The Entertaining Events of June (Prelude)

A week ago my nan died.

Nobody cares that much, she wasn't that nice of a person, and whilst the source of multiple entertaining stories (such as the one that's about to follow), she was mostly just a vicious alcoholic bint.  Shirley was a much much worse person, but she died long ago, and even less than nobody cared about that

By alcoholic, I do truly mean alcoholic.  The woman used to carry around a 2litre bottle of Gordon's Gin in her handbag 'just in case the pub ran out', which was a significant likelihood in her presence.  When she was told by her doctor that she had to drink less gin or she'd die, but she could have some red wine instead, she changed from 2 litres of gin per day, to a litre of gin and a litre of red wine.  Not quite what the doctor had in mind I guess, though to her credit, the woman drunk at that rate since her teens, and lived to seventy-something.  We reckon her internal organs were just permanently pickled, hence her longevity, despite a predispition for falling down marble staircases on cruiseships because she was so f*cking trollied.

But anyway, to the point of this post.  My nan died.  The funeral is on Thursday.  Now as I said, nobody really cares about this, however EVERYONE is going, due to the high chance of some WWF Smackdown-style action breaking out midway through the minister's eulogy.  There are some complicated reasons for this, as I shall explain below:

My nan had 3 daughters, Sue, Sandra, and my mum, Lyn.  This was the first mistake, the sisters were... well sisters, they covered for each other about boys, and then sold the other one out the next day.  They also did not have the best relationship with their 1950s/60s alcoholic-london dwelling-married to a sailor-mother, who in turn, had a very sour relationship with her own mother, my great nan, a truly amazing, formidable, and inspiring old woman, who died a few years ago god rest her eternal soul and all that.  My mother in fact has several deep rooted psychological issues/traumas due to the severity of her relationship with my nan, and moved out when she was very young to go live with my great nan instead it caused so many problems.  Obviously, this did anything but improve the relationship.

My mum married a man, Barry, and had 3 kids by him, 2 girls and 1 boy.  However this man, despite being lovely in public, was a rather abusive husband at home, and so my mum left him, met my dad, and had me.  This would not be so much of an issue, if it weren't for the fact that Barry's brother, Brian, married my mum's sister, Sue.  Thus my family is actually doubly related to each other, and has a lot of animosity between the various family units within it that alternately hate/feel betrayed/generally don't talk to each other.  Sue in fact, did not speak to my mother for the best part of 20 years.

Sandra and my mother continued to get on fairly well, until about 5 years ago, when an issue with my cousin Marie (Sandra's daughter) blew up into something disproprtionate, and then Sandra stopped talking to my mother too.  At my grandad's funeral (coincidentally, a year ago on thursday), my nan got herself so trollied she ended up in hospital having fallen over and smashed her hip, at which point my mum got so angry she stopped talking to my nan entirely - don't misunderstand, my nan didn't drink cause she was grieving, she drank because she's selfish, and was bitching about leaving the house even on the way to her husband's funeral.

All this makes you wonder why anyone is going to the funeral in the first place, continue on, dear reader, and discover the joys of having north london chav family members and how they make your life so much more interesting:

Upon my nan's death, Sandra rang Sue to tell her the news, and tell her not to go to the house; she'd taken care of everything and the funeral would be on 4th June.  Sue then rang my mum (not completely out of the blue; Sue had briefly spoken to my mum upon my grandad's death too) to pass on the message.  My mum said well she had no intention of going down to my nan's house anyway, and certainly wouldn't be attending the funeral, fair enough.  A few days later, my mum discovered on her desktop, a scanned in copy of my nan's will, which I'd taken the liberty of copying when I'd been preparing all the relevant paperwork concerning my grandad's death last year.  My mum rang Sue and mentioned this, and also that my dad and Sue's husband Brian, are the exectuors of the will, as indeed they were for my grandad.  Sue rang Sandra and said "oh Paul (my dad) has the will as the executor and has emailed me a copy."  Sandra blew a gasket and went completely off on one.  Sue rang my mum in tears confused and not understanding.  My mother, went hmmmm, this doesn't seem right, Sandra's up to something.  So Wednesday last week my mum picked up Sue in the car, and went off to Basingtoke to my nan's house.  Sandra, who had been checking in on my nan weekly for the last year whilst no-one else was talking to the woman, has had a key to the house.  The house was empty of all the good china and expensive jewellery, and all the financial documents relating to the estate had been removed and the folders emptied, and a WHSmith DIY power of attorney script was lying around in the study (it's almost as if she wanted us to know....)

