and, i'm thinking about my issues with eye contact. it was what i initially wanted to talk to a psychiatrist about, before i got diagnosed with...well, i guess they got me to social anxiety disorder in the end, which is more along the right lines. but, i never expected it to be declared a disability and to entitle me to a monthly check; i was thinking it was something i could get some therapy regarding.

part of the argument i used to get my extension, which i haven't posted anywhere yet, was a cost-benefit analysis of treatment v. acceptance. it was a catch-22 themed essay that argued that i might seem perfectly ok right now, but if you take me off the odsp then i won't seem ok anymore. i concluded that i ought to be grounded. but, i acknowledged that a significant investment with morally questionable techniques could resolve the issue - even if you had to chain me down and lock me up to administer it.

what i'm wondering right now is whether that's really true.

i avoid almost all eye contact. it's really only when i want somebody to do something for me that i can muster up the courage to look somebody in the eye; it's that aggressive of a gesture, for me. it's clearly not such an aggressive gesture for others.

is that learned, or instinctual?

the earliest memories i have with eye contact are feelings of almost panic due to a desire to avoid confrontation. so, i don't have memories of any theoretical causes, but only memories of effects. the thing is that it goes back very far, to that murky early grade school period; it could be because i changed schools in grade 3, or because i had a concussion shortly afterwards, but i would be almost hopeless in differentiating between events that happened between when i was four and when i was 7. it's quite young, though.

i remember that when people looked at me in the eye, i would become fearful that an argument or fight was about to start. it was just an act of pure aggression. so, i found myself avoiding eye contact both to counter the aggression of others and to prevent others from thinking i was behaving aggressively.

it sounds like i'm talking about an antelope. and, maybe i am in the sense that i have some native american genes. i'm exhibiting behaviour regarding eye contact that is normal in some indigenous cultures, but i haven't been conditioned into any of those cultures. perhaps therapy may be less effective then i'd like to think.

i've liked to think i'm not irreversibly broken; that i could be fixed, but that the investment would be at a loss. and maybe what i'm pointing to only necessitates therapy, rather than negates it's use. but maybe i'm uncovering somewhat of an unrealized truth, whatever it's scale.

i'm starting to become more cognizant of this strange tick in my neck. now, what i'm going to say may seem unscientific, and would probably be rejected by most doctors, but if you ask them to provide a better explanation, you'll be disappointed in their responses. i'm grasping the situation through experiencing it; i'm carrying out the experiment. and, while i may not be the person best positioned to measure my own behaviour, my notes should be analyzed for a mechanism rather than discarded as "impossible".

i seem to have developed too much control over my autonomous nervous system. seems ridiculous, i know. but, can you point me to studies that prove it impossible to gain control over the autonomous nervous system? because i bet i could find some studies that blur the lines pretty substantially.

i seem to have developed a fear of swallowing. that's at the crux of it. due to throat inflammation for various reasons, but one obvious, i may have nearly choked once or twice. i suppose we all cough something up once in a while, and it's a lesson to be more careful when you're eating. but, we mostly tend to shrug it off after a day or two, right? instead, i seem to have internalized it to the point that i'm not able to open my throat to let liquids in. i find myself fighting a battle against my own throat.

that might seem to indicate a loss of control, but not if it's thought about more carefully. if everything was firing correctly, i'd expect my throat would open when i pick up a glass of water. instead, it shuts and i have to consciously struggle with myself to open it. if i were in full conscious control, i would not have to struggle; if it were truly autonomous, it would not close at all. that indicates that it's my subconscious that must be interfering and shutting it out of a repressed fear of choking, which indicates too much control - but not consciously.

i understand i'm not likely to convince anybody with a doctorate in anything of this. but, i believe it's what's actually happening. in theory, the solution should be in the realm of mental health. but, even if i could convince somebody to take me seriously, i'm skeptical that they'd have any good ideas. it's maybe the kind of thing something like yoga might fix, without as of yet understanding the mechanism.

i don't think i actually need to go to a yoga studio. but, the answer may be spending a little bit of time sitting and breathing. i've spent most of my time recently fighting with a computer, and most of my time before that mixing and mastering. maybe i need to spend a little time with the guitar.

i'm not as dismissive of hypnotism as you might suspect i am, i just wish we could get a better handle of the mechanism.

i mean, you have to wonder if that's what demons are - repressed fears - and if that's what an exorcism really is - hypnosis to escape a repressed memory, fear or other such thing. we can do without the spells and religious mumbo jumbo, no doubt. but, it might be getting at stimulating a condition that allows for erasure.

