Paranoia -- One Slip, I'm a Goner

At the moment I'm alone. Looking over a barren land, I see the sky a weird reddish color, kind of like you get with Hipstamatic's Bettie XL lens. Of course I'm displeased with that, preferring the exuberance of Lucifer VI with the more realistic tones of Ina's 1969.

It's a day for reflection and a little relaxation, I hope, although the dangers are still very real. A few of you have asked about my bout with Paranoia. So I shall answer. First, I shall climb a nearby promontory -- inching toward the top, up I go, slipping occasionally -- and, OK, an hour later, here I am, looking over an alien vista. Now I shall proclaim!

In the last 24 hours I've been beset with enemies, dimensions of Paranoia that were very weird and very frightening. I found myself in something like the Baskervilles' moors. I'll just tell you one thing, and I'm putting this out there free: Avoid moors, glens, dales, valleys, depressions, bogs, and fens ... If you can't find a high place, go up medium height, definitely not low.

At it happens, water is generally low. Which is part of the problem. Because every variety of pest, vermin, and wildlife -- including the dangerous stuff -- goes there. Now ask yourself, what's the one thing something wants if it has water to drink? Yes, something to eat. As it is in the everyday world, so it is in the psychic realm of Paranoia. The low places are dangerous, and you'd make a great meal.

Well, I opened myself up to all this danger! The entire thing was a disaster, fire ants, fire snakes, the fire variation of every cursed creature ever cursed with horrid life. I made a vow, No mercy for the evil and ugly! To the extent, then, that I could fulfill it -- locally here -- I brought down a serious cudgel on the heads of many creatures. While sustaining bites to my left leg, my right leg, and both arms. If I'm a little grumpy, that's why. One slip and I'm a goner!

Now on higher ground, I look out over the vast wasteland and proclaim: My mind is in high gear. I see the synapses of my brain very much alive, running over both theory and practicum, concerning the things of Paranoia. What a rush! Not just to feel Paranoia's strong drive in real time, but to behold (in 3D) a simultaneous understanding! Soon I shall crash and sleep, but not in a valley!

Here's three things about Paranoia to think about:

1) Paranoia is a response accrued from the realities of life that thwart our desires. We've gone from magical enemies (demons) to the more realistic, 'Everything's out to get me.' Our thinking may be distorted but at least there's evidence you can point to.

2) At the root of Paranoia is the fear of death. 'What I'm afraid of will eventually kill me.' The unrealistic side of it is, You're not dead yet, so you must be doing something right. Bring in that aspect of things to calm the paranoid side.

3) You wouldn't have Paranoia if you dwelt in your natural being. This goes with the fear of death. Our huge concern for our fate represents a duality split, our natural focus being off. Two minds going two ways, as "para" and "noia" mean two minds side by side, like parallel. With a greater drive toward mental unity, Paranoia would have to work harder to drive me. Obviously I'm not saying be happy and die. I'm still going to look both ways before crossing the street. With understanding, though, and getting back our unity, we have the wherewithal to live more peacefully.

All that said, Get me the hell out of this terrible place! I realize fire snakes have to eat, too, and aren't particularly picky. The key for me not to get eaten is to avoid them. OK, easy enough, no more valleys. If I see a valley coming, I'll stay up here on the hill till they're asleep.

As I contemplated this wisdom, I witnessed a sudden flash vision, in Hipstamatic tones alternating between the subdued haziness of Adler 9009 and the golden tones of James M. Before me, I beheld Sister St. Rita of Cascia with Desi the Donkey. Desi came up and nudged me in the side, as if to tell me I had his full support. The beloved Saint was more circumspect, adding to my understanding of Paranoia. She reasoned with me how little, to this point, I had thought of my intelligence, allowing myself to become the prey and the slave of Paranoia. With her mild upbraiding, I felt embarrassed and actually ashamed, but looked ahead to being fully calm and recollected. The vision melted away.

I'm looking ahead to a lot more. If I finally get home to stay, I'll never go roaming anywhere ever again. And I'll let Paranoia work for me, not against me. Heh heh, how about I combine my two minds, then with stereo thinking -- a little this side, a little that -- I'll be on top of every difficulty. Worth a try!