Well, that explains Sandra suddenly going off on one when it turned out we had a copy of the will.  So Thursday, I went back with my mum to Basingstoke, and broke into the garage - the side door had had a freezer pulled in front of it so it couldn't be opened, and the main door had been locked shut.  I also superglued the front door shut, so Sandra's key is now useless.  My mum and Sue had had the foresight to borrow keys off the next door neighbour for the side door, and then switch they keys to some similar looking ones, before returning them, so my mum currently has the only access to the house, excepting Sandra breaking and entering (like I clearly haven't already) by smashing glass of some sort and thus being a little obvious.

Whilst there is legal recouse, nothing can currently be proved about Sandra's actions, any such action would be deducted as exectuor's costs from the estate, thereby reducing the value of what is already very little considering anything worthwhile has been stolen.  On top of this, the stuff stolen by Sandra, the moving of heavy freezers in front of doors etc, would have required help from either Sandra's husband, or her sons, my cousins, Paul and Neil, and given no-one has heard from anyone on that part of the family since, we're assuming they're all in on it in some way.

So, EVERYONE therefore, is attending the funeral, and anticipating a complete throwdown to occur.  The situation will be highly entertaining, and Sue, who as mentioned, didn't speak to my mum for the most part of 20 years, and I suspect after this concludes will return to doing so, has asked my mum to attend and 'stand next to her', because without my nan, whatever she was like, they wouldn't have their children and grandchildren and isn't family great and important and all that jazz.


Like I say, my nan was not a nice woman particularly, and won't really be missed that much, but she certainly provides the basis for a hell of a lot of interesting stories.  Watch this space for updates...


Music: http://open.spotify.com/album/1TfeiK8BINMfD8w0MIfyOD

These things I'll never say...

I sometimes wonder if I should post about certain things on this.  There's no active reason to post about them, but they're parts of my life that I never tell the truth about, and I know that I'm not telling the truth about them, and I know what the truth actually is, but there are parts of my life I'm ashamed of, parts of my life I don't want anyone to know about, parts I don't want to admit to, and parts I don't want to face up to.

Sure, everyone has secrets, and there are some secrets that you need, because they keep you sane, and because they make life run without a hollyoaks-style drama every single day.  There are some fundamental things about yourself you never reveal to anyone, not your parents, your brother, your best friend, your partner; there are parts of you that you just can't even into words, because the hurt is too great, because it's too traumatic, because you're too ashamed, because its the ugly truth.

But that's not really the point of this blog.  The whole idea is that I do admit to the things I otherwise wouldn't say to people, the hard cold facts about me, about what goes through my head, and the things that I've not been honest about with those closest to me.

But then, I'm scared.  Of what those people would think of me if I admitted these things.  Sure they love me, and yes I'm all emo and troubled and damaged and have bad things in my past.  But there are some truly dark things back there; some very old skeletons buried very deep in my non-gay closet.  Would you think differently of me?  Would you wonder why I lied to you, when I know you'd still accept me, even if you did think of me differently?  Would you ask why I told you half the truth, when I could have just told you nothing at all instead?  Would you want to know why these things ever occured in the first place?  Would you still love me if I told you I bury it so deep, because it's not my past, it's my present too, I just don't want anyone to know?  Would I have answers to any of these things?


Maybe some things aren't meant to be shared.  Ever.  Maybe there are secrets you take to your grave, to protect yourself, if not those around you.  I'm certainly not ready to share them with you just yet...


