in the moonlight resolving the truth

the words come, in the other place
ideas which follow me around
begging for a chance to find light

"There's a certain resonance," I smiled.

"What do you expect," replied my cat. "It's what you asked for."

"Not quite," objected my other cat. "It is however a beginning."

There's a certain charm about her, I admitted. "An childish innocence we could all learn from."

"You'd freak," muttered my cat. "Thrash about, run from the images the mirror in your mind would show you."

"Probably," I admitted. "Still, I should like to do something about it."

"Now," asked my cat.

"Well," I admitted, "I was thinking of something deeper, something more fundamental."

"You're thinking," said my cat, "long term singular whereas the current subject is more to do with the current multiplicity."

"In which case," I replied, "the answer would be yes."

"Truly," asked my cat.

"Indeed," I nodded. "Only right now I can't see where the light is."

"We'll help with that," said my other cat.

"Time slip," muttered my cat.

"I think it's safe to say," said my other cat, "she want's something."

"Don't we all," I sighed.

"The point," stressed my cat, "is to see beyond our own projections, and see what lies beneath."

"I've tried that before," I admitted. "It slips into an odd discontinuity. I see plurality where consensus logic asserts the singular."

"It's something you learn to see," announced my cat, "when you overcome your dysfunctional belief patterns."

"And once seen," purred my other cat, "most of what you see remains visible long after the precursors have faded from sight."

"I just felt," I admitted, "a door open."

"Just look," directed my other cat, "don't touch."

"Standard behaviour," I muttered. "Is it relevant that I find her unconscious expression projects a memory of my past."

"It projects other things too," said my other cat as she licked her paw. "You're simply sensitive to other operators right now."

"Perhaps," I nodded. "Perhaps too it becomes a case of addressing those sensitivities."

"Indeed," smiled my cat as I slipped into a different world.

"Careful," warned my other cat, "there's a certain instability in your perceptions here."

"It's okay," I admitted as I slipped back into the room. "Although on the subject of instability is it worth mentioning the dwarf in the corner."

"I don't think," said my cat "the dwarf you are referring to is unstable."

"No," I conceded. "If there is instability here I would assume it to be mine. Noticing dwarves is I should imagine somewhat uncommon."

"You're not wrong," purred my other cat, "and now, would you like the chance to do something about it."

"I would," I admitted. "And yet I find myself being blocked."

"As you explore the blockage," said my cat, "you'll discover much that resides within yourself."

"So what," I pondered, "does she want."

"There are some," suggested my cat, "for whom being alone is a nightmare without end."

"I realize this," I nodded. "Not something I find I have a problem with. Although I do begin to wonder to what degree I'm ever alone."

"I think you'll find," replied my cat, "we've already established you're never alone."

"Shadows," I muttered as the unasked question answered itself.

"If you insist," grinned my other cat.

"If you put your minds to it," purred my cat, "you may be able to find an answer."

"On the subject of never being alone," I pondered, "it crosses my mind how I spend an inordinate amount of time by myself."

"By yourself," admitted my other cat, "is easy."

"I'm not sure," added my cat, "you should really be exploring the reasons. Not at the moment at any rate."

"Possibly," I nodded. "There's a lot of distraction in the room right now. Such explorations are as easy as they are personal."

"The problem with hyper-awareness," my cat informed me, "is the degree to which you find yourself surrounded by infinities."

"Really," I replied sounding unconvinced.

"Fractals," muttered my other cat by way of an explanation.

"Leading you to a place," continued my cat, "where you can't see the trees, or the wood, because the scent of a rose leads you to a place where you're too busy visualizing the cosmic all from the perspective of the entirety of the rose's existence."

"True," I nodded. "Although to be fair if it's not one thing it would be another. I have, it appears, lost the ability to sleep with my eyes open."

"Not lost," my cat assured me, "it's simply not a skill that's required."

"So show me," I sighed, "what I should be looking at."

"Be serious," said my other cat, "you've known since you arrived.";

Entirely in the present!

"The point is," I told my cat, "when you get whacked through a singularity, everything changes."

"Indeed," said my cat, "it's not until it's happened to you that you know what that really means."

