Journals of Lord Malinov

the poetry of madness

grooving

The perception of slowed time has become fascinating.  Continued training continues to intensify the calm within me.  Poker players would be well served by CBT - Cain Brain Training - as the reduction of internal energies reduces compulsive behaviors.  Consciousness reigns.

I decided today that I should sport a look of constant amusement.  My confident male lion appearance sends people cowering when I look too serious.  Being amused isn't a bad way to go through life, when you think about it.  I'm amused.  I could laugh, but I won't because I'm just amused.  Isn't everything all too comical?  So amusing.

I am the prophet of relaxation.  I will relax you.  I will show you the way.  Listen to the sound of reformation and rebirth.  Discover the fearless you.  Freedom is a few hours away.  No drugs.  No contortion.  No effort.  So incredibly simply that I am truly amused.  Humanity evolves with a single note. 

I have discovered the proverbial clapping hand. 

No joke.  No one takes me seriously, which I must admit I find amusing, although less so every day.  What I have discovered changes everything you know about humanity.  Just because I make outlandish claims doesn't make me wrong.  I'm going to end up spending the last part of my life saying "I told you so," over and over again.  Promise me that when you discover that I'm not full of shit, you'll perform penance for your lack of faith.  I don't think I'll really have time to chastise everyone who deserves it.  Fools.

The cashier called me "sweetiepie" and asked what she could do for me.  Her co-worker angrily chastised her for flirting with me.  She had already called "dibs."

A guy in the dining room complimented my jacket and asked me if I was a musician.  I dodged the question, just because there were more interesting things to talk about.  With the leather, my resemblance to a rock star, especially since I'm not a kid, draws constant attention.  I've always been unaware of it, hiding within myself.  Letting the days go by.

My amphetimines started bothering me yesterday - they induce a subtle but universal muscle tension that nothing relaxes but time.   Not taking them brings me a few days of mind-numbed exhaustion.  I'm trying to switch to caffeine which mostly counters the exhaustion and works in an entirely different way than adderol.  Today seems good, although I have a tendency to drift in and out a bit. 

Njoi

M

posted by: Malinov at 17:13 | link | comments |

Slices

Relaxation has produced interesting effects.

As I approached an intersection doing forty, I realized that one of the cars approching obliquely had not begun to slow for the red light facing that direction.  Without a ripple of adrenalized fear, I continued into the intersection, keeping an eye on the car heading for a collision with my passenger side.  Once I felt certain that no last-minute attempt to stop would be introduced in sufficient time by my intersector, I sped my car just enough to escape the crash.  Like millimeters just past the driver's eyes.  They stopped in a panic, halfway through the intersection and patiently waited for the light to turn green, somewhat obsessed, it seemed, with the state of their undergarments. 

I carried on my conversation with Cats, only commenting on the near-miss when a good moment for a topic change happened.

My video gaming has begun to experience the same positive calm results.  Calm gives control which positively influences results. 

Panic is useless.  Adrenal highs are essential, when used where appropriate.  They are deadly when used persistently.

My driving, on the whole, has improved immensely.  Being calm has a strong tendency to fixate me in the present, more interested in present sensory stimuli than in rehashing unrelenquished emotional states.  Driving is pretty simple when I pay attention.

My ADD is non-problematic, although I've had to take a gradual approach to quitting the adderol.  Cold turkey on amphetimines generates a period of complete exhaustion that lasts several days, at least.  I haven't had any Lexapro in three weeks and haven't even come close to panic in two months.  I did go cold turkey on the lexapro, which should have generated high levels of anxiety, especially since I was still taking anxiety-inducing amphetimines.  I have not felt a thing.

At some point the language takes hold, and I suspect there is no real need for further training after this point.  However, further training clearly still has further effects on me.  My meditations go deeper and my calm is more and more unflappable.  So many questions need to be answered.

Anxiety, it seems to me, is a product of introducing a temporal element to imagined fears - the imaginary tiger that came yesterday may attack tomorrow.  Anxiety, I would conjecture, was born when time was introduced into our language.  Until we can speak of the tiger that might attack tomorrow, we cannot be anxious about it.