Mood: Good weekend

Music: http://open.spotify.com/album/1V9bNNe17UvwtCVGNb3jAn

All of the feelings unspoken

"Smile though your heart is aching 
Smile even though it's breaking 
When there are clouds in the sky, you'll get by 
If you smile through your fear and sorrow 
Smile and maybe tomorrow 
You'll see the sun come shining through for you 


Light up your face with gladness 
Hide every trace of sadness 
Although a tear may be ever so near 
That's the time you must keep on trying 
Smile, what's the use of crying? 
You'll find that life is still worthwhile 
If you just smile"


Today was one of the hardest I've ever had in my life.  I'd forgotten how bad the feeling of irreconcilable loss could be.  Mostly cause despite the various things that have happened in my life, I've only truly suffered it once in the past 10 years.  One was the Sam issue, which fucked me up for 2 years, the other was failing my JAA Class 1 last year, the fallout of which is still occuring.  These are also the only 2 things I've really cried over in the past 10 years.  Excepting Dawson's Creek, Titanic, and Chris that is.  Chris occasionally makes me cry, but that's relationship upset, not genuine loss or grief.  These things have made me cry more than once sure, but its all stemmed back to one of those two causes.  I tell you this to impress upon you the point, as if I hadn't enough in previous posts, that I do not cry easily, quickly, readily or simply.  I have to experience a complete loss of control over myself for it to happen, and being the sort of person I am, the severity of a cause needed to overcome the control I can muster is exceptional indeed.

Today was one of those days.  I watched one of my best friends, a guy I love (n.b.  no, not another one I'm in love with, just one I love, dearly, call it an exceptional fondness it that makes it easier to comprehend what he means to me), who's incredibly special to me, walked out of my life.  Quite possibly forever.  And whilst he didn't do this out of choice - his visa was due to expire - and whilst he intends to return, there are possibilities that he might not.  Family situations are complicated at home, coming back is exceedingly costly and complicated procedure, immigration systems worldwide are designed to keep people out, rather than flooding both affluent, or resource starved countries.  And on top of this, being one of my friends, there's always the considerable risk of suicide.  Not to mention freak acts of god(s) or natural occurances leading to death or some form of incapacitation.  And whilst the boy has promised to ring me before he jumps off the chair with the rope around his neck, so I can at least tell him he's awesome and I'll miss him, I don't like the idea that I may, for a multitude of reasons, have seen him for the last time ever tonight, and certainly for the last time in quite a while.

And I was doing really really well at being the friend with the brave face.  I was doing it for 4 of us.  I was smiling, and joking, and insulting him in a friendly manner, and forcing my words out through the lump in my throat, because no words needed to be said.  Because I have always had Joel's empath ability with Ryan; he doesn't need to tell, or even hint at a thing, because I already know what he's feeling.  The best compliment I ever recieved off Ryan, was a simple "thank you" (actually, it was "thanks heaps"), because it said so much.  Ryan's worse than me for hiding his emotions and being uncomfortable with people discovering the real him.  Imagine me, raised to the power of me multiplied by me cubed.  That's pretty much Ryan's level.  So the empathness is great.  We appear awkward with each other, but it's because we just don't need to say much to each other; we know and understand everything that's unsaid between each other without even acknowledging its existence in the first place.  On the rare occasion we do express some form of emotional attachment towards each other its quiet, subdued, barely audible, and very awkward.  Like 2 straight men admitting they love each other in a completely macho way.  I spent Monday evening with him, and about the most we managed to say to each other with any seriousness about his impending departure was very quickly glossed over "I'll miss you" from the both of us.  At the airport today, I even managed the goodbye hug without breaking down.  Sure, I wasn't saying much because if I opened my mouth I would have started crying, and I held him as much as I could -  Ryan gives the best hugs of anyone I know, except possibly Jme - but I managed a weak smile and stayed the strong supportive type against Ryan and Zac (the other one had left us by this point) who were both quivering messes.  Ryan waited till the last minute, and then went off into the cordoned security area.  But came back for that one last hug across the barrier just before he turned that final corner that would take him out of view, and out of our lives, for the foreseeable future...