"Structuraly speaking," said my other cat, "not many minds are capable of the transition."

"I'm still pretty hazy," smiled my cat, "on your notion of time."

"Me too," I admitted, "it makes no sense."

"There's several more people in this room," announced my other cat, "than continuuity can currently support."

"Indeed," I nodded, "but right now I'm in the dark feeling my way to the light."

"We can see the others in your mind," said my cat, "see the effect they are having."

"The nature of their entanglement," added my other cat, "is being investigated."

"In the land of light," I replied, "where cats & dogs walk the streets," I added just to make sure, "that would appear to have serious concequences."

"It's a discontinuity," said my other cat, "it's telling you about time."

"Clever," I replied as I saw the picture my cat was painting.

"Conceptual leaping-frog," my cat informed me.

inside-out inside view

"Are you not concerned," asked my cat over breakfast, "about the degree of obsessive behaviour you're currently exhibiting."

"Certainly I'm concerned," I replied. "I lack the ability to confront my inner turmoil so I've resorted to Obsessive Compulsive Behaviour." I cast my cat a sideways look. She was sitting on the windowsill. Outside it was a sunny day of rain. Leaving me with the suspicion that she was looking for rainbows.

"I think you'll find," said my cat with authority, "that's not the problem which truly concerns you."

"Indeed," I nodded, "what concerns me is that I was unaware of the inner turmoil or my obsessive behaviour until I became aware I had effectively destroyed months of effort."

"It's worse than that," my cat informed me. "If your obsession had not effectively suppressed your emotions you'd be on the verge of killing yourself again. Even as things stand you're perilously close to doing something dangerous."

"It has take me several weeks," I admitted, "to became aware of the shift in my behaviour. It's too late to undo the damage to my immediate environment. Even if I could I've got weeks of effort ahead of me addressing my inner turmoil to ensure it does not snowball into a major psychotic episode."

"You'll also find," announced my cat, "it will take several months to deal with the consequences of the damage that's been done." My cat stood and performed the sort of stretching exercises which could be felt on the other side of the room. Then she jumped off the windowsill and padded over to where I was sitting. "But again, I think you'll find," she purred as she curled up beside me, "that's not the problem which truly concerns you right now."

"Cause and effect run backwards," I muttered, "I've identified an effect, so obviously what truly concerns me is the cause."

"Precisely," replied my cat. "Until that's addressed you can't really overcome the effect."

"Unfortunately it's not that simple," I said with a hint of resignation in my voice. "I've got Lucifer and the other Archangels having a battle of words with me over the ongoing mechanisms surrounding the Apocalypse preempting much of my mental capacity. I need another worry to the same degree as I need another hole in my head."

"I seriously doubt," said my cat, "anyone will be impressed by your more supernatural concerns."

"Truly they are valid concerns," I growled. "To others they may sound like the ravings of a deluded mind but for me it is an extant reality; as true to me as the state of the economy is for those deluded souls who believe money matters; or, for instance, the price of petrol is to those deluded into believing a car brings freedom."

"That you inhabit a world overlaid upon the same substrate as the differing worlds of those others," announced my cat, "is not in doubt. Or indeed the issue." For a moment the tip of my cat's tail began to twitch impatiently. "What is the issue is that a crisis has occurred at a point of intersect and you need to deal with it."

"I would have," I asserted, "only others got involved and began advising me as to what I needed to do."

"Your social workers," my cat informed me, "were concerned. Anyone who walks into your flat will discover you live with three mugs, two beanbags, a kettle, and don't actually have a cat."

"I do have a comfortable bed," I exclaimed proudly. "And I certainly do have a cat," I grinned as I stroked the fuzzy ball of perfection now purring on my lap.

"Let's leave this out of the bedroom shall we," interjected my cat, "and return to your otherwise empty flat."

"And the advice," I reminded my cat, "of my Social Workers."

"Indeed," muttered my cat impatiently. "At a time when they were desperately running around looking to find ways to help you address the obvious problems they see with your standard of living they were concerned with your apparent willingness to invest your limited resources in dental treatment they felt you were effectively exempt from paying for."

