Strawberry Fields Forever

When John Lennon wrote Strawberry Fields Forever, he was thinking "There was something wrong with me, I thought, because I seemed to see things other people didn't see. I thought I was crazy or an egomaniac for claiming to see things other people didn't see. As a child, I would say, 'But this is going on!' and everybody would look at me as if I was crazy. I always was so psychic or intuitive or poetic or whatever you want to call it, that I was always seeing things in a hallucinatory way. It was scary as a child, because there was nobody to relate to."

It is precisely this feeling of not fitting in, being almost constantly misunderstood, that motivated unique minds to express themselves differently. Thinking in retrospect, I find myself letting out a deep sigh, saying "yeah, tell me about it!" For I too belong to Strawberry Fields. At some moment in my life I was wondering "where the heck did the ship which had dropped me onto this planet disappeared? Why did my folks leave me behind?" Then it was like, "or maybe there ain't any folks of mine! What made you think you have any affiliations, Fantasia?"

Doubting yourself is by far the worst thing you can ever do. Yes, you become a natural haters-magnet (that's part of the package, you know) but your meanest enemies could not harm you a bit without you getting into this self-destructive mode. Still, as it turns out, all my folks allowed themselves to slip into it for some time.

The good news is, it turned out that I did have folks!.. My creed! *wide grin* Fellow aliens with the same hallucinations that I had! Hurray!.. I was not one of a kind!

But it took me a long long time to realize they existed. Wow!!.. What a moment that was! It was like discovering a fellow castaway on a neighboring island. How amazing can this be, huh? And then you start receiving these bottled messages and your jaw drops with awe at how similar your experiences have been. Then this alien leads you to another and another.. until you finally find it.. your spot, your world, your Xanadu .. strawberry fields.

The thing is.. although Lennon drove the name from an actual place where he had lived for sometime, he used the name to refer to this alien-dropping-spaceship, which still is not located, you see. So, ehm, this place actually exists in our heads. Yeah, we're sort of equipped with wide wide imagination. So we do see this place, we know it, we thrive on it, we're nourished by thinking about it, yet.. we can't get there. Even more, we know, in our sober state of mind, that we don't have a chance of ever getting there. It is unattainable.. and there lies the dilemma.

Well, I hope I didn't lose you by now.. sounding too vague and, maybe, spooky. Come on guys, I haven't gone that crazy.. at least not yet. As a matter of fact, I'm trying to analyze why generations and generations of my folks ended up shut into their own universe. (Mind you, it is a universe.. it is so vast.. stretching endlessly.. but way out there, far from our reality.) Not just so,.. Unable to resist this aggressive desire of wanting to change the actual world, they almost always completely screw up, causing this huge discomfort and disturbance, then end up in a very dramatic way, leaving their work undone.

Yes, they do inspire others. (You know, this sorta madness is contagious.) They have this huge impact on arts and culture. But our world, our crappy rusted f***ed-up real world, remains the same. Since the beginning of history.. Since the big bang or whatever.. it has remained the same! Peel off these illusionary layers of modernity, and just LOOK.. hey, IT IS THE DAMN SAME!

Hey life, I believe our worlds do not intersect! I'm off to Strawberry Fields. Yes, I would give up on you, you bitch! You enjoy devouring your lovers and thrive in the arms of your rapers. I HATE YOU!

You know what? I believe my alien buddies have made things even worse. Maybe if they had not interfered things would have been better in any way. You see, they have cast their pixy dust for the street smart guys to use it and sugar-coat all the ugliness there is.. prolonging the life of all evils! Now, thanks to these geniuses, people could live with tyranny, injustice, fraud, fascism, corruption, abuse, crime, deceit, divisions, wars, disease, famine, disaster, global warming.. you name it. All there is.. just wrap it in some shimmery, ethically, romantic, artistic ritual, as part of the process of moving on. Changing the world can be a great theme for a song.. perfect! But in reality, in practice, in our offices, societies, parliaments, governments, world order.. pouf

And as for all the victims falling along the way, there are all the f***ing tributes and stuff. Yeah, once someone is dead, s/he suddenly becomes a hero! But of course.. they've finally left this piece of crap alone! No more disturbance. Rest in peace!

"In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life — It goes on." ~Robert Frost

Random Thoughts

The more I see men, the more spiritual I become.. thanking God that I was born a woman.

Me and Drepression

Ain't it great when you still got followers long after you quit blogging! Thanks all.