Notice that fear is not synonymous with anxiety at this point.  Without language we may fear the future but anxiety requires us to be able to formulate the future threat.  I know there are about a trillion assumptions in there.  It is difficult to be rigorous.

As velocity increases, time contracts.  At the speed of light, time is unchanging.  Photons exist out of time. 

We watched part of Saw2 the other night, a girl thrown into a pit to look for a key in a mass of dirty glass hypodermics.  I felt the horrid revulsions of forced empathy, but my body ignored the whole scene so the pains were forgotten as quickly as they arose.  Cats had the same indifference.  We watched Dracula, a movie that had always bothered her in the past, both hooked up for training.  The movie was enjoyable, but no panic made the impact far less terrible than I had always known before. 

We had both generally avoided horror movies because of the emotional collateral damage that could result.  A serious emotional jolt could stay with me for a week or more, dragging me into an abyss that always threatened to linger. 

I'm interested to discover if the training tends to eliminate nightmares, or reduce their impact.  I have been thinking that our imaginative thought has grown out of our dream state, but neglected to carry over the paralysis that typifies the dream states.  Training isolates the imagination from the flight-fight response.

Even a short dose of training makes me feel good.  It pushes me into calmness, even when I can't calm myself.  It reminds me how and teaches me anew.

Time slows down when I calm.  If I became perfectly calm, I would become pure energy and time would cease to exist for me.

See you on the other side.

M

posted by: Malinov at 15:04 | link | comments |

lingo

The heart of my discovery lies in the necessary importance of creating languages appropriate to specific tasks in developing the full potentials of biofeedback. 

One common use of GSR signals has been to assign ascending or descending sequences, i.e., musical scales, to increases and decreases in the GSR readings.  While this language is useful for learning to control the GSR, it contains too much information for the mind to appreciate the most important piece of that information.  By reducing the language to a binary one - has the flight-fight response been invoked? - the mind is able to focus on responding to invocation rather than trying to learn to affect the degree of invocation, a much subtler concept. 

Biofeedback, in this instance, is simply amplification.  We can easily be consciously aware of gross changes in our body resulting from the flight-fight response without any tools.  We can also learn to control the changes without tools.  This has been the path of the yogi. 

Amplification makes it easier to learn this simple and difficult level of control.  Once the language is learned, the mind and body communicate without any difficulty.  Endless amounts of energy that are wasted on self-scaring cycles are saved. 

Almost like showing us how to control the rudder on a ship, after years spent trying to steer by shifing our weight.  I never noticed that wheel there.  Things are so much more peaceful.  I wonder what those levers do?

Life is suddenly a bounty of adventure and delight.  Come sail away.

M

posted by: Malinov at 13:48 | link | comments (2) |

biod

Biofeedback uses simple electronics to translate physical information into a sensory language that can be understood and manipulated by the mind.  By measuring body conditions and making the mind aware of changes in body conditions, biofeedback creates self-awareness far beyond what can be accomplished without tools.

Learning to recognize and know - both consciously and unconsciously - changes in body states opens a field of vision that is unavailable in the noise of constant distress and panic.  The body responses can be reserved for instances of mortal danger while the mind is left in peace to deal with non-mortal issues.  

A simple GSR (galvanic skin response) device provides an output signal proportional to the resistance of our skin. Pores close in response to flight-fight response stimuli, to prevent bleeding, etc.  Because of the high density of pores in the fingers and toes, these areas are usually used for measurement.  A small current is sent through the skin between two electrodes and then balanced using a wheatstone bridge or some equivalent arrangement, providing the output signal in response to the balancing. 

Because the flight-fight response creates physical stimulation in response to provocational stimuli, either positive or negative, the physical arousal level measured by the GSR can be correlated to emotional arousal. GSRs have been used as lie detectors by assuming increased physical arousal is necessarily the result of lying.  Actually, telling the truth might be more arousing in some circumstances.  No wonder they don't allow lie detector evidence into court.

The language aspect is critical.  The idea of conditioning is too simple, a linear approach.  We don't condition well, as human beings, because we have (sometimes) the ability to learn and learning always trumps conditioning.