"They seemed to think," I added, "that I should, perhaps, be investing any spare cash in some of the parapanelia society deems required to support a minimum standard of living. Carpets and curtains, or a sofa and chairs, or a fridge and a cooker, that sort of thing. So they promised to sort the paperwork so the dental treatment would all be taken care of."

"I remember them helping you with exemption forms," nodded my cat. "You became mildly psychotic for a few days. You also got quite violent towards inanimate objects."

"Quite," I muttered in apology. "And whilst dealing with that," I remembered, "I was told I should discuss the ongoing formage with the dentist, when I highlighted that this would not be given the way it was affecting me the social worker promised make some calls on my behalf."

"Did they," asked my cat.

"No idea," I admitted. "When I finally fronted-up to have my tooth fixed nobody brought-up the issue of payment leaving me with the distinct impression it had been sorted. Indeed there is a sign on the waiting room wall informing me that according to regulations 'treatment may not commence until payment has been made in full'. So when treatment commenced without any discussion on the matter taking place it was not an especially unreasonable assumption to consider the financial situation had been resolved."

"So you assumed," grinned my cat, "the social worker had made some calls."

"Indeed," I replied after a short pause to consider the matter. "It's not until I'd made it back to base and was doing my best to ensure post dentist somatisation didn't set in I received a phone call that dispelled that notion." For a moment I considered that phone call, "I have to say it wasn't an especially pleasant experience."

"It was your own inner frustration," said my cat, reminding me of the call. "frustration which gets magnified when you find yourself unable to express yourself clearly. It spills into the tone of your voice. At which point you may as well stop talking as most people can't understand how someone can be talking to two people at once and assume the emotions conveyed by your voice are directed at them."

"Deep," I muttered, "So my words go one way, my emotions go another."

"Indeed," smiled my cat. "And in a world which insists aggressive and abusive patients will not be treated you're effectively denied access to services when your condition flares because you loose the ability to express yourself."

"It didn't help," I added, "being hit with an accusatory tone the moment I answered the phone. I was being made to feel like I was at fault for failing to do something nobody had asked me to do. Worse, when I began to get distressed the receptionist who I had always found to be perfectly polite and affable started to get more than a little shirty with me."

"Which, if you say that gain backwards," grinned my cat, "highlights what I was just telling you."

"Funny cat," I smiled.

"Seriously," said my cat, "the only way you managed to handle your latest brush with dentistry was to adopt an air of utter passivity. Doing whay you're asked to do, not doing anything you've not been asked to do. If you'd not you'd probably have hit crisis point and been in hospital by now."

"It's the pointlessness of all the pieces of paper," I sighed.

"Including the green ones," smiled my cat.

"For them it's a minor workplace hassle which they can turn their back on at the end of the day. For me it's a nightmare that is has a major affect on my quality of life."

"Mine too," agreed my cat. "And when the exemption certificate finally arrived," she asked.

"I tried to do," I admitted, " the right thing to resolve the problem. So I took it straight to the dentists where the still shirty receptionist seemed to take great delight in frustrating my attempts to resolve the matter whilst forcing me to discuss aspects surrounding my medical condition in an environment where other patients were able to overhear."

"Unpleasant," agreed my cat. "Still as you've discovered you can pay the bill and claim it back."

"Wonderful," I said with as much sarcasm as I could muster. "I'll be handed more forms; more paperwork; more of the kinds of thing that push me into the realms of frustration and on into anger."

"The kind of frustration," agreed my cat, "which we've already seen trigger bouts of psychosis and the kind of frustration which makes you violent."

"And quite frankly I don't wish to become like that so I refuse to take responsibility for resolving this matter. As far as I'm concerned the NHS can make the reasonable adjustments to their policies procedures which under law anyone with a disability is entitled to expect and deal with it internally whilst I do my best to ensure I don't become a hospital case."

"So do you think," said my cat, "you'll have to find a new dentist after this debacle."

"I hope not," I frowned, "the stress would probably make my teeth ache."

"Behave," commanded my cat. "Now," she continued more lightly, "you've accessed the intersect and identified the crisis point. Now we need to get you out of it to stop you doing more damage in more realistic realms."

