11.05.2010 - 4:37 p.m.

People have developed a myriad of ways to punish other people, either individually or as a populace, and the depths which some persons will reach in order to painify others are well into the realm of the surgically grotesque and several orders of magnitude above pulling the wings off flies. With all the crazy ass shenanigans going on on this rock, and i mean ALL the crazy ass shenanigans, people still find time to beat themselves up over their perceived psychological deficiencies vis-�-vis the rest of society, when in all truthiness their problems in comparison don't amount to a hill 'o beanz, even if the only reason you're eating the beanz is to barf them up again.

Humans (and all life in general) have developed by trial and error into a massively complicated Heath Robinson-esque conglomeration which works surprisingly well some of the time, pretty well most of the time, and as an inverse, not-at-all-well some of the time. Given what needs to happen in every cell every second of every day i'm constantly amazed we work at all on a biological level let alone creating societies on top of that.

My grandfather entered the church of ireland at the end of WW2 in order to help other people, he'd seen and done some awful things in the name of service to his nation and luckily for me he survived them all to produce my mother, he subsequently used religion as a tool with which to build and better the communities he served (i don't believe he ever got sucked into the interminable and self referential dogma associated with organised religion as he is a hard headed, tenement borne, glaswegian pragmatist). His counseling for people struggling with their inner demons of various descriptions was to get them to confront and acknowledge the root cause, the very root cause of the problem, no matter how difficult or distressing that was for all concerned.

When human minds encounter circumstances or situations which cause damage, like the body with a wound, they try to scab over the mental damage with behavioural layers to insulate and distance the working mind from the wound. Sadly, unlike a physical scar which diminishes over time, mental scars constantly leak through in mysterious ways to influence the working mind, the subconscious is a terrible thing to taste and in all practicality, completely uncontrollable. Even in cases where the protagonist has no memory recall of the events themselves, the subconscious has full access, always, and this silent hand shapes the development of the mind.

Given the sum of all possible variations in which the mind may develop (and still lead to a chemically functional human), these variations tend to settle into well defined states of disorder. You may think you're largely isolated as an individual as you sit alone in your room carving up your skin in order to feel something, but in reality there are tens of thousands (if not many more) people doing exactly the same thing all across the world.

Food is a well developed theme in society and in a proportion of the population eating hits the same receptors in the brain as sex or drugs, food then becomes the 'reward hit' and we enter the well documented (and very common) spiral of post-modern depression - i have issue(s) - i eat because it makes me feel better - after the tryptophan comedown the issues remain but i'm no better than before - the issues are reinforced - goto line 10, ad nauseum.

The fact that so many people act out their very individual problems in such similar manners can't be a coincidence, the mind defaults to one (or a selection of) default behavioural actions to exorcise the demons which are then categorised by psychologists as bulimia, anorexia, self harm etc. That there are support groups at all must mean that no matter how lonely you feel in your personal isolationist misery you are guaranteed that there are other people who feel the same way, maybe from different sources but the end result is you're all in the same boat together.

Acceptance of a situation is a good exit from a cycle, the original issue can't be undone because of the linear nature of time so how about we find a way to short circuit the expression of that issue. What is the nature of the issue, is it a PTSD reaction to some nasty but brief incident or the mental unwinding of a long term problem instilled in the developing mind ?

Provided there aren't underlying neurophysiological problems which are a different kettle of fish altogether, just talking with people in similar circumstances is can lead to an exit because you're no longer isolated, we're communal animals, so be communal, don't try and bottle it up and deal with it yourself because you're not qualified to take on problems of that size and the chances are it'll just fester away until you're irrevocably damaged. Psychologists might come over as fluffy, liberal, soft spoken, fucking expensive snoops but i'm told it takes years of training to correctly unravel people so it can't all be for nothing.

Soldiers have historically been at the sharp end of pretty much everything, including (especially) PTSD. That scary looking guy living under the bridge or bashered up in the woods has a high percentage chance of being ex-army, the treatment within the military for PTSD until recently was close to nil. That's thankfully no longer the case and the recognition of soldiers as a group with high levels of exposure to PTSD causing situations is helping (a) the soldiers themselves (b) methods and protocols for effective treatment (c) the rest of society as the learning disseminates out through the profession.

I suppose i should encompass the hateful pharmacological businesses in this and their 'we can cure anything off-label' prescriptions, and while some pills do work in some people, it's a bit like hunting sparrows with a 6-gauge shotgun, you'll hit the target all right but there's no finesse and probably nothing left afterwards to work with. In the treatment of PTSD and similar deep-rooted problems doctors are moving back to more manageable and subtle drugs to open the patient up.

LSD is being administered in trials to gently crack through the shell of mental scar tissue and help acknowledge the problem, there is no hiding from yourself on a trip and if guided properly you can come to terms with the cause, this is followed up with low doses of MDMA to allow the patient to open up and analyse the situation calmly which leads to acceptance, they might not be overjoyed with the memory but the issue no longer controls them and freedom from burden is a wonderful thing, just ask a mule.

We're now more connected than ever in terms of communications technology, but inversely our society is becoming more individualised and fractured. The promotion of the individual is largely a political tool to keep people from being able to unite and effectively challenge the establishment; modern society has been shaped this way deliberately. Social responsibility, environmental responsibility and supplyside consumerism are just ways of pushing the problems that a decent government should take the lead on back to us "do what you feel is right, do what is right for you" is the modern mantra and allows businesses and individuals who can circumvent the paths of the proletariat to profit from the ensuing confusion.

The word Socialist has been demonised in some countries to the point where blue collar workers are actively arguing against their rights to a better life because they've been bamboozled by slick millionaires who have a vested interest in maintaining a poorly educated slave class as a means to generate the profits to fund their lifestyles. Here�s a quick aide memoir �

Socialism is not the same as communism, only a complete knob would get the two confused

In reality socialism is about helping the people in your house, your block or your town to collectively overcome your shared problems and bring up the standard of living for everyone. Quality of life is a major decider on how people deal with their problems, if you live in a clean area with good services, access to health care and low crime you�re more likely to be able to come to terms with the bad shit that comes to us all at some time and get through it. Isolation and fear lead to depression and the dark side, and Yoda�s gonna be pissed if you go there.