And at that point I lost control.  Like I say, I'd forgotten how bad the feeling of genuine grief is.  Because whilst no, he's not dead, it is nonetheless a genuine loss, and promotes genuine grief.  And I hate crying, because it never achieves anything, especially given I only cry over the inevitable, and I hate what it symbolizes in me.  The amount of control that has been completely overwhelmed in order to turn me into a sobbing emotional wreck that I can't reassert any decorum over until its done, no matter when or where I am, no matter who's around me.  When you're the quintessential publicly emotionless male, this is a lot.  The opening scene from love actually was pretty much permanently in my head (and incidentally I do agree with it - you can find the greatest of emotion at the airport, love, relief, regret, grief, fear, anger, sorrow, its all there in its most beautiful and raw form).  I watched him leave, completely at the mercy and whim of the tears streaming down my face, the emotion welling up inside me and overflowing out of me in every form possible that didn't involve soiling myself.  

And whilst I'm annoyed at myself for it all, at the same time I guess it's good.  That he was able to see that he meant that much to me, that when it came down to it, my body didn't give me a choice over expressing my emotions towards him, it forced them out of me against my will and showed him all the things we'd never said to each other, as we stood, 50 ft apart, looking at each other, physically and mentally traumatized by the loss of the only person who could possibly ever understand a part of us.

The universe had a cruel sense of ironic humour when it decided the first song on my music player after leaving him would be 'Smile'.  Next magical project I'm working on is a permanent shield for my mp3.  The universe delights far too much in fucking around with the shuffle feature on that according to my mood.  I'm beginning to feel a little like Anton from Night/Day/Twilight/Last Watch.

Come back to us soon Ryan.

Come back to me.

Mood: Emotional wreck, more bouts of crying likely over next week or two.

Music: Some VNV on my phone, notably Beloved.  None of the VNV on Spotify, hence on phone, and no link.

The natural frequency

My flatmate's friend found my blog.  Randomly it appears.  And she read it, and then drunkenly informed me the other night that whilst, in some of it, I do come across as psychotic, which is understandable really; it's me, that a lot of what I said made sense and it was reassuring to read someone else being like that.  She told me how great it was that I'm so honest with what I write on here.  I confessed that I've often thought about deleting things here, or re-editing them, or clarifying them, but that would defeat the point of the blog.  I'm trying to write the things I don't have the confidence to tell people, the little white lies, and darker, that just make life simpler.

One post that does seem to have resonated with a lot of you, is my post about lying.  I've had a surprising/worrying amount of you messaging me, talking to me, IMing me, whatever, saying how you related to it.  Most especially the point about not being able to tell the difference between your truths, and the lies you've convinved yourself are true.  Maybe this says more about the kind of people I have in my life, that the generality of my psychotic musings...

In the spirit of truth however, I am compelled to write, that my flatnate's friend naturally told my flatmate about my blog.  This being the flatmate I bitch about in a previous post.  And drunkenly she ended up tlaking to me about it.  I fairly honestly, explained that it was largely a week where a character trait of hers was particuarly pissing me off, and normally it doesn't and I do it too, but sometimes things just piss you off about people.  And whilst she drunkely blew it off, the fact she kept mentioning it gives me the impression that it really bothered her.  She's a lot more fragile than she'd like anyone to think, or me to acknowledge on this blog, which she will now inevitably read, but I think what I said got to her in that paranoid was that eats at you.  I don't particuarly feel bad about this, not to say I'm glad about it either, but it was just an interesting observation.

Finally, I have, for the first time, posted more blog posts than there are days in the month.  And there's still a week to go, whoo!

No pain; no gain.

Buffy sums up this blog post, so just read this if you want to skip my musings:

"Here's the thing. There's moments in your life that make you. That set the course of who you're going to be. Sometimes they're little, subtle moments. Sometimes... they're not. I'll show you what I mean.

In the end, you're always by yourself. You're all you got -- That's the point.

Bottom line is, even if you see them coming, you're not ready for the big moments. No one asks for their life to change, not really. But it does. So what are we, helpless? Puppets? No. The big moments are going to come. You can't help that. It's what you do afterwards that counts. That's when you find out who you are. You'll see what I mean."