Skinner said the autonomic responses - involuntary responses - can't be conditioned, and he was generally right.  We can condition them a little, big whoop.  However, our autonomic responses can be taught their role with a brief dose of physical awareness.  Language is our truest limit.  We must teach ourselves to speak within ourselves. 

Did you get that down?  Take out the probably.  Makes me sound wishy washy.

Driving with my daughter, I told her the story of Tess of the D'Urbervilles.  I realized that she wouldn't read the novel for many years yet, but she should be full aware of the difficult life of her namesake. 

Interestingly, it was difficult to tell some parts of the story without tears.  Since I have discovered endless calm, I have found myself a bit more readily provoked to tears by artistic emotional content.  The feeling never persists, but the rushes can make telling a story tricky.

Life is more like surfing than anything.  You have to shimmy and shake to stay upright.  There are some general rules to follow, but when the waves come under, you just have to know how to move.

You gotta move, child, you gotta move.  When the Lord gets ready, you gotta move.

My voice is really opening up.  Singing and strumming the guitar have become definite sources of joy.

Enjoy,

M

posted by: Malinov at 11:59 | link | comments |

temps perdu

Another weekend, come and gone.

The kids yearning to be here, with us, has grown beyond proportion.  The eX has become a living fiasco, floundering and failing in every aspect of her meagre existence.  Still lashing out with anger at every effort to help her, she alienates and unravels, tearing down the structures that keep her secure while assaulting every edifice that comes within range.

How's that metaphor?  Can I mix you up another?

I sang "Letter to Elise" last night at the club.  I've avoided the Cure pretty much since the disintegration struck home, so it was a test of memory and emotion.  Probably more than any song I've done in public, Elise tested my fibre.  I let the emotion wail. 

There was an outburst of applause at the finish.  I don't know how I sounded.  It is difficult to listen from behind the microphone.  It felt good.

For those who are not cureheads, what's wrong with you??? ; )  Disintegration is still the best album ever.  Letter to Elise is a very melodic "I'm sorry and accepting that we are not together" song with lots of room to emote.  I sang the song ten trillion times while commuting, but now it has personal overtones that make me shudder at times.  Singing it in public was an incredible release of anguished emotional stores.

"The greatest thing . . . in all education is to make the nervous system our ally instead of our enemy." - William James.

Since I have to put together a scientific treatise of my discovery, I am immersed in research. 

There is no parasympathetic response for the flight-fight response, i.e., no anti-response, no response to reverse the FFR.  The physical manifestations of the flight-fight response dissipate over time - at least ten minutes in ordinary circumstances.  The only method we can utilize to control the flight-fight response is preventing the invocation of the flight-fight response. 

We can prevent invocation by avoidance or by practicing  to diminish our tendency to invoke the response , typically by graduated exposure. 

The flight-fight response has an exponential-like nature - a calm subject will invoke a substantially smaller flight-fight response than an excited subject. 

Physically calm and physically excited.  The excitement of the body is, in many ways, unrelated to the excitement of the mind. 

Outside of situations of actual and present physical danger, the flight-fight response serves no positive purpose.  Can such a categorical statement be defended?  We'll need to search further for any positive adaptations within the FFR.

There are two stages to the therapy - the translation sessions and the adaptation stage.  I need to conduct extensive clinical studies to determine the norms and limits of these two stages.

  "Tension is a habit.  As we see it, the chronically tense person has practiced tensing and bracing innumerable times.  "Practice makes perfect," and hence he has become proficient at it as he is at playing golf or typing if he pays much attention to these activiities.  He has not, of course, purposefully or knowingly practiced being tense, but the end result is the same.
  We daily see people who are braced as though a lion were lurking around the corner.  It is our belief that they started reacting this way, as a rule, when they were quite young."  - Haugen, et al.

  "Wilhelm Von Humbolt once ventured the optimistic belief that a time would come when it would be a disgrace to be sick and sickness would necessarily be regarded as resulting from perverse ideas.  His friend Goethe expressed this more poetically: "What we nurture in ourselves will grow : that is nature's eternal law."" - Lindeman

  Learning is the process of introducing adaptive modifications to fit a model to experience.  Learning necessarily requires feedback.

