The Matrix - Finding Our Purpose Through Quantum Thinking

    Even though we all might not be 'action hero' and/or Keanu Reeves fans, the 'quantum thought' based movie, The Matrix,  has numerous messages for all of us to chew on. And that being said, I strongly suggest you all rent it and watch it with pen and paper handy. Be prepared to pause, rewind and write down any dialog that makes you scratch your head. Sit back and enjoy; for there is another dimension of life that is sitting right in front of you. GM

For more interpretations  and  symbolism in the  The Matrix, please visit http://onwardoverland.com/matrix/philosophy.html  and  http://www.thematrix101.com/matrix/symbolism.php

Other must-see movies regarding quantum thinking  and finding 'our purpose'  : What The Bleep Do We Know?! (www.whatthebleep.com) and  The Shift (www.theshiftmovie.com)

Keeping My Eye On The Prize

       I had a great conference call this morning with a couple colleagues, Sue Veldkamp and Ray Singletary. One point that stood out was that I really need to 'stay in my lane' when it comes to sharing my story. It's become evident that, in my true bipolar fashion, I've strayed a bit from my goal of spreading awareness. I've been writing more about my 'recovery' than the fact I had to recognize there was something(anxiety/bipolar/depression) to recover from in the first place.
  
      In order to break the stigma of mental illness, the first order of business is to recognize that bipolar disorder and depression exist. The biggest hurdle for those suffering, and their family member for that matter, is to know it's 'OK' to reach out for help. In the past 10 years ,especially in the competitive athletic arena, anxiety and depression have been treated as a taboo subject. Due to the lack of information, society has viewed anxiety and depression as a weakness; causing most athletes to be very hesitant in seeking help.

     It wasn't until recently that the reality of anxiety and depression(in professional sports) has been exposed. With the likes of Terry Bradshaw, Ricky Williams, Delonte West( and the much publicized Super Bowl saga of Barrett Robbins for that matter) finally 'coming out',  society has slowly begun to understand there is an issue that needs to be addressed.

   The only way this stigma can be broken is for us to continue an open dialog, study and shed more light on this all too common disease(s). Please take the time to share your stories and help me come up with ideas on how I can achieve these goals.

    Thanks in advance - GM

Civil DISobedience and Bipolar DISorder

      The following text was written by Henry David Thoreau in 1849. As I continue to explore my 'illness', my 'disorder', I'm  thinking we need to go ahead and  remove the 'dis'. Being tricked to think we're freaks, projects and head cases, I'm sick and tired of being 'dissed' (pun intended). The  parallels and metaphors are endless. It turns out we should probably remove the 'dis' from Thoreau's title as well. Our country, our  minds, our 'obedience', would seem  better served if we stopped taking in the ass and stand up for our colorful views and intuitions. 

         I mentioned yesterday my Chinese horoscope insinuated that our "somewhat chaotic intuition was more right than wrong" We all know to take horoscopes with a grain of salt, however this one seemed oddly accurate.

     The themes in Thoreau's "Civil Disobedience" are timeless and the specifics are slavery and the Mexican-American War. Ironically, even those period-specific themes have great bearing on us today. Not to mention how the mental illness epidemic continues to grow in the name of capitalism. Enjoy.GM

                          Civil Disobedience

    I heartily accept the motto, — “That government is best which governs least”; and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which also I believe — “That government is best which governs not at all”; and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have. Government is at best but an expedient; but most governments are usually, and all governments are sometimes, inexpedient. The objections which have been brought against a standing army, and they are many and weighty, and deserve to prevail, may also at last be brought against a standing government. The standing army is only an arm of the standing government. The government itself, which is only the mode which the people have chosen to execute their will, is equally liable to be abused and perverted before the people can act through it. Witness the present Mexican war, the work of comparatively a few individuals using the standing government as their tool; for in the outset, the people would not have consented to this measure.

      This American government — what is it but a tradition, though a recent one, endeavoring to transmit itself unimpaired to posterity, but each instant losing some of its integrity? It has not the vitality and force of a single living man; for a single man can bend it to his will. It is a sort of wooden gun to the people themselves. But it is not the less necessary for this; for the people must have some complicated machinery or other, and hear its din, to satisfy that idea of government which they have. Governments show thus how successfully men can be imposed upon, even impose on themselves, for their own advantage. It is excellent, we must all allow. Yet this government never of itself furthered any enterprise, but by the alacrity with which it got out of its way. It does not keep the country free. It does not settle the West. It does not educate. The character inherent in the American people has done all that has been accomplished; and it would have done somewhat more, if the government had not sometimes got in its way. For government is an expedient, by which men would fain succeed in letting one another alone; and, as has been said, when it is most expedient, the governed are most let alone by it. Trade and commerce, if they were not made of india-rubber, would never manage to bounce over obstacles which legislators are continually putting in their way; and if one were to judge these men wholly by the effects of their actions and not partly by their intentions, they would deserve to be classed and punished with those mischievous persons who put obstructions on the railroads. 