So yeah big moments.  Relationships, crisis points, deaths, births, moves, jobs, traumas, hurts, heartbreaks: they come, we all face them, it's called life.  I try to live my life with no regrets, currently there's only one thing I regret, and even still I'm not sure I'd have chosen differently given a second chance - I'll blog about this soonish.  Despite all the badness in a life, all the hurts, all the pain, all the things that fucked you up as a child, all the medcial issues so many of my friends have had, all the lost loves, the ones who died, the friends who killed themselves, the heartbreak of the relationships that didn't work out, the fights with the parents, the loss of best friends, all these things, they make you who you are.  You grow stronger from them, you learn lessons, lessons which you have to learn 10 more times over before you understand them, they feed into you and form the person you've come to be.  They've led you to the life you've led,  Each bad occurance, each time you become a victim of circumstance, each trial you have to endure, every wrong decision, have all led you just as equally, to the right ones you've made, and have yet to make, in your life.  People talk about how they wish x hadn't happened, or that they'd done y differently, or their childhood had been different, even I do, and I'm not denying that some people have had truly awful and pitiable lives, nor am I denying that there haven't been pains I've wanted to suffer on behalf of friends, so they didn't have to feel them.  But i think its stupid to realistically want to give up these bad parts of you.  You might as well give up the good parts of you.  A million and one different things would have changed because you turned left instead of right. 

You might argue, but they didn't make me stronger, I'm now shy and socially awkward, but maybe, one day, you'll meet a guy, or girl, who's attracted to you because you're not working your way round the room, because you like to read, because you'd rather sit in the corner and ignore the world that down another shot, so take it as it comes.

The bad moments will happen, I can't help that I'm afraid.  So embrace them.  Hate them.  Cry about them.  Attack them.  Drink them into oblivion.  Lose yourself in them.  Or not.  Ignore them.  Be positive.  Always look to the future.  See the silver lining.  Whatever works.  There is no wrong response.  Even those that end in jail.  I'm not saying people have a destiny.  I'm saying take something from the big moments, a lesson, a feeling, a new band that an ex introduced you to, whatever it is.  But learn to accept them as part of you.  All those bad things gave you the good memories you have.  You have your childhood best friend precisely because of all the shit you suffered.  You had that great day out precisely because you went out with that cheating insensitive bastard.  You ended up travelling like others only dream about precisely because you were broke and homeless and ended up hitchhiking to escape yoru life. 

"From such small things, from such critical points, the universe and its masses may be moved..."


P.S.  Nathan has just informed me that if you now google 'osmosifying' my blog is in the search results.  It's my way of giving back to the world, little by little.

What does a scanner see...?

I can see past your lies, your deceptions, your attempts at covering up just how nervous you feel, that fake laughter whilst you slag me off in your head, that trying-to-be-cool demeanour so I'll be interested in you.  Most of it anyway.

In the past, say... 3 years I've gotten really rather good at reading people.  And I never used to be.  I still fuck up, and I'll miss all the obvious stuff, and if you're my boyfriend, then I miss all the non obvious stuff too - sorry, blind spot so to speak - I'm not good with reading facial expressions, but I have developed the ability to read body language, to pick up on habits people have, to notice behavioural patterns, to take note of what they say, rather that necessarily how they're saying it.  For this ability I largely blame/thank Joel and Lisa.

I think it all started with Classics Play '08 (I say it like that to make it sound cool, and not just a geekfest for those who want to make themselves feel important and feed their need for attention and power).  Lisa was directing Agamemnon, and I was PMing.  But also sort of asst. directing, and half producing, as she was running every idea past me 3 months before it ever actually got announced to the rest of the production team due to the nature of our friendship.  Luckily, this worked out quite well, and we're theatrical producing duo that can actually stay friends through working together, which is INCREDIBLY rare in my experience.  It's like living with people you were in halls with; all too often, it goes horribly wrong where it seemed such a good idea way back in September.  Anyway, back to the point - Lisa is a very observant person.  She's totally make a good bene gesserit in geekworld.  She picks up on things that people wouldn't even realise they give away about themselves.  Stance, posture, patterns of speech, how they change according to the situation they're in.  And somehow, I absorbed all this, and started doing it subconsciously to other people in my life, though of course, nowhere near as well as she does.  And then I did the play this year again, and I got round 2 of that whole learning experience, and by just seeing how she is with people, I realised just how little I still know about this

This taught me a lot about body language and speech mannerisms.  It's actually quite astounding how much people give away through this.  I mean sure, everyone gives stuff away through it, but its astounding that even people who are actively trying to cover these things up still reveal so much.  You'd need some serious psychological training and a strong conscious override of your subconcious to make things undetectable.  But even then, I've had no 'training' and have manged to pick up the tricks to read people with, someone who was trained to do it might notice even then.