"Well it would certainly help," I admitted, "if the real world was sign-posted."

"There is no real world," asserted my cat. "Merely metrics of belief which fall into a normal distribution curve. You may inhabit the fringes of that curve but your beliefs are no more or less valid than the individual beliefs of any one of the majority."

"Validity is one thing," I nodded, "belief is another." For a moment I felt the presence of something unpleasant. I looked around the room but what wasn't there got in the way. So I closed my mind and looked again. "I think there's a ghost in this room."

"Fetch," corrected my cat with a sigh. "And if you cast your mind back you'll remember who it is and how he got here."

"Shadows," I muttered. "The ones from the dark places we're all assured we're afraid of. The ones that traverse the unconscious mind."

"The ones," purred my cat, "you're on speaking terms with."

"It's the ghost of a psychiatrist," I said eventually, "the one who was so good at his job he left me with a bad case of post-traumatic stress disorder. The one who's gets away with abusing patients because nobody cares to uphold the law as he's well respected and been there for years. The one who caused me to have a mental breakdown which got left untreated because the abuse had taught me that life on a psychiatric ward was about being introverted and covert."

"And with that," said my cat, "we're back to belief."

"Really," I queried with mild bewilderment.

"Really," asserted my cat. "The mass-belief is that society has mechanisms to protect them from the mentally ill. To protect them from mental illness. Doctors who help make the illness go away well with care, compassion, and the enlightened use of medicine."

"Mass-belief," I muttered.

"The thick bit," muttered my cat, "in the middle of the bell curve." For a moment she paused to lick her paw. "Yet as your experience shows," she continued, "it is a belief that is erroneous. As is the belief that there is oversight that has sufficient will to prevent such abuses from becoming systemic."

"Proving of course," I nodded, "that the majority is not always right."

"Unfortunately in such circumstances," said my cat, "there are only three words which can be used, and even then only in retrospect."

"Three words," I asked with a puzzled look.

"Told you so."

"Funny cat," I smiled.

"Although you're still too close to the intersect," my cat announced. "Still too likely to lapse into obsessive behaviour because you can't cope in a world which still considers abusing minorities a legitimate activity."

"Does it," I asked with a degree of puzzlement.

"Consider how it is," said my cat, "that the Apocalypse you see on the horizon is as real and tangible to you as the words on this page. And yet consider how although you go to great efforts to respect the perceived realities of others few care to grant you the same respect. For their world classes your words as heretical because Science has yet to unlock the secrets buried deep in your mind."

"I'm aware of Angels and Demons," I admitted. "And it does come as a shock to wake-up one day to discover you're on speaking terms with Lucifer."

"Well if you're going to come to terms with your ability to go prying into the minds of others," said my cat, "there's no better entity to be on amicable terms with when you're looking for the answers to the dark secrets."

"Telepathy," I muttered, "that's another one of those things with the ability to earn me a free ticket to detention without trial should I dare to discuss it."

"And it's more than just Angels and Demons," said my cat. "To an extent they're simply patterns of mental force which coalesce from time to time to allow for a rebalancing in the psyche. Patterns with various attributes built-up over a long history, with identities co-opted by authoritarian and somewhat dogmatic belief systems. Mostly they operate in individual realms. There are some, however, with the power to break beyond the one and operate globally."

"Archangels," I sighed. "You're talking about Archangels."

"Indeed," agreed my cat.

"So why," I asked, "are they talking to me."

"Oddly enough," said my cat with a glint in her eye, "because your name is Peter and you have two keys on your key ring."

Perceptions of the Beyond

"You're bending your mind", warned my cat, "around the room."

"Of course I am," I agreed. "When diving into the minds of others," I admitted, "it's much easier to dive into what's there than what's their."

"My point is," sighed my cat, "is that you need to be careful."

"I agree," I replied, "last year it took me unaware." For a moment I closed my eyes and looked around the room.

"He could run away from it," said my other cat, "live his life according to the parameters of what others tell him can be proved, pretend it's not there and deal with the concequences."