There is a spiritual aspect to my discovery.  Disconnecting our minds from constant panic reconnects our minds to ourselves, our bodies and the  whole of our Universe.  Prayer becomes a natural state as an awareness of our place in God's plan becomes clear. 

"Fear is the mind killer.  Fear is the little death that brings total obliteration." - Herbert

I told the boys that they could not escape responsibility by reference to rules.  The responsibilty to be smart trumps the responsibility to follow rules.  Every rule must be questioned.  Every habit must be reconsidered.  Never follow stupidity, I warned.

I paused to contemplate the radical advice I was giving, for the boys would unquestionably be forced to follow the orders of some stupid authority, a rebellion which could always cost lives in the worst case.  How do I reconcile the wisdom of my advice with pragmatic concerns?

Never confuse the stupid person with the system they represent.  A brilliant system can be administered by an idiot - a bureaucratic utopia that keeps our hopes alive - and obediance to a smart system is not the same as following the moron who administers the system.   You don't follow your sargeant because he's  smart.  You trust the command structure to bring the general's brilliance to your aid.

Sometimes the smartest move is counter-intuitive.  This is the razor that separates men from boys, so to speak.  Anyone can walk the path.  How many can recognize the unrecognizable and anticipate the unanticipateable?  Brilliance is also an art.

Because the adaptation stage is necessarily long - avoidance prevents invocation with distance, so discovery that the panic-threat is gone is prevented until the stimulus is revisited - I have no idea how short the translation stage can be and still be effective.  Some of these concepts will be very difficult to test.

Well, I also received a plethora of tools to play with - a new GSR2, some software and the relaxomat.  I'm scouring the bookstores for relevant discussions. 

The kids need to come live here.  I'm preparing that path.   I'm told the eX has a 30% chance of living 4 years, up from the 13% chance originally given.  Apparently the cancer only attacked one of the lymph nodes.  I have no patience for the woman, but I am devoted to protecting my children's mother.  Isn't that a wonderfully vitalizing contradiction of impulse?  My treatment would probably help her significantly, but some choices are beyond my powers.

Enjoy,

M

posted by: Malinov at 17:12 | link | comments |
psychobabble, tales of passing time, she blinded me with science

groove is in the heart

Tess looked radiant this morning as she sang a bit of Mozart.  Her hair had been curled in gentle rings of gold, a bit too reminiscent of the eX at her best but in a good way.  Being my daughter, her beauty affects me in a totally different way than the beauty of other women.  I delight in her beauty because of the joy I know that beauty can bring her.  The trick is to help her stay strong in the throes of living with power. 

Her step-sister, I was told, had done Tess' hair.  I gave the nymph a friendly nod.  I have a wariness of the girl that isn't personal to her.  I cannot trust her because she is related to my enemy.  Outside of the worst cases, we can presume a girl will side with her father in a personal struggle.  At the same time, politics is no reason to be unkind.  I will find the strength to give, even to my enemy's kin. 

Step-sister came over to the house a few weeks ago with some of Tess' gang.  I believe there was deception involved as my understanding was that she had been forbidden to enter our evil enclave.  I remained blissfully ignorant of such details, as they are truly none of my business.  There is a delightful irony to the defection of a daughter from the major dorkus who tried to take away my kids, so I'll assume my ignorance truth.

It was 33 degrees - the very limit of texascold - as I drove to church this morning. Freezing in Texas.  I think that's a bad omen or a sign of the apocalypse.  Where is global warming when you need it?
 
Global warming is what happens when non-scientists play at science.
 
I'm not saying the globe isn't warming - the sun makes sure of that.  Climactic changes of  a global scale, however, are not well modelled by a linear equation with respect to anything.  Linear models are so last millenium. 
 
Our systems are chaotic, plain and simple.  So, if we do something, if we do nothing, if we do anything whatsoever, the result is basically unpredictable.  We - humanity - are incredibly insignificant on the planetary scale.  Whatever little thing we, as a species, manage to do will have no more (or less) impact than the flutter of a butterfly's wing in China. 

"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings
Look upon my works, ye mighty, and despair"

Nothing else remains.  If you want to be remembered for very long, carve your name in granite.  Chances are damn good that anything else will disintegrate within a few thousand years.  Dust in the wind.  Jeff's brother played drums with the guys in Kansas when they were in high school.