     But, to speak practically and as a citizen, unlike those who call themselves no-government men, I ask for, not at once no government, but at once a better government. Let every man make known what kind of government would command his respect, and that will be one step toward obtaining it. 

     After all, the practical reason why, when the power is once in the hands of the people, a majority are permitted, and for a long period continue, to rule is not because they are most likely to be in the right, nor because this seems fairest to the minority, but because they are physically the strongest. But government in which the majority rule in all cases can not be based on justice, even as far as men understand it. Can there not be a government in which the majorities do not virtually decide right and wrong, but conscience? — in which majorities decide only those questions to which the rule of expediency is applicable? Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience to the legislator? Why has every man a conscience then? I think that we should be men first, and subjects afterward. It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right. The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right. It is truly enough said that a corporation has no conscience; but a corporation of conscientious men is a corporation with a conscience. Law never made men a whit more just; and, by means of their respect for it, even the well-disposed are daily made the agents of injustice. A common and natural result of an undue respect for the law is, that you may see a file of soldiers, colonel, captain, corporal, privates, powder-monkeys, and all, marching in admirable order over hill and dale to the wars, against their wills, ay, against their common sense and consciences, which makes it very steep marching indeed, and produces a palpitation of the heart. They have no doubt that it is a damnable business in which they are concerned; they are all peaceably inclined. Now, what are they? Men at all? or small movable forts and magazines, at the service of some unscrupulous man in power? Visit the Navy Yard, and behold a marine, such a man as an American government can make, or such as it can make a man with its black arts — a mere shadow and reminiscence of humanity, a man laid out alive and standing, and already, as one may say, buried under arms with funeral accompaniment, though it may be,

“Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note,
As his corse to the rampart we hurried;
Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot
O’er the grave where our hero was buried.”

      The mass of men serve the state thus, not as men mainly, but as machines, with their bodies. They are the standing army, and the militia, jailers, constables, posse comitatus, etc. In most cases there is no free exercise whatever of the judgment or of the moral sense; but they put themselves on a level with wood and earth and stones; and wooden men can perhaps be manufactured that will serve the purpose as well. Such command no more respect than men of straw or a lump of dirt. They have the same sort of worth only as horses and dogs. Yet such as these even are commonly esteemed good citizens. Others — as most legislators, politicians, lawyers, ministers, and office-holders — serve the state chiefly with their heads; and, as they rarely make any moral distinctions, they are as likely to serve the devil, without intending it, as God. A very few — as heroes, patriots, martyrs, reformers in the great sense, and men — serve the state with their consciences also, and so necessarily resist it for the most part; and they are commonly treated as enemies by it. A wise man will only be useful as a man, and will not submit to be “clay,” and “stop a hole to keep the wind away,” but leave that office to his dust at least: 

“I am too high-born to be propertied,
To be a second at control,
Or useful serving-man and instrument
To any sovereign state throughout the world.”

He who gives himself entirely to his fellow men appears to them useless and selfish; but he who gives himself partially to them is pronounced a benefactor and philanthropist. 

How does it become a man to behave toward the American government today? I answer, that he cannot without disgrace be associated with it. I cannot for an instant recognize that political organization as my government which is the slave’s government also.

      All men recognize the right of revolution; that is, the right to refuse allegiance to, and to resist, the government, when its tyranny or its inefficiency are great and unendurable. But almost all say that such is not the case now. But such was the case, they think, in the Revolution of ‘75. If one were to tell me that this was a bad government because it taxed certain foreign commodities brought to its ports, it is most probable that I should not make an ado about it, for I can do without them. All machines have their friction; and possibly this does enough good to counter-balance the evil. At any rate, it is a great evil to make a stir about it. But when the friction comes to have its machine, and oppression and robbery are organized, I say, let us not have such a machine any longer. In other words, when a sixth of the population of a nation which has undertaken to be the refuge of liberty are slaves, and a whole country is unjustly overrun and conquered by a foreign army, and subjected to military law, I think that it is not too soon for honest men to rebel and revolutionize. What makes this duty the more urgent is that fact that the country so overrun is not our own, but ours is the invading army.