"Or he can embrace it," I said as I opened my eyes, "take what he needs and deal with another set of concequences. What's there shows the way. We've got years to play with what's their."

"Good," said my cat, "and with that you begin to see how you have already begun to affect change here."

"So now," I grinned as the room cleared, "just how should we begin speaking to these other cats."

"Begin," said my cat, "with the unseen university."

"Clever," I replied.

By the light of the new moon.

"I should think," replied my cat, "that handing out condoms during mass would be going a little too far."

"But on the whole," I asked, "as a concept."

"Certainly," agreed my cat, "such a change would be for the best."

"You two," said my other cat, "really do have the craziest conversations."

"Well thank-you," said my cat with as much sarcasm as she could muster, "I can't tell if he's listening now."

"So how do you think," said my other cat, "he's managed to stay hidden for so long."

"Honestly," said my cat, "I think he's been cheating."

"Cheating," said my other cat, "I seriously doubt it."

"He hides his true self in the unconscious," suggested my cat, "then causes his conscious mind to mirror the preconscious expectations of others."

"I wouldn't call that cheating," said my other cat, "I would call it a highly evolved sense of self-preservation."

"Perhaps," said my cat, "it's not as if he's ever tried to derive maximum benefit from it."

"It can't be easy," said my other cat, "when he's able to truly perceive the fear his true nature elicits within the mass consciousness."

"I'd like to hear," said my cat, "what those idiots who claimed we've nothing to fear from a surveillance society have to say when they discover there are those who are consciously aware of their ability to see into the darkest recesses of the minds of others."

"Given the surveillance society contributed," said my other cat, "to his waking up to the realities of his true nature, then 'oh fuck,' would probably be a good guess."

"It can't be easy," said my cat.

"It's not," I said finally, "there is, shall we say, a certain degree of feedback on the physiological level involved when realities force me to repress it."

"Oh Jesus," muttered my other cat as she saw the picture I was beginning to paint, "I suspect we've only just begun seen what's really been going on."

"Indeed," said my cat, "the guilty have a lot to fear right about now. "

Q and A.

"Something wrong," I asked my cat one morning. She was standing on the windows sill glaring out the window. Her head was bobbling around as if she was looking for the correct paralax view.

"I can't tell if that Magpie," muttered my cat distractedly, "is red or blue."

Looking out the window I could see five black and white birds patrolling a small shrubbery. "Red or blue," I asked cautiously, "Not one of those standard black and white ones then."

"Of course it's one of those black and white ones," snapped my cat as if I'd just uttered something stupid, "I'm talking about other colour." She jumped down from the sill and, tail held high, stolled regally in the direction of the kitchen.

For a moment stood glaring out the window. "Breakfast," I muttered to an empty room. Then I turned and strolled in the direction of the kitchen.

On the uses and abuses of power.

"The reason for the circles," announced my cat early one sleepless morning, "and the pentagrams, and the candles, and that other weird occult stuff, has little to do with reality, with science, and everything to do with psychology."

"So what," I laughed, "The Devil can't enter a circle because he thinks he can't, not because of any mystical power a circle may have."

"Oh do behave," purred my cat, "The Devil can go pretty much where he pleases."

"Really," I asked with mild surprise.

"Of course," asserted my cat, "besides, if you draw a circle with the express intention of keeping The Devil out, then inside the circle is the one place you can pretty much guarantee The Devil can be found."

"Inside the mind," I said as the truth dawned, "of those seeking to keep The Devil out."

"Indeed," said my cat. "Like I said, it's mostly psychology."

"So why do you mention it," I queried.

"Well," said my cat, "it's been in your mind for a while now. And you have to admit that it's an odd synchronicity."

"Certainly," I nodded. "Embarking on the Fool's Journey and finding my self being offered the support of a service called Fifteen on the day I was confronting The Devil does seem rather bizarre. Usually I would suggest it's not especially mentionable, most don't share my beliefs, but it did open some rather strange doors in the back of my mind."

"I would suggest," said my cat, "that numerical correspondence to the Tarot's Major Arcana would need to be highlighted to most."

"ecks-vee," I muttered, "Fifteen, The Devil."