OK, I'm going to descend for a while, and try to fill my canteen. I think the fire snakes are asleep. Their evolution must have been such, indicated by the fire for light, that they sleep during the day and crawl nocturnally. Unless they want to sleep nocturnally and the fire's for warmth.

I'm hoping the biggest problem I have is filtering the water. Looking brownish/yellow as it does, it's kind of what you'd get if you photoed water and used Buckhorst H1 with Cano Cafenol and pictured the muck of Float on the edges! Whoa! When it comes to drinking water, give me something closer to Jane/Sugar every time!

5 Scenarios How My Life Might've Gone

For this you gave me life? Was this your intention when you brought me into the world? Is this the life I'll always have or should I expect another? Woe is me!

Probably all of us, the frequency depending on how terrible things have gone for you, have considered our lives and whether they're all they could have been. It's just something you do, no matter how vain, no matter how fruitless, especially in those times of the greatest loneliness, heartache, and despair. I've done it many, many times, and I've got the bruises on my forehead and the damage on the drywall to prove it.

O! Could things have gone differently? Just a little tweak here or there, a road, a path not taken, a fork in the road I straddled! What would it have taken? More education, psychiatric help, lessons in elocution, or perhaps dancing? I'm as good as anyone else, right? Two arms, two legs, my only real flaw my painful game toe, but if I keep my shoes on, no one sees it.

We take stock like that, which basically comes down to comparing ourselves with others. Again, no matter how vain or fruitless it is. Because wish as you may ... the face in the mirror is always the same. Even though I still have the theory -- and I hope someone will back me up on this -- that if you sit and meditate strenuously enough that your inner essence will rise through your head and you can take possession of some other life form, be it animal, mineral, or another person. I've tried it enough. But my essence always ends up on the couch, looks around and gets scared, and immediately rushes back home.

Until I get that right, I really only have two choices: 1) Be content and even thankful that I am who I am and make the most of it, a very levelheaded approach; or, 2) Waste my life by stewing over it, always imagining, always wondering how life might've gone, if only ... Given the choice, then, and stating it clearly like that, and being fully aware that Number 1 is the only real option, I'm taking Number 2.

SCENARIO 1 - Things could've been much worse. I could've been born in an oddball place, to totally strange parents, and been a mangled physical wreck right from the start. Like some of the gator catchers, turtle catchers, cat whisperers, hog-fishers, and other assorted human vermin on current reality TV shows. Still, the advantage those folks have over me is that they do have TV shows, and they're making big money, because the weirder the better. But my advantage is long-term, because those shows will go out of favor someday, and in their despondency they'll get eaten.

SCENARIO 2 - I might've pursued a life in politics. They emphasized politics and government when I was in school, since it was a time when they were pushing for 18-year-olds to vote, and idealism was rife. We thought we could change the world; other kids thought that. Fortunately, I was one of the few who was able to look at it all askance, knowing that politics is a complete dead end. If you want to be instantly corrupted, go into politics! You're always in someone's pocket, your service is worthless to the general public, and no one likes you. Look at it this way: We've had politics forever and Republicans still exist. That's not progress.

SCENARIO 3 - I should've learned music. Seriously. I see someone playing the piano and I think, That could've been me! Or the guitar, which I can play half ass. Or the auto-harp, to me a complete mystery. Or the harmonica. I seriously think I could've been a major star, one of those guys who comes out with long tails and bows five or six times, lights his candelabra, and enthralls the people with yet another version of "Voices of Spring," which I know from the Three Stooges movie, Micro-Phonies. I often think of the Three Stooges when I hear other guys singing classical music, like arias, and how they shot grapes and bananas with their fingers into the singer's mouth. That might be why I never learned music.

SCENARIO 4 - I might've gotten a better education. As it was, I couldn't wait to get out of school. I think it was the 4th grade, after we learned arithmetic, that I figured up by addition precisely (more or less) how many days it was till I graduated. Then I stole about 130 rolls of toilet paper from the pantry and had it strung all over my room, so I could pull off one small sheet for each day of school that went by. It was OK till about the 8th grade, when my dad finally decided enough is enough. He came in and literally tore down one whole corner, and ended up wiping his ass with my whole junior year.

