TABLE OF CONTENTS - PROSE

Mental Health and Mental Illness - Paul Nachbar
Existential Panic Disorder - Paul Nachbar
"Technically" Haiku - Kay Lindgren
Poetry Definition - Mark Norman
Troops; Anecdotal Experiences - Thomas Hadley
National Sour Grapes Day - Paul Nachbar
Dialogue of the Pican Deities - Paul Nachbar
Between Rocks and a Hard Spot - Paul Nachbar

Mental Health and Mental Illness - Paul Nachbar

I do not think I can change the world in nearly any way but I can certainly define what hit me and nearly finished me off in this world. And which has nearly finished off dozens or hundreds or thousands or millions of people in some very subtle ways. If I cannot change the world, nor can I free it, which might not even be desirable in many ways. But I can cultivate my own garden which is the Pico Society as best I can and hope for the best. Imagine the world as a network of hierarchies which are basically run by a small number people and corporations and not machines-- since machines and science and other things of this ilk are not sentient beings but the tools and symbols of sentient beings.--and where millions of people, if not billions, form the bottom tiers of knowledge workers. of one kind or another. I am not saying this is perhaps not inevitable and am certainly not calling for any sort of revolution from below against those who are above, just perhaps more awareness. of what is really going on and in a systematic way. Though, although I do not mind religion in any sense these days, except for the more narrow and restrictive and biased ways in which religion sometimes manifests itself..like any other social institution...and across the board of nearly all religions..I do mind some of the things that apparently are used to hold all of this together., that is the seemingly prevailing ideas of mental health and mental illness. If one cannot "function" in one's allotted slot in the hierarchy of knowledge workers, plus the allotted social or familial slots appropriate to such , then one is deemed "mentally ill". If one can function within those slots, then one is deemed "mentally healthy". These definitions are in many places so prevalent that it is difficult to assert anything positive about such human accomplishments which traditionally have been quasi-independent of such "structures" and apart from them, such as art, music, theatre, poetry etc. In the structural-functional approach of those who run this system, which may after all be the best possible of all systems, such things are close to or related to or analogous to mental illness even if they are not mental illness themselves. Therefore thinking, feeling, imagining anything outside of what the experts deem to be functional and normal..and useful in terms of your input as labor into this social system is disregarded, disrespected and shunted aside. You can see this in the flood of articles by psychologists linking "mental illness" with creativity in extreme forms., research which seems empirical in it's method but is intensely biased towards the functioning of the status quo, not the investigation of human nature or possibilities per se. I do not claim that this is the case in any situation but it is easily imaginable, given an "evil corporation" or an "evil expert" or some collaboration of the two to turn a formerly free labor force into a labor force composed of psychological slaves. No I do not mean addicted to psychiatric or other medications or to the process so-called of therapy or to so-called "behaviors" which do not fit into somebody's ideas on what is "best for the greatest number of people" eg, modern utilitarianism.,. but people who have no force of will or individuality because of the deliberate attempts of the "evil corporation" and "evil expert" to break down all traces of individuality, likes and dislikes, ambitions outside the "norm" etc, through repeated applications of one modality so-called or another of "behavioral modification", "cognitive therapy"
or medications..That is, such a thing is not inconceivable in this world which has also fairly deliberately created many major disasters and holocausts in every time and place I know of. Here the individual knowledge worker, isolated from any form of social organization which supports his or her demands or needs, in many cases, is
thrust before the immense power of the experts, dangling "mental health:" in front
of them, with all the lovely and mostly fictional consequences of before and after pictures while being fully aware of the dreadful consequences of "mental illness" or being imagined as mentally ill..Now how is that for a description of what at least can happen , uh, theoretically?

