The Perils of Mania

He who gives a book gives more than cloth,

Paper and ink. He gives more than leather, parchment, and words.

He reveals foreword of this thoughts, a dedication of his friendship,

A page of his presence, a chapter of himself,  

an index of his of love.

There is a particular kind of pain, elation, loneliness, and terror involved in the kind of madness that plagues one with bipolar. When you’re high it tremendous. The ideas and feelings are fast and too frequent like shooting stars. You follow them until you find bigger, better, and brighter things.

Shyness goes, the right words and gestures are suddenly there, they power to captivate others are certainty. There are interests found in uninteresting people. Sensually is pervasive and the desire to seduce is irresistible. Feelings of ease, intensity, power, well-being, financial omnipotence and euphoria pervades ones bones.

But then, somewhere it all comes crashing down. These changes. The fast ideas are far too fast and there are far too many; overwhelming confusion replaces clarity. Memory goes. Humor and absorption on friends faces are replaced by fear and concern. Everything previously moving with the grain is now against you is irritable, angry.

Frightened, uncontrollable and enmeshed totally in the blackest cave of the mind. Caves you never knew were there. It goes on and on and finally there is only the recollections of your behavior….your bizarre, frantic, aimless behavior….for mania has the grace of partially obliterating memories.

How do you know when to let go

How do you know it is time to let go? In one sentence:

            When you feel any kind of unpleasantness or discomfort.

You can consider unpleasantness or discomfort a clear sign that it is time to let go.

And I'm no stranger to letting go. Letting go has become a common practice of mine. Probably too much of a common practice that it leaves me unable to get close to others. Letting go has no longer become a problem for me.

But for some letting go is heartbreaking. And in some situations it's completely understandable. Not all things are equal to let go.

By letting go, we actually allow more of the mystery of life to come in for us.-- Leslie K. Lobell, M.A.

Letting go. It's difficult for us in so many ways and on so many levels. Yet life calls us up to do it, over and over again. Letting go is part of our growth process. We cannot move on to the new while continuing to cling to the old. For some we let go for their sake and not for ours. And why doesn't it feel like a learning process?

For some of us, we must let go of a past relationship. Or even a current relationship. Or just lesson the relationship. Maybe the relationship was not meant to be: perhaps it was hurtful to us, or perhaps it was hindering the personal or spiritual growth of one or both.  Perhaps we have no problems leaving the person behind, but we continue to harbor animosity. 

Truth is not enough

Wish I had learned an invaluable lesson years ago. I'm trying to learn it now but I've always proven to be too hard headed. Too stubborn. The irony is that I've always fooled myself into thinking that I was the one taking charge.

Lately I have been having hard time dealing with my bipolar. I'm not referring to its symptoms, but the coping and dealing. I cycle so unpredictably. It gets the best of me and it is wearing me out. I'm tired from it mentally, physically and even spiritually. It's exhausting. What's worse is that it seems to worsen with each episode.

Scripture says that the truth will set us free. It seems to me not applying everything  of this wisdom from life's lessons learned is enough. I knew the truth years ago that whatever we focus on we become. It's the truth. But it hasn't set me free.

Do we all not know that E=Mc²? It's a fact. It's the truth. Now can you pass an advanced physics class and explain the concepts of mass-energy equivalences? Just knowing a truth is not enough.

Final: Hated Father

It is fatherhood which makes childhood possible.

One of the last scenes of the movie Saving Private Ryan really stands out to me. If you recall the scene where, as an old man, Ryan is standing with his wife at the grave of Capt. John Miller surrounded in a field of white crosses. He was the platoon leader who, along with several other men that gave their lives to see that at that time private Ryan safely return to his family who had already lost his multiple brothers in the war.

Ryan seemingly overwhelmed by a number of emotions kneels and as if they were standing face to face tells him he's never forgotten those last words, "Earn it," the captain spoke to him as he slipped away after receiving a fatal wound.

Ryan turns to his wife, catching her by surprise and seeking true affirmation asks her, "Tell me I've led a good life. Tell me I'm a good man." Confused but honest she responds, "You are."

The Tin Woodman, the Tin Woodsman, the Tinman, and Me...

Now I know I've got a heart, 'cause it's breaking

"For brains do not make one happy, and happiness is the best thing in the world." --The Tin Woodman

He wasn't always The Tin Woodman. As a matter of fact sometimes he was referred to as the Tin Woodsman, but we know him as the Tinman. Before he was the Tinman he was a Munchkin named Nick Chopper, flesh and bone.

Unlike the classic story we all know, the origins of the character are rather gruesome. Nick Chopper made his living chopping down trees in Oz. The Wicked Witch of the East placed a spell on his axe at the request of his fiancée's father preventing him from marrying the girl he loved. The enchanted axe caused Nick to chop off his limbs one by one. Nick replaced each limb with a prosthetic limb made of tin. Eventually, there was nothing left of Nick but tin. The tinsmith, Ku-Klip, who helped him, had forgotten to replace his heart leaving him unable to love the girl he had fallen for. The Tinman is born while Nick Chopper ceased to exist.

We know the story of how the Tinman joins up with Dorothy for her journey to the Emerald City. But what probably 90% of its audience doesn't know is that along the way he proves himself useful by chopping wood to build a bridge or raft and chopping the heads off of threatening animals. Throughout the journey it was the Tinman that was the most compassionate and most protective. Rather than missing his original body of flesh, the Tinman becomes rather proud, rather too proud, of his tin body. Unlike in the movie, in the original published book one hundred years ago, when the party finally received what they were each seeking from the Wizard, the Wizard cut a hole in the Tinman's chest and placed a silk heart stuffed with sawdust, symbolizing to be very soft and tender.