I write;I think;I know.

9:[2009-01-22t11:50:01]

My psychologist asked me today if I could see myself returning to the rat race. Evoking an off-the-cuff response that had been growing in my mind for days. On my better days I've entertained the possibility of finding my way back. Technically I'm just as skilled as I ever was. Yet a brief encounter that world quickly turned one of my good days into one of my bad days. Showing me for certain how unpleasant it could be. Showing me why it is that I can never go back. It was easy to tell my psychologist this. The hard part for me is to find deeper understanding without loosing my equilibrium. To learn the lessons of my past. If can't go back I can evolve. Find another way. And so I find myself evoking the past looking for the person from the time before. The person logic tells me I was. Searching for the differences to explain what's changed.

There's a lot of dissonance in my mind right now. I find myself being pushed into realities that appear ever so slightly odd. It's as if my world is aligning itself to evoke the correct response. Such a thing is not uncommon. I'm somewhat used to it. A silent symptom none can assist me with because it's nothing they've ever experienced. It leaves me feeling trapped. Forever the outsider. Welcome to step inside, if only I could forget. When I do forget it is only on the surface. Deep down it's always there. Surfacing from time to time to assert itself until I grant it recognition. Now I find it's only by sharing that I may become its master. Discovering how wrong I was to repress it, for that grants it power over me.

I felt it this morning. That nameless something which lives in my soul. The thing which spins my mind around points in time and space. Filling my mind with memories I no longer recognize as being mine. If I could speak it's name I would render it powerless. Yet how can I name it when I can't even describe it. Attempts to use analogies and metaphors mostly fall on deaf ears. My words become the evidence to prove my illness. Few hear the meaning behind them. So let me share with you an insight. A simple metaphor designed to avoid long descriptions. Something which may perhaps grant you insight into me.

Imagine all you think you know about the human condition is wrong. That deep down where your concept of self resides there's but one single fundamental that defines what you are and how you interact with your reality. Are you a cat, or are you a dog? At first you may not see how important this fundamental is. Interpreting it as the insane utterings of a crazy fool. But if this is so then you are falling into a trap. The trap of allowing your senses to hand you assumptions that cannot be verified. Simply because things appear the same does not mean they are the same.

Watch a good documentary on the life of Tigers then follow it with one on the Wolf. Both creatures may look similar. Behaviourally and socially, however, they are very very different. Now look at the world around you. Watch the interactions between the people you see. At first you may not see much. In the adult world there is much which is displaced, concensus insists we are all the same, society therefore requires masks to be worn. So ignore adult interactions for the moment. Concentrate your attention on the interactions between parents and children. It won't take long before you begin to see the behavioural differences. The things which allow you to differentiate cats from dogs. It's probably nothing more than what kind of pet the parent had as a child. A temprement thing. The way authority is projected. The way dischord gets remedied. Something you wouldn't notice unless somebody told you to look.

Now imagine I was a cat. Lived amongst other cats. The epitome of average cat existence. I was only dimly aware of what I was. Just as I was only dimly aware of the existence of dogs. It was all just part of the way things just were. And things that just are fade into the background. Then something knocked me sideways. When I came to my senses both the world and I still appeared to be the same. But now I was a dog. A fundamental shift in my perception that changed me in ways I can't begin to describe. Even though the people around me said little I could see they had noticed I the change. Was I always different and repressed it, or did something actually change. Whatever the truth it had serious effect on the parameters of my existence.

Of course, I'm not a dog. I'm not even talking of cats & dogs. That's a synthetic duality, and I'm not even discussing dualistic entities. I'm talking about something else entirely. I wonder if you have sufficient insight to guess what it is.