SCENARIO 5 - I could've run away and who knows what might've happened! It's just like in time travel movies, change one little thing and everything else changes. Let's say I had run away after my dad did that. I always had this theory that I could run very far to the north if I just set my mind to it. I sort of halfway tried it once and stepped on a thorn before I got out of town and had to go home and go to the emergency room. But my theory still stands. If I could avoid thorns, I could run far, far away.

Then I'd get a job with a carnival or circus, like Toby Tyler, and meet all sorts of interesting people. I might've charmed the Snake Woman and started a little brood of my own. Or, who knows? A wayward evangelist might've kidnapped me and taken me on the road, having me repeatedly saved and/or healed in his services. He could've performed the lengthening-the-short-leg trick on me. Then we would've sent KFC buckets through the congregation, getting enough love offerings to be rich.

At some point, no doubt he would've caught me in the embrace of a naked girl in a barn, and from there the imagination just has to assume my life would've been one happy ending after another, with her or others. Continuously rolling in the hay, all over the country, going from barn to barn. Which I'd still be doing today. Rolling in the hay and rolling over and saying, "Was it good for you?"

The Pit Version Of Everything Else

I'm bustin', I have to get it out of my system. I'm putting out another virulent, heartfelt condemnation of pit bulls everywhere. When God created the pit bull, let's face it, He was in a bad mood. He threw the damned thing out there and said, "Yes, it sucks, but I bet you can't make one better." To which we said, "True, but if you think this is good, you're insane!"

I wrote about pit bulls earlier, getting me an insane amount of publicity from pit bull lovers. Yes, there's such a thing! Just like there's lovers of women sitting on men's faces and lovers of snuff films. There's lovers of every crazy ass thing, including pit bulls.

Anyway, what has got me in this freaky snit about pit bulls all of a sudden? I'd let the fervor die down for quite a while. Well, it seems, I had a terrible experience with a pit bull downtown just today. We were walking up the sidewalk and a couple was walking three dogs, none of them a pit bull. Just then, here comes another couple the other way, with a pit bull. The pit bull took one look at the three dogs and went ballistic, struggling to get to them, making all kinds of fearsome noises, tugging with all its might, etc. And I'm right there! This berserk dog might've gotten me as collateral damage. The owner cussed a bit about it and kept going. The stinking dog was tugging hard, like a marlin on a rod and reel!

We got where we were going, a restaurant, where I was finally able to catch my breath. Naturally, that was the topic of conversation, how anyone could take one of these vicious monsters out in public, especially when we all know people bring their normal dogs downtown all the time. What? Are they willing to let their dog maul other dogs, just for the excitement of it? There's also little kids. Who knows how long it'd take to maul them if it took a mind to? Five seconds?

After a while, having survived, and having not lost my appetite to the sight of three dogs being eaten on the sidewalk, we started laughing about it. That's a great way to deal with trauma: Horray, we survived! But of course the dog is out there somewhere ... so maybe we won't be so lucky next time.

Our conversation veered off to a discussion of, What if everything else had a "pit bull" version, a "pit version"? Like cats. I guess the pit version of the cat has to be the lion or tiger. So cats are covered. But how about birds? There aren't that many vicious, berserk birds. They're extinct if they ever existed. You see a bird and it can't wait to get away from you. They're basically not attacking each other either. The ones at my bird feeder definitely coexist. I was thinking maybe an owl would be a good pit version, since they always seem like they're waiting, waiting, waiting, sitting and waiting. They could swoop in and go nuts.

And it's obvious we have the pit version of human beings. They're the disgusting creatures who show up and shoot 70 people in a theater or temple or military base or political gathering. I saw an article about the guy who shot Gabby Giffords, just a picture of him, and I forgot what tragedy he was part of. Then I was reminded, "Oh yeah, that guy." He looks something like a pit bull. And the suspect in the theater shooting, shave his head and he'd resemble a pretty good pit version of a human being.

How frightening, these pit specimens! Fortunately, we still love dogs, not lumping them together with their weird pit relation. Not too many intrinsically pit versions in other species. Snakes. I don't care for snakes at all, but some are worse than others. Elephants. Once in a while one goes rogue. Etc., etc., etc.

But for all that, the pit bull stands alone. As much as pit bull owners want us to think they're loveable and great, the evidence is as close as the sidewalk today ... what a crap dog.