— Henry David Thoreau

  Now tell me if you see the parallels with how we are treated when it comes to our 'illness'. Our gift of bipolar 'order' needs to be taken seriously and monitored very closely. In most cases we need to be regulated and stabilized with some form of  medication. But to think we are crazy? C'mon. Let's stop drinking the Kool-Aid being served up by the Jim Jones' of  modern psychiatry. It's pathetic and criminal that they all need to be in bed with Merck, Dow Pharma, Bristol Myers Squib, Amgen, Pfizer and Eli Lilly in order to make a living(another story).

  Stand up tall, stick your chest out and wear the "Bipolar Badge of Honor" proud. If I get one more look and or comment from one of the 'Regs'*, I'm gonna ..............

*' Reg' as in Regular , inside the box, 9-5 working shallow thinkers who always end up saying "what happened"?


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My Chinese Horoscope for 01/03/2010

Gregory,

Your subconscious mind is done with the mental hiccups and suddenly you are finding that your somewhat chaotic intuition was more right than wrong. If you are trying to sort things out, try keeping a journal for a while - the human memory is a tricky thing.


Hmmmmmmmmmmmm

Climate, Oil and Delusion (and Bipolar Disorder)

     The more and more I dig. The more and more I ask the underrated/underasked question of "Why?",  I'm constantly reminded that it is my duty to let people know there is a 'different' way of doing things. Sick and tired of always being beaten into submission when you think 'outside the box'? Look up the learning theory of 'Constructivism'. You'll see that all thoughts(theories) evolve based upon experience, trial, error and ultimately common sense. And this includes the way mental illness is diagnosed and treated. As well as the education that is needed to 'understand' us.

     When I was diagnosed in 1996, there were probably 25,000 cases in the United States. Jump to 2003 and there are all of a sudden 800,000! Huh? This again brings me to the question of "Why?".

The following article is by my good friend James Howard Kunstler. I'd be interested in who, among my readers, believes there are some interesting parallels with the treatment of mental illness .

Climate, Oil and Delusion


       Against a greater welter and flow of incoherence jerking the nation this way and that way en route to collapse comes “ClimateGate,” the latest excuse for screaming knuckleheads to defend what has already been lost. It is also yet another distraction from the emergency agenda that the United States faces — namely the urgent re-scaling, re-localizing, and de-globalizing of our daily activities.

     What seems to be at stake for the knuckleheads is their identity, their idea of what it means to be an American, which boils down to being an organism so specially blessed and entitled that it is excused from paying attention to reality. There were no doubt plenty of counterparts among the Mayans when the weather changed and their crops failed, and certainly the Romans had their share of identity psychotics who doubted reality even when Alaric the Visigoth was hoisting off their household treasure.
 
   Reality doesn’t care if we are on-board with its mandates or not. The human race has to get with whatever program reality is serving up at a particular time. Are we shocked to learn that scientists fight among themselves and cheat as much as congressmen? Does that really change the relationships we understand about parts-per-million of carbon dioxide in the earth’s atmosphere and the weather?

   What the people of the world can do or will do about a change in climate is something else. My guess is that the undertow of entropy is now too great to provoke any meaningful unified change in behavior. The collapse of the US economy is too close to the horizon, and the so-called developing nations will have problems equally severe. In the meantime, it is unlikely that any of the major players will burn less coal and oil, or not cheat on each other even if they pledge to burn less. People who are not knuckleheads will make the practical arrangements that they can. These will, by definition, be localized, small-scale, and non-global communities, doing what they would have to do anyway.

   A parallel identity mania afflicts those who have decided that the Bakken shale oil deposits and the Marcellus gas play will allow the USA to cancel any modifications to our living arrangements. This cohort of knuckleheads wants to believe the public relations of the oil and gas industry, and in particular the bankers who are arranging the financing for these ventures. The facts are irrelevant to their identity-claims (that the USA has limitless energy resources). In fact, the Bakken shale formation is unlikely to produce more than a few hundred thousand barrels of oil a day in a nation used to burning about twenty million. A few hundred thousand might mean a lot if were only used to light kerosene lamps, but it is unlikely to keep the faithful motoring off to WalMart and Walt Disney World — which is the exact expectation of the knuckleheads.

   Shale gas is a similar story. It will be too expensive to get out of the tight rock at a flow that will allow business as usual to continue. It certainly won’t be produced at under $10 a unit, and the nation’s comprehensive bankruptcy accelerates every day, making it less likely that the public can pay premium prices within the framework of our current living arrangement.
 