"Odd isn't it," said my cat, "how the professionals witter on about not entering into the delusions of their patients and the system itself manages to enter right into the heart of what most consider to be your delusion."

"I would expect," I said to my cat smiling, "there's a point to this."

"I would expect so to," my cat smiled back. "If you ask me," she continued, "you should begin talking to aliens."

"Grrr," I replied with mock outrage, "last time an alien got involved publicly it was used to highlight the need for me to remain on a secure psychiatric ward."

"Sounds unfortunate," said my cat.

"You have no idea," I replied. For a moment I paused, "you know once people would pay to poke sticks at the mentally ill."

"And now," asked my cat.

"They get paid to sit on Mental Health Review Tribunals, and listen to medical staff make things up."

"Make things up," queried my cat, "surely not."

"No," I replied, "it's true. I made no reference to aliens other than to refer to a brand of computer. Yet something got in my notes and was used in the Tribunal to highlight my delusional state."

"But you did get a chance to rebut," said my cat with a puzzled look on her face.

"No," I replied, "the entire system was stacked against me. From social workers handing in inaccurate reports five minutes before the tribunal, to nurses who won't say boo to a doctor. Besides, you know how my personality fragments in unfamiliar situations."

"I think you're forgetting something," said my cat.

"Indeed," I replied, "there was one report written by a nurse who actually listened to what had been written in the notes, then listened to me."

"And what was special about that," asked my cat.

"The report was fair and balanced, but," I replied, "HE WAS SHOUTING WHEN HE WROTE IT."

"Hmm, I suppose you could say," said my cat, "his diagnosis was THE PATIENT IS SCREAMING IN AGONY AND THE DOCTORS HAVE MADE IT WORSE."

"Well," I replied, "I think the tribunal proved his case, don't you."

"Certainly, said my cat. "I should also suggest," she continued, "that the circumstances which lead you to the tribunal are relevant to this discussion."

"I'd rather not discuss it," I sighed, "it was all rather traumatic and I've been trying very hard to put it behind me."

"So you don't think it's relevant," said my cat, "that you were admitted to hospital voluntarily, and that you only found your way onto a Section following a rather unfortunate reaction to the medication you were given."

"It's relevant," I nodded, "I've since discovered the medication I was given is now contraindicated in cases such as mine. I'm more bothered by the memory of being physically assaulted by nursing staff and the injustice of the complaints procedure."

"Injustice," asked my cat.

"Certainly," I asserted, "finding there's no case to answer because the procedures that were followed consisted of little more than a review of medical notes written by those who assaulted me doesn't strike me as just."

"Although you did discover," said my cat, "a thing or two about the nature of things as a result of that complaint."

"Indeed", I nodded, "most notably that medication taken orally is assumed to be taken voluntarily, and there's clearly no requirement for a doctor to make a note of the physical threats made to a patient which lead to that patient accepting said medication."

"I have to say," said my cat with obvious concern, "that's not my understanding of the word voluntary."

"Apparently", I continued, "the Law actually says it's wrong for a doctor to bully and coerce their patients. As I discovered it's a Law that few feel the need to uphold."

"The difference between the Law," said my cat, "and the Lore, is that the Law is the line that is written, and the Lore is the line that is followed. It's not until you get up close and personal that it's possible to tell what's really going on."

"Which is probably why," I nodded, "bullying, coercion, and intimidation is rife, and yet nobody cares to do anything about it." For a moment I paused and considered my perspective. "Although that could just be a singular interpretation based on my experience."

"Seriously," said my cat, "you've spent enough time with others who've been abused within the psychiatric healthcare system to know that it's not just you who has experienced the inherently violent nature of psychiatry."

"On reflection," I nodded, "I have to say you're not wrong."

"There are far more subtle ways" said my cat, "to bend somebody to the will of another. The violent ways are easy to spot. The subtle ways are less so."

"What do you mean," I queried, "by that."

"Consider," said my cat, "what happens every time you attempt to address your concerns with regards to the variance between the treatment you are lead to expect to receive and the treatment you actually receive."

"Do I understand," I asked, "your are referring to my ongoing failure to access services and my failed attempts to refer concerns as to why this is so to a higher authority."