Don't know if I still have it.. I mean the ability to write. But since I'm struggling with my depression, and this struggle is all about trying and trying, then be it.

I've done it before. Taken myself as an example and laid it out there for others in hope it will help someone somewhere sometime. However, this time, I'm the one who needs help. It's the same old story.. trauma.. tears.. anger.. depression. And once you slip into this last one, you are sucked in.

Been there for years now since I was diagnosed with MDD (Major Depressive Disorder). Feels like it has become part of me, although I've been fighting it with all I've got. The thing is, it is very difficult to find true help with this battle. It's like a ghost, many talk about it while very few have ever seen one.. experienced what it is.. or is able to define it even.

My therapy sessions were like long arguments between me and the psychiatrist, who is an excellent person by the way, and highly professional. Still, he talks about human conditions which he had studied.. studied very well, but never experienced. He did his best to help me out. Can't say he failed. He was honest enough to tell me he has no exit door to offer.

One of our discussions was about the definition of depression. He went on and on about the medical condition and the chemistry of the brain, bla bla bla. Gotta admit, I learned a lot from the man. What I needed to know, though, was whether depression is a disease or a state of mind.

The good doctor insisted that depression is a disease, yet he made it clear that even when I am 100% cured I have to say bye-bye to my former self.. that is the Fantasia who existed before depression. That is why I thought that treating depression like some disease or virus which takes control over your body for some time and then becomes cured is so far from the truth. Maybe it is more accurate to describe it as a state that will continue to have its effect even after its dangers are reduced.

Our talks were more philosophical I would think. Of course, we discussed personal issues and stuff that led me to this. However, I guess that denying to see things the way they truly are is the root of all evil. Human beings spend so much time and energy in deceiving themselves. My experience with depression proves that the pain is due to the shock of someone who has been blindfolded for years and years and then all of a sudden you open your eyes to this strong light, and you can't deny, no matter how hard you try, that what you are seeing is real, has always been real, but you were simply unable to see it! And you can never go back pretending it didn't happen. It is an educational experience of the first degree.

Now, the only logical reason why someone suffering from depression cannot go back to point X before s/he was hit by this hurricane would be that this so-called "disease" gives you eyes.. which is the total opposite of what psychiatry claims.

What antidepressants do is simply shut down your nervous system, making you unable to feel anything, like constructing a thick glass wall between you and your emotions. The idea is to reduce the stress on your nervous system until you miraculously recover. Antidepressants are the materialization of hell. After 2 years, I stopped medication, without consulting my doctor. His opinion was I gotta live on this stuff no matter how long it may take, or else I'll crash.. like a computer crashes. Being a very scientific person, I waited and waited for things to change, until I could take it no more. Finally, I decided to trust my senses.

Is life any better? No. But I am definitely better.

This programming process that we go through ever since we come into this world is the true disease. Almost every single aspect of our lives is wrapped in lies. You are being trained to practice self-deceit and you go through life depending on this skill. You have to pretend that certain things have value, although they don't; because things which are really worthy are very few in life and are simply not enough to weave a whole lifetime around. So you gotta fabricate your own list of valuable stuff and toil to reach one by one, learn to celebrate when you get them and act dramatic when you lose them.

Of the truest words I found on depression are the words of someone who's been there, Elizabeth Wurtzel. In her book Prozac Nation she says:

"I start to feel like I can't maintain the facade any longer, that I may just start to show through. And I wish I knew what was wrong. Maybe something about how stupid my whole life is. I don't know. Why does the rest of the world put up with the hypocrisy, the need to put a happy face on sorrow, the need to keep on keeping on?... I don't know the answer, I know only that I can't. I don't want any more vicissitudes, I don't want any more of this try, try again stuff. I just want out. I've had it. I am so tired. I am twenty and I am already exhausted."

P.S. I've been on Prozac for over a year.

I can't forget this session when my doctor was trying so hard to convince me that life is worth trying, no matter how many times we fail to achieve what we aspire. He gave an example of a test they perform on lab rats. They place a rat in a cage with a piece of cheese, and every time the rat tries to take the cheese they give it a mild electric shock. The rat then spends longer time between each attempt until it completely gives up and stops trying, although they remove the electric current. The doctor then told me: "You see? If the rat tried for once after it had given up, it would have finally got the cheese." I couldn't help but laugh out loud, and I said, "Doc, are you really expecting me to be more stupid than your rat? If a rat can learn its lesson and spare itself the pain, then the least I can do is learn when to quit trying."

Thanks for reading!