back to top

Existential Panic Disorder - Paul Nachbar

I had given up and was no longer the little engine that could, but more the little engine that really should have or perhaps the little engine that didn't really want to or the little engine that made excuses or the little engine that somehow got waylaid or whatever. This was not pleasant of course because all around me people were trying and doing and working and struggling or succeeding or failing with one thing or another, which may or may not have meant anything, and who was I to stay there so stalled and inert? Get a job, get a life! I upbraided myself but it was no go. Just didn’t work, couldn't work. And I had been to a lot of specialists too who could either find nothing wrong or found different things wrong with me or gave me tons of advice which was very interesting but had no real connection with my specific engine problems. Not that
I was the world's best patient, I knew, but if they knew exactly what they were doing and not just approximately, then certainly I'd get fixed and go back to where I was in that giant concourse of existence. What to do? It is an imperfect world. One can't expect too much. So mainly I just lay there on my couch, prone, spinning my wheels and quite helplessly and hopelessly getting nowhere, or at least nowhere real beyond the couch.
One day a friend of a friend told me about this Great Expert Among Experts who was in town and whom I really needed to see. This guy, she said, was so knowledgeable about these things, well, he was a world-class authority on problems like mine. And besides, for a limited time, he was making evaluations of patients at a reduced rate. Hey, world class expert AND bargain basement discounts; who could ask for anything more? So I dragged my burnt-out and broken self - though I did not always seem as broken and burnt out to others as I felt, even though they knew I was sincere into the city where I met with the fellow, a Dr X, in an extremely elaborate apartment. Funny session, though. I told Dr Z, who seemed laser-sharp in his concentration and focus about all of my symptoms, about my interpretation of the scenes and situations which had led to my mechanical breakdown, about all the methods I had tried to use to repair things, to what extent these worked or didn’t work, how others had tried to intervene and what the consequences were and my sense of all the different nterpretations of what had happened to me which seemed to apply and not apply at the same time. Anyway, I told Dr Z that it had been a very long time since I had functioned, that I just didn't know what to do, and that I felt a mixture of anger, guilt, obsessiveness, suspicion, apathy, vengefulness, shame, despair and a host of other engine-clotting ingredients which should really happen to nobody. But perhaps all these things were just too complicated, I hypothesized out loud, and the real truth was that I was a hopeless case and that nobody could deal with me or motivate me to anything? Or, as Jim Morrison once said, that "nobody gets out of here alive." Dr Z, by the way, liked Jim Morrison, which I appreciated-- hey, a hip psychiatrist--though disagreed of
course.
"No, no, no. None of these observations are really completely accurate my friend. None of the diagnoses. None of the previous treatment. Close, perhaps, at one time or another, but no cigar." I was afraid here of what the good doctor was going to recommend, since some of the treatments for maladies like mine could be very strenuous and dangerous. So I just sat there in a spirit of anxious hesitation. "Well, what exactly is wrong with me? " I asked, thinking more along the lines, since I could not help myself, "and what did I do to deserve this?"
"I'd say" responded Dr Z, after some moments of profound hesitation, "that this is a severe case of what may be termed Existential Panic Disorder." This sounded good, though I had never heard of such a diagnosis before, and instantly imagined trading such a diagnosis with my similarly diagnosed friends , wondering what their reactions would be here...disbelief, jealousy, awe at the analytical insight of Dr Z, whom they probably would not have the privilege to meet. Of course I was not accustomed to questioning things here, that is, I was not assertive with mental health professionals, and it took me awhile to raise the humble question, "now exactly what does this mean? And exactly what are the consequences?"
