Before I preface this quote, I think it is important to say that you should never praise or glorify a mental illness. You should praise the person who has the mental illness, and their actions (if they are constructive, of course) . I do not think it is fair to condone mental illnesses and shame people for having them. Or to put mental illnesses on some sort of glorification pedestal. Mental illnesses are pity worthy, but pity in itself is not praiseworthy. Sympathy and pity are very different from praise and glorification. One should not want a mental illness only for sympathy and pity either.

I've always felt ashamed to express what I felt, simply because I did not want to "glorify" a mental illness. When really, I was taking a large chunk of myself out of the equation. The fact is, I have this. It is part of me. It is difficult. But I should not try to tidy up myself and dress myself and my work up in ribbons and try to draw things that do not express how I feel. The key to making the art that I've always wanted was expression. I was never putting myself into my artistic equation. I was actually removing myself, staying thematic, staying methodical and analytical with what I was drawing. Is it a sphere? good. shade it this way. Blue is a nice colour for this object. This is a bird. It is a cockatiel. This is a painting. I made it.

It was never based on feeling or emotion. Not joy, not sorrow, not weariness, not happiness. Clear. methodical. processed. refined. To express myself, I would have to turn my landscapes upside down. Take the colours out of the equation. Delve into the deepest barrows of hell itself and wretch back black bile from the underworld. Dredge my nails across the valleys of my mind and scrape the filings onto a canvas with the blood of my knuckles.

It is this monster. That I am. I was always this monster made of eyes, blood, and entrails. Multiple limbs. multiple sensations of touch. Multi-faceted in all the areas of sensation. Feeling without seeing, seeing without hearing, and hearing without feeling. Tin-like metallic flavour of blood and pain. These are the things I feel. These are the things that I want to express. Yes I can do many things, and yes I can express myself in other ways, but this is what I've always wanted to show.

I am human. I feel the range of emotions. I feel nothing. I feel fear. I see death. I see pain, suffering. I see joy, sorrow. I see birth and I see death. These are the things I feel and the things I see. This may have been a punishment. Or merely an observation as penance for the previous life. Look what you have done. This is what you have neglected to see. I have laid it all out for you. Look at this. You are human, you are above no other creature. You are above no other human. Will you observe and see, take it in, feel, breathe.. and learn.

I also want to include this quote that blackstatic has given me:

I wrote a book, I mean this has to be the wrap-up, because we’re over time – but I wrote a book called The Archaic Revival; I signed it tonight for some of you. The idea there is that we have gone sick by following a path of untrammelled rationalism, male dominance, attention to the visible surface of things, practicality, bottom-line-ism. We have gone very, very sick. And the body politic, like any body, when it feels itself to be sick, it begins to produce antibodies, or strategies for overcoming the condition of dis-ease. And the 20th century is an enormous effort at self-healing. Phenomena as diverse as surrealism, body piercing, psychedelic drug use, sexual permissiveness, jazz, experimental dance, rave culture, tattooing, the list is endless. What do all these things have in common? They represent various styles of rejection of linear values. The society is trying to cure itself by an archaic revival, by a reversion to archaic values. So when I see people manifesting sexual ambiguity, or scarifying themselves, or showing a lot of flesh, or dancing to syncopated music, or getting loaded, or violating ordinary canons of sexual behaviour, I applaud all of this; because it’s an impulse to return to what is felt by the body – what is authentic, what is archaic – and when you tease apart these archaic impulses, at the very centre of all these impulses is the desire to return to a world of magical empowerment of feeling.”

• Terence McKenna on Schizophrenia and Shamanism (“The Importance Of Human Beings”)

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Explanation of the self

My mind works like the different gears on a car.
Except, it is a manual, not an automatic. It takes effort and has to be timed right. You have to know when to switch the gears, when to drift, and when to put the higher or lower gear back on. You also have to learn how to speed up properly in each gear as compared to the others.

Most people are an automatic car. they see where they want to go and start driving towards it. Speeding, stopping, driving. Going, not going, going again. They only have to worry about things, when they break down.

When you are driving a stick shift car (particularly an old one) you need to think what speed you want to go at, reach it, switch gears, think of the next speed, shift, accelerate accordingly, drift, etc. This takes a lot more mental processing. Different modes, not all of them blending together so well. There's a lot of jerking and sputtering inbetween. One mode transferring to the next. Sometimes you pop the clutch and everything dies, then your car is drifting with the steering column locked.

Different modes have different methodologies, ideals, and even emotions attached to them. Many people have a system like this sort in their own head. We have a mode to pay attention and study in class, and a mode to hang out with friends and have fun.

Lets take this and break it down into columns.
emotion, lack of emotion, aware, lack of awareness.

aware, emotion - dum de dum. I think I will go to the mall today. I enjoy the mall. >want/action mode. get off your ass to get _ mode
lack of awareness, lack of emotion - da fuck day it is. da fuck. stare at wall. ok.
aware, lack of emotion - I am okay with this. >objective/distant mode. robotic-like. reactory.
lack of awareness, emotion - oh god. what the fuck. where am I, and what am I doing. This is terrible. ohgod.

Now add your various modes to each column.

work mode
play mode
analytical mode
sympathetic mode
baseline reactory line
baseline emotional line

aware, emotion -

work mode - aw man, I gotta do the work thing so I can buy that thing I wanted. cool beans.
play mode - naaaw work. I can just sit here and enjoy playing skyrim for 3 hours.
analytical mode - damn. I need to get to work.
sympathetic mode - but maaaan I want to play skyrim. I dont wanna work. baww.
baseline reactory line - get up from computer. naw. go back on computer. but.. do not know if want.
baseline emotional line - FFFFFFFFF-- BUT.. BUT. GOD I HATE WORK. I LOVE SKYRIM.

lack of awareness, lack of emotion -

work mode - gotta do the work.
play mode - gotta do the work
analytical mode - I am the sheep of the stallion.
sympathetic mode - I am the sheep of the stallion.
baseline reactory line - gotta do the work. stand up. where da fuck am I. put face on wall. ok.
baseline emotional line - da fuck am I doing. gonna the sheep of the stallion. wall face.

aware, lack of emotion -

work mode - work. pick up pen. draw this shape. colour. repeat. sew. go to store. get things to sell.
play mode - work. pick up pen. draw this shape. colour. repeat. sew. go to store. get things to sell.
analytical mode - These are the inner workings of this methodology. I will show you how this methodology is relevant.
sympathetic mode - this is the situation. here is a methodology you should apply to improve the situation.
baseline reactory line - One step, two step. forward. back. lift pen. draw.
baseline emotional line - I see that everyone is a walking biological creature.

lack of awareness, emotion-

work mode - I am made of the NSA. I must on the computer, read the wavery lines. da fuck my hands what do.
play mode - da fuck my hands what do. I must not play. that is bad. only work but I cant work. but I cant play. but internet.
analytical mode - I am made of moose squirrels front yard bamboo phytoplankton 100% leaf stallion four twenty.
sympathetic mode - MY EYES ARE MELTING INTO MY SKULL AND KITTENS ARE FUSED TO MY FACE
baseline reactory line - THE SCRAPING OF MY INNER CLOCK MELTS INTO THE ABCESSED RETENTION OF MY MIND
baseline emotional line - FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK

A car, that is stick, only has four to six gears. This has 24.
The biggest rift is between emotive and non-emotive states, lucidness aside, is the reaction to self. The lack of self in the other modes. Being not aware of surroundings or one's own self.