Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Bad Bishop Chapter 2

don't read on until you read the first chapter of Bad Bishop here


 http://pamthompson.weebly.com/blog-nature-hikes.html


***

 You know the kind of person that uses the Windows default settings right down to the out-of-the-box desktop backround with the rolling green hills and popcorn clouds? Well that's me now. I have the opportunity to bend time and space, to live in a neon dreamscape. I could soar godlike over a cartoon fantasia, turn my body into pure clitoral tissue, or section my mind into a dozen platonic thought engines that breathe logic and shit theorems. But instead I direct an avatar that looks exactly like my body, an avatar I refer to as "me". Usually I'm wearing gray Dickies and a Blizzard of Oz t-shirt. Sometimes I'm not really "feeling it" and I change into some Umbro shorts and some other crappy t-shirt. And when I say change, I actually mean that I direct my sorry avatar to extract legs from leg holes then stick those legs into other leg holes. If you're wondering, no I don't actually do laundry, but once in awhile I actually throw my abandoned clothes into a hamper programmed to appear full of abandoned clothes. But usually I just throw them on the floor.

I'd love to say that I throw my clothes on the floor because I know they aren't real, that there is some small gesture built into my routine that recognizes that my existence is simulated. But if I'm being totally real with you, I throw my clothes on the floor because I'm a lazy slob.

The Windows Desktop metaphor is not just a metaphor. My chosen environment, the place that I spend every conscious and autonomous moment of my life, is in fact the default simulated environment provided by the Sloware Corporation's personal OS. Basically the start-up screen, the place you pick your passwords and maybe end up when the system boots in safe mode. If I didn't spring for HD, I could probably run my whole world inside the brain of a nematode.

There's no way to slice it, I spend all my time in an American style tract mansion, circa 2003. It's based on 3D blueprints and compiled photographs of a real McMansion still standing in Fredrick, MD (Fredneck to some). Based on this distinction, the house has been designated as a historic site and maintained spotless and empty for tours. In this state the house is reminiscent of the model home the Bluths occupy in Arrested Development, with more empty rooms and slightly less character. I've furnished most of the house to look like the waiting room of a dental surgeon.

I spend most of my time in the study. The study reeks of leather and deep mahogany. In one corner there's a vintage globe, the kind with sea-monsters, which opens to reveal bourbon, dark rum, and an ivory case of menthol cigarettes. In another corner is a hand-carved totem pole with the faces of Nixon, Elvis, and Che carved in the front, capped by a giant skyward baracuda head. And in the center of the room, on the giant heartwood slab of a desk, is a Mac Pro with a huge screen, a pornographic paperweight, and a slinky. The message this setup communicates to me, effectively, every day: I'm a serious person, a person who works on big things, but I do it on my own terms.

Sometimes the system will glitch. This actually happens to everyone running a high-acuity setup. An edge will smear or you will catch an aftterimage. Emotions, however, are not supposed to ever glitch because they are still run 100% on goo-ware, no matter how many layers of chemical and electromagnetic overrides are used, and goo-ware in theory should smooth everything out, in that familiar brain way. But a long time ago I made the decision to reprogram my belief-core, so that I would believe that it is possible for emotions to glitch. Because I used to become overwhelmed with the feeling that I was being laughed at, passing in a split-second shudder. It would happen repeatedly whenever I used my computer, and it was really distracting. It took me months but eventually I pinpointed the feeling. I was embarrassed that the computer was laughing at me. It was laughing because even though I was in a computer, I chose to be on a computer. I hung on to every banal detail I could stuff in my field of vision because I wanted to remind myself of my human life, to feel like a normal bloodbag in a line of hard working bloodbags. But to do that, I had to massage white plastic and stare into a screen. And so I would start laughing. For hours. I would't be able to stop.

--- 

A diagnosis of Typical Hastening Syndrome can be made under the following conditions:


A. Five (or more) of the following symptoms have been present during the same 2-week period; at least one of the symptoms is either (1) perception of one's surroundings moving unusually fast or (2) subjective experience of the waking day as shorter than the dreaming day. Note:  A diagnosis of Hastening should not be considered in patients experiencing organic dementia.

(1) the visual perception of objects, other people, or one's own body moving at speeds which appear excessive. At least one of the following should be present: difficulty visually tracking especially fast-moving objects, blurring or other difficulties recognizing objects in motion, or a consistent feeling of acceleration despite moving at a constant speed.


(2) reports that the subjective experience of each waking day is consistently shorter than any dream. Only a single REM cycle should be necessary to achieve this effect, and in some cases any loss of consciousness will be sufficient. Note: Individuals with certain untreated neurological conditions (eg narcolepsy, temporal seizures, medication withdrawal) can qualify if they experience a severe modulation of time perception that is consistent with episodic neurological events.


(3) loss of weight or dehydration due to failure to recognize internal cues of hunger and thirst.


(4) hypersomnia or frantic efforts to avoid consciousness.


(5) extreme slowing of voluntary bodily movements, loss of small motor control, or frequent spasticity.


(6) consistent unidirectional changes in one or more sensory modalities. Common examples are pitch-shifting, extreme brightening of the visual field, and purpling of the visual field. Less common examples include intensification of all flavors, a constant meat-like taste in the absence of food, or the perception that all areas of exposed skin are lightly stimulated at all times.


(7) perceived loss of voluntary control of actions when motor and forced-preference tests confirm intact volition.


(8) consistent recall of events from previous days as having occurred during the present day. Alternately, belief that events that occurred hours previously are occurring currently.


(9) inappropriate affect combined with the sensation that mood changes are caused by unknown events which have not yet occurred.

B. At least one of the above symptoms can be temporarily attenuated by cannabinoids, dissociative anesthetics, oxygen deprivation to the brain, OR disruption of the hippocampus and/or temporal cortex using trans-cranial magnetic stimulation.

C. The symptoms cause clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning.


D. The individual is over eighty years of age.


E. No abnormal changes are observed in the individual's mitochondrial metabolism.


 -excerpt from the 18th Edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders

 

No comments:

Post a Comment