This was a fearful moment or series of moments. I held my breath. I was very orried. It could be anything. I upbraided myself again for any excess anxiety I might be showing, even though it seemed my future held in the balance scales of the good doctor's fine polished and practiced insight and fine intelligence. What were the cure rates, I wondered. What were the appropriate medications? Would I end up--I sighed to myself--in one of those really bad places one could end up in but which one could never complain about because nobody could really listen? The suspense was endless. Finally, Dr Z intoned with the vaguest trace of a smile, "Existential Panic Disorder basically means, my good man, that you are, well, alive." I knew that of course, so what was he trying to tell me here? Something new? Something bad? I wasn't sure. I couldn't think and was ready to blank out. or crawl under the desk..well this was a
fantasy..I would never do anything so inappropriate.
The good doctor thumbed through several of the ancient volumes of medical lore in his bookshelves and dusted off one of the shelves casually with a finger. I was waiting here in suspense for some additional information but nothing. I should be patient. I should not assume. I should just shut up , I guess, until it was appropriate to speak. I felt bad. I mean, I really felt awful. A total sense of dread. The good doctor then flipped casually through one of the magazines on his desk, filled with articles about The Recent War and Crime and Terrorism and Drugs and the Breakup of the Family and Unemployment and all sorts of other issues. I felt humbled. Of what significance were my petty problems? I was wasting his time, perhaps? Was I merely lazy and irresponsible? I did not know. I wanted answers and fast. "Well," I finally asked, “what is the prognosis here? " I watched him thinking and could imagine the sophisticated
and fine-tuned gears of his mind considering every case, every possibility,
every cross reference, every methodology, every accumulated bit of wisdom, knowledge and insight that the field of psychiatry had obtained in over a hundred
years I was very anxious and gulped again. I hope he did not notice. "Yes, yes, "he repeated, "Existential Panic Disorder. With utmost certainty ". Then he paused. "The diagnosis is." Another pause. "And yes, you are alive." I was not sure how to respond to this, though I guess part of this conclusion was self-evident, was it not? I don’t know, maybe i was missing something. "And the prognosis"? I finally brought myself to say in a much softer voice. I was truly suffering. Everybody knew I had been suffering. Previous experts had rated my level of psychological suffering as a nine on a scale of zero to ten. Dr Z was silent here. I too paused. "Did I do something wrong, doctor?" He looked at me intensely and then raised his hands in a apparently compassionate but somewhat futile gesture. "I mean, is there a cure? I really have not been doing so hot., you know. I've read a great deal of the literature here and am still, like very, very confused...Really confused. Am I stupid?" The good doctor again looked at me and I saw a wince of pain on his knotted brow, though this might have just been a twitch or, well, anything. I did not know. He seemed at first impatient and then calmer. "Nobody knows what you should do. Uh, do you want to be a doctor?" "A doctor?" I asked him
surprised, "why a doctor?" "Well," he said, "frankly it's a good living and.... there are always plenty of sick people." Another pause and then a vaguely dramatic rise in the pitch of his voice, "it is..a pretty sick world out there, you know?" This professional possibility seemed somewhat attractive but no, not in my condition, whatever that was, and I think Dr Z agreed here. I was a victim of and perhaps survivor of Existential Panic Disorder, which seemed as good a label as any and better than most I had heard.. "No, " I concluded, reluctantly, "all things considered, that's probably not for me". "I know what you mean" he finally said, "medicine is practical of course but is really not such a lovely field., you know? And as far as what to do. well, REALLY what to here in cases like THIS...well, nobody knows. I know they SOUND like they know but..nobody has ever KNOWN, to be quite honest here. But good luck to you.. I mean, the best of luck., my friend" He smiled and I think here with some genuine warmth, though perhaps he was considering some aspects of his schedule, who knows? We shook hands, I took the train back from the city and once again, I lay on my couch, in my usual agony, wondering once again what all of this meant, before drifting off to a long, long dark deep sleep.