my understanding is that there are actually experimental techniques underway that can erase undesirable memories using electronic equipment. that could be demon removal, on demand.

perhaps certain systems of eastern mysticism may have thrived for the reason that they minimize the onsets of these sorts of stresses.

and, if that's true, the mechanism would be in stimulating the hormonal condition that allows for stress release (jumbled language, it's still sort of magic at this point).

which, i believe - through direct personal experience and the observations of others regarding how i appear when i play the instrument - i can stimulate by expression on the guitar.

you know, there's a lot of evidence that brothels are actual a step forward in increasing safety measures. as comically anachronistic as the comment may be, i'd actually be pleasantly surprised if he stood up and made an announcement in support of brothels. and, i'm not convinced he'd face that much opposition from the centre, either.

www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/09/26/jason-kenney-brothels-trudeau_n_8199480.html

it demonstrates the absurd lengths that people will go to in denying that they're racists.

"if i don't want a wall with canada, too, then they're going to think i'm racist, which i am, but they can't know that, so, yeah, let's build a wall with canada, too!"

a wall would actually hurt marijuana exports, though. the logic is not entirely non-transferable.

www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/09/24/americans-canada-border-w_n_8192724.html

Kevin Wells
Let me guess, you're stoned right now?

jessica amber murray
that would be false. and, i would prefer that further responses focus on my analysis (which is no doubt correct), rather than my personal decisions.

Kevin Wells
There is no way to prove your idea is correct but it seems to me there are other possibllities that are equally, if not more likely, to be correct.

jessica amber murray
right. i suppose americans are concerned about canadians sneaking in and stealing their jobs in order to take advantage of their health care system.

as mentioned, a wall would likely hurt the canadian marijuana industry, which is actually the single largest industry in british columbia (if measured in terms of gdp). there is a mild level of consistency, if viewed along those lines. but, i somehow doubt that's what americans are thinking.

so, when they start measuring increased levels of sulphur dioxide, they will deflect the blame away from backpedalling on emissions and towards the volcano. i hope they have monitoring sources that can cut through this.

www.theweathernetwork.com/news/articles/volcanos-toxic-gas-triple-amount-of-all-europes-industry/57741/

sharks have been around longer than trees, perhaps. but longevity is not necessarily a measure of fitness. only now do they finally have mammals to compete with. the way that humans are changing the ocean may act as a catalyst for the mammalian takeover of the ocean, as they are more adapted to adjust to changes in the ocean, but that strikes me as an inevitable process. none of us will live to see it, no doubt, but it will be interesting to see if chemical changes in the water provide for the die-out necessary for mammalian radiation. like an asteroid hitting the ocean, to use an analogy.

i have a lot of problems with the way that biologists "do" evolution. rather, i like the idea of evolution as a function of environmental change. it reduces evolution to a kind of geology. oxygen goes up, the size of insects increases; temperatures change dramatically, and mammals move into opening niches. but, in this context we see something that is certainly an improvement, in any measurable way: the ability to survive changes in temperature seems almost elementary from the perspective of an advanced mammal like humans. if i'm assigning a direction, it's in the direction of robustness - but as a reaction to changes in environment that can be measured using physics.

when you really realize this, it becomes difficult to argue against climate change on the basis of restricting species diversity. if species are unable to withstand changes, other similar species that *are* able to withstand those changes, or thrive in them, will move in. you can view it as catalyzing evolution towards robustness. hey, maybe you actually want to keep an eye on polar bear and wolf hybridization for that reason. but it's bound to create more robust species, and they will diversify again on advantageous terms. not that there aren't better reasons....

how did polar bears happen, anyways? you'd have to think they were probably bears that got chased out of their range, and slowly moved into the north, adapting as they went. they were more or less pinched out of the bear genome and set adrift. an exploratory mission for the genome - possibly beneficial, but ultimately entirely expendable. and, so, anything that returns will be a net gain and contribute to a more robust type of bear. but, if nothing returns at all, there is not a loss because it was essentially expelled dna.

ah, but i'm interpreting evolution as a crossing graph rather than as a tree - i am understanding hybridization as a driver of evolution, through hybrid vigour. and, that's maybe a little cutting edge and hard to follow. it's simply the idea that what we're seeing right now with coywolf hybridization is a good model to use to explain how closely related species combine into a form that eventually assimilates one or both founder species, as a response to changes in environment. that could in theory create an ursid form from grizzly and polar founders that is actually better suited for the new arctic.

www.theweathernetwork.com/news/articles/new-regulations-provides-more-protection-to-endangered-shark-species/35812/

this document will move numbers.

www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-election-2015-liberal-fiscal-plan-1.3245239