Memoires from my week at the Sanitarium:

Dec 22 '04

     I can affect the way in which I interperet the ever passing fluxating and fast bundles of perception that hit me as I experience them and decide to take positive action, negative action, or no action at all (which will ultimately lead to the negative). Finding the motivation to do the positive will come from the first positive action and from that more positive action will result. Laziness and negativity have immense power if they are allowed to continue. Stopping that by forcing positive action - one after another - will allow me to defeat the feelings of worthlessness. The problem is getting up for that first positive action after being knocked down.

Dec. 24 '04

     I need to learn how to stop fighting fire with fire. I need to be able to not only react positively to those things that I enjoy - but also to those things that may offend me or that seem like complete stupidity. I need to realize who my enemies are - and who they are not - and love them both equally.

     Don't let the day in day out daily grind discourage you. Consider every passing moment an opportunity to use Whatever is in your power to make a *positive* impact on any given situation.

     This center is not the answer - it is not the end of the road. It is only the starting line...the starting line of my opportunity to begin again in a 180 degree direction. All I can do while waiting for release is to prepare myself to run as fast as possible in that direction.

     "What you do makes a difference. It makes a difference first of all in material terms, it makes a difference to other people, and it sets an example. Sartre once interviewed said he never really felt a day of despair in his life."

     "Your life is yours to create."

Dec. 25 '04

     What if every time you closed your eyes you imagined you lived in a liquid world and it was all changing shapes and moving by and you were floating still in it. - Nothing in it could touch you or harm you in any way and you were safe from all the world's cares, worries, and hassles. You wouldn't need to feel sad about anything in the world because the things out there in that world have no power over the feelings in your mind.

Dec 26 '04

     Honesty and openness with others can make you vulnerable to criticism and/or ridicule but is worth the risk to take.

     "The idea is to remain in a state of constant departure - while always arriving. The vehicle needs no explanation, just occupants. It's like we come into the world with a Crayon box. You may get the eight you may get the sixteen.. but it's all a matter of what you do with the Crayons - the colors - that you're given. Don't worry about coloring inside the lines, coloring outside the lines, I say color outside the lines - color right off the page. Don't box me in, we're in motion to the ocean, we are not land-locked I'll tell you that."

Dec 27 '04

     "Picture a scene where whatever you thought would in the blink of an eye manifest and become illustrated. You can be sure man that every line drawn reflected a life that you loved, not an existence that you hated. Must we demonstrate that we can get straight? We've painted a picture now we're drowning in paint. Figure out what the fuck it's about before the picture we painted chews us up and spits us out."

     Today I've learned that despite feeling ill because of whatever is in my body making me feel this way I can be corjial and kind to others because my mind is stronger than my body. I am also beginning to learn the ways I can treat my body to keep myself from feeling even less healthy. All of this also leads me to the conclusion that my own cognitive way of helping myself is stronger than any amount of pills I can swallow.

Dec 28 '04

     I've learned that being honest and being thoroughly honest (especially with one's doctor for example) are very different things, and that one's requests/needs will be far better recieved when being thoroughly honest to another person.  I also learned that I can draw animals pretty well given only a scribble on a piece of paper to start from. Oh yes and I have learned to accept appreciation a little better and am on my way to conquering my instinct to Disqualify the Positive.