back to top

"Technically" Haiku - Kay Lindgren

Nice! As for what is "technically" haiku, there are so many rules and so many schools of thought that the issue becomes confusing. In English, the five-seven-five syllable rule is eschewed by some modern poets who think that it encourages padding with particles such as "the," "a," etc. These poets say that Japanese makes said syllable count a virtual necessity because of the structure of that language. English, according to these modern poets, calls for fewer syllables in the lines. I have seen modern haiku with short syllable counts, such as two-four-two. That is economy of words!

Some of the rules of classical Japanese haiku follow. The poem is to present one crystallized image or moment in nature. You are to see a mental image of one natural element only when you read the poem - a tree, a flower, a weather phenomenon. No subjectivity or emotion is to enter into the poem. It is to be completely detached from the emotional or judgmental standpoint. Once emotions or personal opinions enter into the poem, it becomes a senryu instead of a haiku. If the poem makes the reader laugh or feel nostalgia, anger, loneliness, sadness, love or any human emotion, it is probably a senryu. In haiku, simile, a comparison using "like" or "as," is taboo. Metaphor, however, is allowed and often drives the haiku. Finally, a haiku in the purest sense will mention the season of the year by name or give a clear indication as to which season it is.

There are probably more rules. I will venture that the members of a
group of haikuists would be likely to disagree and argue many
points. My bottom line is therefore this: Anything goes.

back to top

Poetry Definition - Mark Norman

Poetry is,
capturing the careening boulder of emotion, thought, or fact; compressing it into a small pebble by applying the force of intellect; then polishing it into a gem with the jeweler's cloth of harmonic phonics.

back to top

Troops; Anecdotal Experiences - Thomas Hadley

i was a cold-warrior only shooting only targets, receiving only political flak, personal snipings ..many a day, many a night, I wished that I was back home... having surrendered my civil rights to a great degree to protect those who were back there, at home... i missed first steps, baby laughs, my love lay abed cold and lonely, the bruised knee got no daddy's kiss but the cause was noble, sacrifices just... when you're away, you realize how much we have here at home.. if you get a chance, you make your Holiday cheer, gather your younger soldiers and comrades over... you make family where none was there... my favorite Christmas Eve was when we had Jan's friend and her Blackhawk tech sergeant hubby over for supper, for our wee ones to open just one present. I had bagged a fine pheasant in the vineyards the day before, and dressed him in bacon, stuffed with wild rice.... fresh broetchen, butter so rich, all the trimmings...Christmas in Germany was wonderful. The gluhwein, the Kristkindl Markt, the lack of tawdry hype. Imagine Iraq and Afghanistan, now. Still, they will make family where there was none. Presents will be sent, and received. The turkey and feasting will have begun long before we awake at home, here. Some peace and magic
will be snatched out of the gritty cold gloom. The human spirit prevails.

back to top

National Sour Grapes Day - Paul Nachbar

Given many of the demographic factors of at least American society and probably others, though I am far less familiar with these cases (cases in all senses of the word) I propose here a National Sour Grapes Day. Being more of a theoretical and imaginitive, even sometimes imaginary person, than a so-called practical or even pragmatic person, I cannot propose any details here. Though given human nature at it's usual worst, outlining hte details at some future date might be an excellent idea.But in general, the National Sour Grapes Day would be a day for all members of all groups who argue/fight/hate each other to somehow, in a fairly safe environment, bombard each other with these griveances in a direct non-manipulative and not destructive manner. And then people can possibley do what they sometimes claim to do --just 'get over it', 'not sweat the small stuff'--and all those other glitzy slogans people use to paper over inevitable sociological conflicts in a multi-ethnic multi-special-interest-oriented society. Of course such an event would have to be moderated by somebody who is fair and reasonable, that is somebody who basically does not like in some sense all human subgroupings..I have no idea who that might be.

I do not consider that sponsoring such an event would be costly and it would have the salutorious effect, I think, of transferring extra income away from various onstituencies who are, in general, already paid sufficiently, to wit, mental health professionals, certain classes of lawyers, certain classes of advice-dispensers, and the numerous businesses which capitalize fairly deliberately on the so-called neuroses or psychooses even which are inevitably produced by the inevitable social frictions in this particular society at this particular time, not limited of course to the manufacturers and ispensers of legal as well as illicit social relaxants and stimulants. ALso including on this list the various authorities with a financial insterest in steering funds towards their individual states for the construction of prisons and mental institutions to treat/punish individuals 'guilty' of misdemeanors and felonies in the so-called 'war against drugs' eg, what people tend to use, in valid short-term if not long-term judgments to cope with inevitable social frictions.

If this is not a disadvantage, the second advantage is that such a National Holiday could be fun and actualy cut down on certain types of crime, which are due to pent-up individual frustrations certian classes of individuals will experience due to our American sociological structure eg, so-called "sociopaths' or "psychopaths" who are usually located/analyzed by socio-demographic methods eg., single white, often highly intelligent males who 'did not fit in', 'did not have stable patterns of relationships' etc..Then of course, we can go back to football, baseball, basketball, soccer, the so-called democractic political system we have and all the other ways people have of enjoying themselves, making some money or getting vicarious enjoyment and compensating themselves for not being William Gates..

back to top

Dialogue of the Pican Deities - Paul Nachbar

A: I'd say here after much consideration that this experiment with the concept of Freedom has been an absolute failure.These ridiculous creatures down below have proven themselves to be mere over-animated cartoons or shadows or flickers of nothing much at all.They have utterly failed at any of their tasks given every possible opportunity.Truly,a hopeless bunch, my friends!Absolutely hopeless indeed! And yes, it does infuriate me.I must admit, though this emotion is far beneath me.Ahem. I propose we erase everything, including THEM from the drawing board and perhaps start again. Or perhaps not.This has been a costly activity, too, and besides I'm bored.<yawns broadly>Really, havent we BETTER things to do with our time?