"Indeed," said my cat. "Tell me, how does your Social Worker respond when you begin asking for assistance."

"Mostly I get ignored," I conceded, "and when I begin to push it she begins to suggest discharging me from services. Then she quietly forgets I ever mentioned it."

"Which is why I suggest you talk to aliens," said my cat. "Because the evidence suggests that short of a miracle nobody on Earth is going to listen to a word you have to say."

"Sadly," I admitted, "I find I have to agree."

"Although you do have a trump card," announced my cat. "But I have to say that it's one you're unlikely to find yourself playing as long as you can continue to avoid tipping over into the kind of violent psychosis your prescribed medication seems to elicit."

"Please explain," I asked with obvious confusion.

"Well it seems to me the only time anyone pays attention to the mentally ill," she began, "is when they find their way onto the front page of a newspaper. At which point the inevitable witch-hunt triggers a raft of measures designed to repair public confidence in the system designed to ensure the public have nothing to fear from such people."

"Indeed," I agreed, "most of what occurred whilst I was in hospital had more to do with preemptive ass covering that it did to do with treating my obvious distress."

"In it's way," said my cat, "that behaviour exacerbated your underlying condition meaning in a very real sense you became more of a threat on discharge than you ever were before."

"Probably," I agreed. "But I'm still not sure I follow you."

"Well it wouldn't be hard," said my cat, "to find your way onto the front page of a newspaper. You could after all," she purred, "honestly claim The Devil made you do it."

"And just how," I asked, "would that help."

"You've been back-filling your disk-drive with your version of events since they threw you out of hospital. You've even managed to get certain strategic documents into the hands of all the major political parties. It's now reached the point where if you ever went bang there's little chance anyone could restore public confidence."

"All it would take is a single match," I agreed, "and the whole lot would go up in flames."

"Indeed," said my cat.

"And with that," said my other cat, "my work here is done."

Shadows of an Occluded Past.

"So what," I asked my cat as the tears streamed down my cheeks, "am I to do about his."

"To them," repied my cat, "this is all just fiction."

"It's not though," I said, as I tried to control the pain I felt within, "something which I could describe as fiction."

"No," said my cat as she placed a paw on my leg, "it's not fiction."

"Knowing you're there makes all the pain," I admitted, "worth something."

"But that," said my cat, "is not sufficient reason to live."

"No," I sobbed, "when I truly begin to understand how I'm treated I truly wish to die."

"You can't die," said my cat. "This is, I would imagine, the curse of imortality."

"Imortality," I laughed cynicly, "and where does that leave you."

"I never existed," said my cat, "and in it's way that gives me a free pass into heaven."

"But what about me," I cried as reality hit me.

"It's not a problem," said my cat, "you do, after all, have two keys on your key ring."

"Right now," I sobbed, "that doesn't help."

"Consider," said my cat, "the poem of the prostitute."

"Which prostitute," I asked as I wiped my face.

"The one you married," said my cat.

"Oh look," said my other cat with mild suprise, "there's an angel."

Toxic Jam

"So how do I," I asked my cat one evening, "talk about it."

"You could try not talking about it," suggested my cat. "But that's not likely to make them stop. So I suggest we use math to design a metaphor"

"I'm trying," I said, forcing a smile, "to keep it simple. All that number theory was fun, and I'm a big fan of prime, but it's a language few would understand."

"Then you could always," suggested my cat, "tell the truth"

"Once upon a time," I began, "challenging the operational paradigms of society was classed as heresy, in such times the guardians of truth would find some socially acceptable way to silence these heretics."

"Thankfully," smiled my cat, "we live in more enlightened times."

"Indeed," I nodded, "the vocabulary has much better words which may be used in place of 'heresy' and 'heretic'."

"Although," said my cat, "the lessons of history suggest that these heretics were, more often than not, the ones who were right."

"I sometimes wonder," I mused, "if the guardians knew they were in the wrong, and their censure was more to do with maintaining positions of power at any cost than upholding their stated principles of justice and truth."