Perhaps the real problem is those chinese butterflies.  Perhaps hubris.  I used to be egotistical, but now I'm perfect.

So what is this - I discover a cure for anxiety and not even a small round of applause?  I'll remember this.  Don't think I won't.  You'll be sorry. 

My mom says you have to go home now.

Enjoy,

M

posted by: Malinov at 10:51 | link | comments (1) |

Four jobs I've had:
video pizza guy
greeting card packer
federal bureaucrat
patent attorney

Four movies I'd watch over and over:
Dirty Rotten Scoundrels
Real Genius
What's Up, Doc
All That Jazz

Four places I've lived:
Kansas
Virginia
Maryland
Texas

Four TV shows I enjoy:
Brainiac
South Park
Battlefield Detectives
Icons

Four places I've vacationed:
Creste Butte, CO
Gulf Shores, AL
Paris, France
Cape Hatteris, NC

Four favorite dishes:
Mirch Masala
Fajitas
Gattis Sampler
Prime Rib

Four sites I visit daily:
Fusker
my Yahoo
New Science
Gutenberg

Four places I'd rather be right now:
warm
naked
indulged
mid-struggle

posted by: Malinov at 09:24 | link | comments (1) |

Zeroed

If there is any merit to the reincarnation concept, I must have been a Zero pilot during WW2 and present for the revolution in Russia.  There are emotional ripples in the dark sea attached to the memory of those moments.  Perhaps I was affected by those events during my pre-conscious youth.  There are just so many variables, any guess will do.

I have a growing desire to own a sniper's rifle.  The idea was enflamed when I learned more about Stalingrad yesterday.  The Russian youth had developed a passion for marksmanship, a skill we can assume evolved rapidly during the famines of the 30s.   Their snipers were heroes.

I'm not one for guns, generally.  I have several handguns - this being Texas and all - but little inclination to fire them.  Being able to hit a target with a lethal force from a distance of a mile is just too fascinating.  It would be a test of a steady hand, if nothing else.

I recall a young marine, describing the first time he had been personally fired upon.  "My first six rounds of return fire went straight into the dirt.  Then I  calmed enough to realize that my shots might be more effective if I aimed my weapon." 

Calm enough.  That is the question.

My recent discovery has proved . . . profoundly earth-shaking.  The initial trials are a complete success.  The implications are astounding.  I'm hoping that clinical trials will begin as early as Monday.  I have a million things to do and I'm loving every second.

I'll describe the trials in detail, once I have the necessary patents written and filed. 

In pursuit of a task, I discovered that my anxiety was a serious obstacle.  In searching for ways to work past my anxiety, I discovered a cure.

I've been off my meds all week.  I've never felt better.  My ADD is completely diminished.  My mind is firing on all cylinders, all day, all night, in stereo.

Anyone who intends to block my domination of this world had probably better start organizing now. 

Cats had foot surgery and so has been sitting on the couch for two weeks with nothing to do but be horny.  Meow.  The eX had cancer surgery in the past twenty-four, but I have no details other than she was alive at last report.  I'm done playing with the dope.  Operation "take back the kids and leave her to rot in her festering ickiness" is underway. 

As a rampaging robot on Lost in Space once put it, ever so succinctly,  "Crush.  Kill.  Destroy."

Metaphorically, anyway.  Legally, certainly.  I'm going to give that crude approximation of a person a lesson in the law.  Bbbbabbby, you just ain't seen nothing yet.

I've always been dumbfounded that she would dare take me on offensively.  She's seen my game.  Talk about adding insult to injury.

My heart is troubled by the dude.  He broke up my family and tried to take my kids away.  Well beyond the bounds of normal decency, to the point of relentlessly bullying my daughter to lie in court so that I would lose my share of joint custody.  Can I actually leave that measure of vengeance to the Lord, our Universe?  Only time can measure my wisdom.

So, today I will make preparations for the clinical trials.  I'll be charging my subjects $100 an hour.  If things go well, that price will soon soar.  What a country.

Freezing in Texas.  Get the fuck out of here.

M

posted by: Malinov at 09:02 | link | comments (1) |