B. No, you are impatient, A.Give them time.They will change.Or evolve Or adjust. Though I must confess here to my own intense disappointment with the experiment.Which I guess is the way it SEEMS.If madness is repetition, which to some extent it is, they have proven themselves utterly mad and to the core. They do the same thing, play the same games, fall into the same traps, make the same errors again and again.If it were not so tragic, it would be comic. Though I do not laugh.Not at all. And this is not merely my investment here.
Yes, again I say I am disappointed with the results. But I speak for hope.
If one part in ten fails, then perhaps one part in one hundred will succeed, and if one part in one hundred fails, then perhaps one part in a thousand, or ten thousand, or a hundred thousand or a million or even a billion. But who knows? I am disappointed but I still hope. Though I am too weary now to make a final decision.but I beg you, though demoralized, to stay your hand, A.
What do you think, C?

C: Think? Hahaha! Why bother thinking? The whole thing is the broadest of comedies, my fellows! Why think at all? Did you expect "success" here? If so, you were deceived.We have the power and the glory here. If they do not, then what the hell did you expect? No, it is ridiculous but amusing.Sit with me and observe their doings without hope or anger, for these are a waste of energy:No, they are merely silly, so enjoy? I merely enjoy, having divested myself of all investments here for their tragedies are not my tragedies.Why get so involved? Ah, well, a matter of taste I suppose and I must admit these creatures are not precisely to my liking and do not possess in my eyes the quality of beauty. But that is me. Well, well. They upset you to rage or torment you into false hope. I am with you, of course, but personally I would simply, to use their phrase, change the channel here. They 'fail' or 'succeed'. So what? There are a million million million million other worlds to observe out there and who is to say which is more significant than any other? What do you think E?

E: I am absolutely indifferent,C, having other affairs more worthy of consideration and of far greater importance.What happened, happens or could happen there is of no consequence to me. Very sorry. I think you'd be better off asking D.It's all a numbers game, my friends and their numbers do not interest me. You'd be better off asking E, you know?

D: I diverge.I am neither angry nor hopeful nor amused by all of this.Nor of course absolutely indifferent.My mind is not the clearest of our group and I never claimed this, but I am indifferent to nothing. Yes, there are reasons and perfectly valid ones for anger or hope or laughter or even indifference .But all is not as it seems. Or what I mean here is that not all is, well, as DULL as it often seems (a round of laughter occurs among the assembled deities) I think..well..to be rather sneaky about it..some rather interesting crimes have occured here and things out of the ordinary and things not quite knowable. Not that this is so evident. One must look quite closely and at things invisible to many eyes and inaudible to many ears.

A: Hmmm..What do you mean?

D: I cannot define...exactly. But it is..interesting, as I am sure you will agree. Listen:

[the following text, of far greater length than the above fragments,has been deleted for the sake of the preservation and furtherance of the human species]

back to top

Between Rocks and a Hard Spot - Paul Nachbar

Between the group and the individual
Between the consensus and what probably is true about this Between what is true and improbable in the individual Between the necessary and unnecessary suffering Between the so-called superfical and the so-called profound Between the different kinds of power and knowledge Between your choices Between the books about your choices Between what you were taught and what you actually see Between what you would like to believe and what you know Between what is said and what is not said Between your desire to be and not be yourself Between the stated certainty and the actual uncertainty Between the stated uncertainty and the actual certainty Between the angels and devils who may just be inside of you Or who may not exist at all for all you really know Between the faithful and the faithless Between the truth-telling liars and the lying truth-tellers Between the world and the many ideas of it Between the necessity to simplify and the necessity to expand Between the gutwrench of pain and the fine cerebration Between the hope and the despair Between the practical the impractical Between this place and that place Between this time and that time Between this one and that one Between those who know and those who don't And those who may or may not know..or is this all of them? Between the ones who think too little and the ones who think too much? Between the ones who seem to feel too little and the ones who seem to feel too much? Between the ones who seem to imagine too much and the ones who seem to imagine too little Between the ones who talk or do too much and the ones who talk or do too little Between the present, past, and future..
There I encounter you.
Not just---it is what it is. It is ALL that it is. .

back to to