These were the days...

This was my favourite song for a long time and although I have a new favourite song, this still ranks high in my list. It's also a good tear jerker for me.

My Day in Court

I just returned home from a full day in the city where I was at family court to settle financial matters ahead of an impending divorce. It was an arduously long day but after seven hours, an agreement was finally signed. Was it fair? Am I happy with it? Can I live with it?

I can't say that I am happy and I don't know if it was fair. All I can say is that it was the best that could be done under the circumstances. It's not particular fair that I've had to struggle with this gender identity burden. Neither is it particularly fair that when I finally managed to wrap my head around it and brought the truth to my soul mate, she decided that she was no longer my soul mate. How do you put a financial figure on that?

It's not that I'm against being fair or even against the concept whether in theory or practice. However, I do believe in acting with integrity. Proposing a solution in private and then presenting a legal offer demanding so much more is not acting with integrity. Friends who said they would be there and then couldn't fit me into their busy schedules and then later blame me for not reaching out to them; that is not acting with integrity. 

Ironically, she could have had anything she wanted if she had just asked me instead of pursuing it through the legal route. She knew that and I made it abundantly clear to her on several occasions. We would both have had more since we would have also avoided the legal fees. I can't begin to imagine how the love that she once had for me has soured into a tonic most foul that she has had to take this route. Yet, for all that has happened, I still love her and I think that is what hurts the most.

What we don't know

I have an exam tomorrow for which I'm trying to study for, yet I find myself writing because of an interesting concept that is part of my study. It's called the global workspace model and, nothing to do with 'global' buzzwords such as 'global economy', it says that consciousness is a result of which parts of your brain are active. That is, your brain's output is experienced as concious awareness. In other words, you aren't conscious of what your brain doesn't do!

If that sounds like I'm talking in circles, consider that there is a condition called blindsight in which the visual system is working but the brain is not concious of visual awareness. Vision in your brain is processed mainly by the occipital lobe at the back of your brain so damage to this area may render your brain unable to process part or all of the visual information being received. Typically, people with blindsight only lose vision in part of their visual field. Interestingly though, they often don't realise that they've lost it. If you damage your eye, your brain knows that it is missing information, so you know you've lost part of your vision. If your brain is damaged, it doesn't know that it is missing information and so you don't know that you're missing something! 

Similarly, there's another condition called hemineglect in which damage is done to the right hand side of your parietal lobe. Your parietal lobe is responsible for spatial awareness and the right hand side of your brain controls and receives information from the left hand side of your body. People with this condition don't notice anything on their right hand side. They  might shave or only put on makeup on the right hand side of their face and if they draw a picture, they will mainly only draw the right half. A patient with hemineglect has said, about the name of the condition, "How can you neglect something that's not there?"

I find this interesting because it shows how it is possible for us to be unaware of things that may be obvious to others. We don't know what we don't know. I've always been flabbergasted by people who claim they know everything or have all the answers. You may know things from your point of view but you cannot claim to know how other people feel or how they "should" therefore react. Conciousness is such a subjective experience and nobody can say for certain that they experience a situation in the same way as somebody else. We use labels to describe but they are learnt in a social context. We learn that grass is green but we do not know that what you see and experience as "green" is exactly the same as what I see and experience as "green". We only know to recognise and label this same experience as green. Maybe that's why some people have terrible colour co-ordination?! 

I think this gels with me because it fits in with my philosophy of dealing with others. There's more to people that just what you can see and because we don't know what is happening under the surface, we shouldn't be too quick to judge. Everyone has their foibles and there may be good reason for them. That's not to say that you have to be friends with everyone or have to super considerate of all the possibilities. You still have to live your own life and be true to yourself. Spend time with the people you get along with and you don't have to spend time with people you don't like but judge not lest ye be judged... 

Attaching Emotions

I'm reaching a point where I'm almost functional during an average day. Worries about life are no longer totally overwhelming and I don't live in pervasive fear or anxiety and I'm not constantly in tears or a state of despair. Almost.. 

Unfortunately, I find myself still traumatised by emotions that are attached to what were once happy memories. Places, things and events trigger memories in my mind that then release a flood of sadness that washes over me as quickly as a tsunami. Observers might think I were bipolar if they observed my mood swings but that would neglect what is actually happening in my thought processes.

As an example, there are now a number of movies that I can no longer watch. Antz was a wonderful animation that I enjoyed but it was also the first film that my ex and I went to see together. Avatar (the James Cameron film) is another that I enjoyed but that reminds me of the final times during which my ex and I were still in contact. As of writing, it was the last movie that we watched together. Remembering these movies is distressing due to the associated emotions and, even at this very moment, it requires a pause as I am brought to tears by these thoughts.

I did not choose to associate negative emotions with these memories and I have yet to figure out how to detach them. This places me in precarious position as I can find myself quickly crashing down when what might seem to be a small or innocent detail is brought to my attention. Judging by how my mind has dealt with other events, these associations will not go away but I can only hope that their effects will lessen over time.

Replay (Part 1)

Years ago, when I was a more avid gamer, I never really enjoyed replaying involved single player games. My main issue was that at the point when a game is completed, I was usually in a pretty powerful position. If playing first person shooters, I'd had the good weapons and you might have lots of ammo (probably not after the final boss though... ha). If playing resource management games, I'd had a big stockpile of resources to build whatever I wanted and I had a great income stream for various things. In many strategy games there was often a point where victory was inevitable and realising it was just a matter of continuing along a rather mechanical process. 

Replaying games meant starting from scratch again. It was frustrating to have to be frugal with resources after being accustomed to being able to do what I needed to when I needed to. Additionally, I knew how the game worked and I knew success was possible with just an investment in time. Overcoming the same challenges again seemed less fulfilling the second time around unless I intentionally made it difficult for myself somehow. This usually led to a decrease in motivation and interest. Often I would just end up hacking save files to see if there were items or combinations of things I could use that weren't possible in the normal game. 

For a while, I have been feeling the same way about my life. In many ways, my life is restarting and I've felt the same sort of frustrations and de-motivation as when replaying a game. My career is at a total restart along with my income stream and, in likelihood after divorce proceedings, my current assets and resources. Similarly, I have not seen many of my old friends for a long time and it feels like a game where I have to build up a whole new set of allies.

Of course, like in playing games, all that is possible to rebuild. It only takes time and effort and I already know it is possible and how. However, like my analogy, any feeling of fulfilment is not as great the second time around whilst challenges still take a similar amount of time and effort. That is, the reward to effort ratio seems to decrease and be less enticing. For a long time therefore, I felt very unmotivated and disinterested and, along the same lines, my mind did wonder along the analogous route of "hacking" to obtain things that weren't "normally" possible...

Now that I'm actively involved in replaying my life, however, I'm finding the motivation and interest starting to pick up. Is this where the analogy breaks down or is it just a continuation? I'll leave you hanging until I write part 2 of this piece.. :)