And then I met Joel, and he's an empath, and we got an instant subconscious connection,  and he reads me better than anyone else in the world, much to my usual annoyance when he manages to get straight to the point of what I'm actually feeling even when I'm stressing about something completely different.  And I can do it back to him, which equally, irritates him.  It's incredibly useful at times, and works on a completely bizzare level which most of you will find odd.  It is actual mindreading more or less.  We can sense feelings, thoughts, see images and memories and do a whole 'The Shining' deal with not needing to talk or even be in the same room to communicate with each other.  ANd from Joel, I've picked up paying attention to what people say, not the mannerisms and quirks and idiosyncracies in how they talk, but their phrasing; how they answer questions, how they avoid leading you down certain routes by their choice of vocabulary; how they do it all without the use of stress, so that you won't notice.  And strangely, since having this link with Joel, I seem to have picked up a little bit of his empathness, or I channel it; either's possible with me and Joel., but regardless, I have a better emapth ability.  And I was a fairly empathetic person to begin with.  But I'm not a lot better at just 'sensing' when something's wrong, and analyzing the situation without consciously thinking about it, recognising when certain tactics aren't working, and knowing what the right questions to ask are.

It's both a blessing and a curse, as Joel will know all too well.  This ability to read people is great, noticing these different unintentioned aspects of people can get me so many places with them, and I don't mean that in a manipulative way... largely, but it has its drawbacks, it takes some of the thrill of guessing out, it makes certain situations that much harder to bear when you're trying to talk to someone in distress, and you're the one trying not to cry, because you can feel how badly they want to.  And its a bit like the witchblade: its an ability that abandons you when you most need it, its hard to turn inwardly, its hard to turn on those closest to you, both out of a sense of respect for personal privacy, and some form of blind spot that just seems to occur on those kind of matters.  But largely, its very useful, and I'm glad I've picked this ability up so much in the last few years.

prāṇa-bindu

I learn a lot through osmosifying things. I'm rarely aware of *how* I learn certain tricks, techniques, pieces of information, and Chris will often ask me how I know something obscure; it's not that I've forgotten where I learnt it, I honestly can't imagine any situation where I would have learnt it, and neither can Chris, which is why he's asking in the first place. It's like children learning to walk, or talk, or interact with their environment as a baby. You just sort of pick things up. And it doesn't need to happen more than once; everyone knows you only need to say a swear word around a 4 year old and they'll be screaming it aloud all day long, even though you said it completely inconspicuously. But I learn a lot this way. I learn very well practically too; my revision technique is simply to write the information out a few times, its not the rereading it, or even the thinking about it, the simple process of writing it out 2-4 times works it into my head perfectly. I don't like to read instruction manuals; I can pick up new pieces of software, or new game controls very quickly, because I find what works. It took me about 3-4 years to work out where things are in Chris' parents' kitchen, simply because every time he asked me what I was looking for, rather than letting me open and close all the cupboards and drawers whereupon I would have learnt the entire layout in a few visits; I've mostly got there now, but even still I'm not 100% certain.