"Indeed," said my cat. "In a secular society science has replaced religion, but realistically little has changed." With a sudden jerk she flicked her back paw out and began to lick furiously. "So," she continued, "what's brought this bout of angst on."

"I was at a meeting the other day," I ventured, "and things got rather nasty." I considered my next words carefully. "Another member of the group began to repeatedly suggest they'd spit in my water."

"That's unpleasant," said my cat.

"Said aloud," I continued, "I'd have been able to deal with it. My problem is that the individual in question was sitting on the other side of the room not saying a word."

"Now I begin," said my cat, "to see what your problem is."

"It's was not just the words either, there was a whole burst of spite wrapped up inside."

"Could you have been mistaken."

"Nope," I asserted, "I've gone to great lengths to prove it beyond reasonable doubt. The person in question has been being quite offensive for a while now. I even went to great lengths to confirm the voice I'd been hearing was not someone or something else."

"Sounds like a rather loathsome individual," said my cat. "The kind of mentality that likes to provoke others into unacceptable behaviour authority can recognize, then derives perverse satisfaction from avoiding the very punishments metered out to the supposed aggressor."

"Certainly," I agreed, "I've even had an associated ghost hit me at some very inopportune moments. Until I became wise to it it was ghosts such as these that were manipulating my behaviour in ways that even had me believing I was guilty of some quite awful things."

"Fetches," said my cat, "not ghosts. Although I am minded to suggest the heresies of which you speak would mandate medication if a psychiatrist got hold of you."

"Whatever they are," I concluded, "given that some of them seem determined to make family history repeat and the medication effectively turns off my sense of caller id, taking medication would seem to me to be the single most dangerous thing I could possibly do.

"Indeed," agreed my cat.

Since before I even met you.

Having just having just watched the repeat of Doctor Who late one Sunday evening I was sitting there, staring out the window, when my cat piped-up.

"Have you concidered writing dialouge?"

I was most startled. It was almost as if she was reading my mind.

"No, why?"

"No reason. It's just that you're wondering what you can do."

"Oh, Miss 'I can't read your mind'" thinking that nested quotes drive me spare, "you know this how?"

"Well," said my cat - pausing only to lick a paw, "sitting staring at your screensaver for more than thirty seconds usually means you're thinking 'what' kind of thoughts."

"Oh it does, does it?" I was getting irritated. Using her ears to punctuate does that to me. Not sure why. Envy I suppose.

"Anyway, I was thinking," she said, looking at me with big sad eyes, "perhaps dialouge would be a clever way of overcomming your fear of punctuation."

"I'm not afraid of punctuation!"

"Yes you are. And reading that Panda punctuation book didn't help."

"'Eats shoots and leaves'?"

"Yes. And your education didn't help"

"It didn't"

"No, see you never realised that the point was to learn stuff; you really did think the point was to get the highest marks; And you and I both know you could never really summon-up the enthusiasm to care about that"

Well I started wondering about normality.

"And?"

Well I've come to the conclusion that I'm atypical.

Great, so that makes you better than everyone else?

No. Because I've also decided that everyone is atypical; that words like 'typical' and 'average' only work when you consider the big picture; when you get down to the individual it all falls to pieces. It's a bit like quantum physics.

Is drawing parallels to physics in argument really necissary?

Well, no. it just sort of happens.

Hmm. particle-memetics; quantum-sociology; what next?

Not only that but I've also come to the conclusion that all concepts of 'right' and 'wrong' are arbitrary beause the drepend of fundamental assumptions which are little more than value-judgements.

"I'm a cat," my cat said as she stood and stretched. "I know the secret of the universe."

"Which is?"

"card-board."

"CARD-BOARD!?

"Yep; now, if you'll excuse me I need to go sit by my food bowl until you remember to feed me," as she flicked her tail and wandered off muttering something about 'Staff'.

It's been two years since I wrote this. Only now do I see what she meant. And now I see I knew it all along. I just didn't know I knew. Now I have a name for the ghost in my machine; together we'll find each other; My number is seven.

About this Blog

I've always felt blogging was a bit like Naturism. Interesting lifestyle choice, just not one I would choose to subscribe to. Only here I am writing a blog. What's going on?