You know that whole concept of the minutiae of observation in the Dune universe for the Bene Gesserit.  I'm fully of the opinion that can be real.  Not the magic wierding voice level of it, but I really do believe there is so much we can/could learn, if only we knew how to look for the signs.  It's all a matter of training, and conscious awareness, and then transferring that conscious awareness into a subconscious reaction.  It's just an extension of survival techniques really.  Example: I sleep very heavily, people have clogdanced outside my room (I shit you not), we've had firemen all over the house drinking cups of tea after the house next door almost burnt down, with sirens blaring still, and lights flashing, and I've slept through all of it.  But the second someone opens my bedroom door, or even just sets foot inside the boundary of my room if I've left the door open, I wake up.  Chris can be in the room whilst I'm sleeping and playing music or shooting things in games and wandering round and I'll be fine and undisturbed, but every time he goes to the bathroom, or to get a drink, I'll wake up, just slightly; enough for me to assess any threat and either get a jolt of adrenaline, or fall back to sleep if all is fine.  Every.  Single.  Time.  And it seems to me that this is a survival technique, inbuilt through evolution, or designed by god if you prefer, but its based on arbitrary boundary.  A rocket can kill me in my sleep, you attempting to creep into my room, even making no noise, will not, or at least, not in my sleep, I'll be awake and expecting you.  My body picks up on the slight noise, the change in air currents in the room, the slight shift in temperature as air starts to mix with the hallway; the minutiae of observation is there, it's instinct, it's designed to keep you alive.  We just need to become aware of it, and make it a heightened awareness.

In fairness, I'm a big proponent of mind-over-matter theories.  Stories of people trapped overriding their own bodies natural processes - cutting off limbs, eating through things; stories of incurable medical problems disappearing with no explanation, they fascinate me.  Sure I know its not a frequent occurrence, and the evidence is debatable, but I believe there is enough evidence that it must be true to a decent extent, an extent worth investigating.  Facing what it perceives to be a threatening situation, the brain initiates a chemical response in the body that increases your strength exponentially.  In order to avoid emotional pain the brain will preferentially endure physical pain instead.  And what the brain percieves to be a threatening situation can be very very interesting; consider that simply waking up late for work can initiate a flight-or-flight response in order to make you awaken that much quicker and get out the door running to the bus; this is modern day survival perhaps, but not evolutionary.  Given an emotional or physical pain of an excessive quantity, the brain will simply turn off its reaction to it for a time.  To the extreme of comatose in some cases.  The mind is truly a powerful thing, and we don't understand so much of it.  Trying to understand that an electrical impulse can promote a chemical reaction that is an emotion I call love, or fear, or doubt, or anticipation, or whatever makes the entire universe discombobulate in my head and its not pleasant.  But I love the fact that with a hell of a lot of willpower, you can do so much, you can overcome instinct and natural impulse, you can throw yourself into a burning building to rescue a complete stranger, you can throw yourself to your death, you can push yourself to run that last mile.  Psychological therapy can fix childhood traumas or provide relief from mental problems themselves.  I met a therapist the other week, and he was explaining this fascinating technique of getting people into trance, and then getting them to conjure what's troubling them in one hand, and it might be a noise, it might be an image, anything sensory, and then in the other hand, he gets the person to conjure the part of the brain that has the solution, and his role in the therapy is that he gets these two parts of a person to talk to each other, and in doing so, he can solve problems.  But he explained that what's beautiful about this technique, is a person doesn't need to be consciously aware of what's holding them back, from quitting smoking, from confidence issues, from a bad relationship with their mother, they don't need to know exactly what the underlying cause is, the brain already knows.  And the person doesn't need to know consciously how to solve it either.  It's all done on a subconscious level through clinical trance work.  I think that kind of potential for mindworking is phenomenal.  Mind-over-matter concepts are one of the reasons I love trance work, there's so much untapped potential in the mind and most people don't appreciate or even acknowledge the fact.

If someone was opened to these kind of things, mental conditioning techniques, acute observation of their environment, psychological training, from a young age, just as they learnt to walk, to talk, to understand and interpret that very environment, something great could occur.  Possibly terrible, but that doesn't mean it wouldn't be great.  I think this is where the future of the human race lies in all honesty.  Not the near future, but the 500-1000 year future, the future of genetic engineering, the future of designer babies, of VR worlds and implant technology, the future of Minority Report, and Dune, and Star Wars, that aren't entirely different from our own, just not realisable yet.  But someday, I think a current lifetime's research work of mental processes will be part of the everyday upbringing of a child, and none of us will have the privilege of seeing it