   The Green Shoots crowd — a sub-category of identity maniacs, who think the USA is immune to the laws of history and physics — has made common cause with the oil and climate knuckleheads to proclaim that we are returning to normal, back to the “consumer” orgy, the suburban sprawl nexus of McHousing and miracle mortgages, and new frontiers of corporate profit-raking.

    They are tragically wrong. Instead, we’re headed into the wildest king-hell debt workout that the world has ever seen, which will propel a lot of people used to working in air-conditioned cubicles into a world made by hand. We march day by day into the great holiday season with mortgages going unpaid and the credit cards getting cancelled and money disappearing and the fears and grievances mounting. Pretty soon, the folks doing “God’s work” at Goldman Sachs (and their tribal kin on Wall Street) will announce their annual bonuses (because they are publicly-held companies, which have to do so). Won’t that be a galvanizing moment for us all?

 Anxiety? Depression? Bipolar Disorder?  ............  Give 'em a pill




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The Disease

What is Bipolar Disorder?

Surviving Bipolar Disorder: BiPolar Disorder - Respect the Gift

Surviving Bipolar Disorder: BiPolar Disorder - Respect the Gift

The Saga Continues........

Montgomery is rebel with a cause


By : DALE ROBERTSON Staff


WED 08/12/1992 HOUSTON CHRONICLE,


SAN ANTONIO -- Greg Montgomery Sr., an investment banker in Holland, Mich., called Greg Jr. on Tuesday morning. Having replayed a tape of the Oilers-Lions game Saturday night, Greg Sr. had decided it was time for a man-to-man talk with his son, the Oilers' punter and resident different drummer.

The subject wasn't going to be punting, either. Greg Jr. had averaged a whopping 50.4 yards per kick against the Lions.

"Dad told me he thought I looked like a hoodlum on the sideline," Montgomery said. "He was worried that I was starting to jeopardize my future, my opportunities outside of football, with my appearance. He didn't make any demands or anything. He just asked me to consider his advice, to take it for what it's worth."

Fair enough. Montgomery hung up the phone and dutifully squared off with the mirror in his dorm room.

He stroked his new goatee and gave a once-over to his wild, beat poet's-length hair, which he ties in a bun before he puts on his helmet. He examined the silver earring in his left ear and appraised each of the tattoos on his upper arms, plus the unusual one on his left shoulder blade that's a Japanese symbol meaning "double happiness." He got it in Houston last season when he met Kate, his girlfriend.

Montgomery thought about his father's advice and peered into the mirror again. He tried to be objective, to see things from Greg Sr.'s perspective. Really, he did.

But he couldn't. Sorry, Dad. For now, the goatee stays. So does everything else.

"I'm not trying to make a statement," Montgomery said. "I'm just comfortable with the way I look."

Oilers punter enjoys iconoclasm

Montgomery's appearance has evolved in his five-year tenure with the Oilers. As a tense, overwrought rookie, he could have passed for a boot-camp Marine. Then, he was Luke Perry cool, before Luke Perry. Today? Let's just say he looks exactly like a guy who spends much of his free time tooling around on a new Harley and hanging out at Kel Dogs, a biker bar.

"It gets me away from the football scene," he said. "It's a way to relax, being with people who don't know I play and wouldn't care less if they did. Those guys aren't outlaws, just down to earth. I don't want people thinking I'm an outlaw, either. It's just the way I express myself."

By mainstream, button-down, middle-American standards, Montgomery is well off center and off the wall. He's a throwback to an age when characters were the rule, not the exception, in most locker rooms, the Oilers' included.

Gregg Bingham once brought a python to camp with him. Mike Stensrud shot up a picnic area near San Angelo, sending teammates diving into the bushes. We could talk for hours about the eccentricities and antics of Dave Casper, Steve Kiner, Kenny Stabler, Don Floyd, Jerrel Wilson, et al. Each dealt with the NFL pressure cooker in his own odd way.

But if Montgomery is a flake himself, however you choose to define the term, it hasn't hindered his punting. He is closing in on becoming the league's best. He is a serious student of the art form, ever trying to refine and perfect it. Jack Pardee, who has seen everything in his three NFL decades, understands this and cuts him some slack.

He lets Greg be Greg even if it means a goatee, the tattoos and a team-leading repertoire of pranks and practical jokes.

"I've got more time to think up stuff," Montgomery concedes. "I do a lot of standing around."

When the rookies came in from practice one day last week to find their clothes and shoes floating in the ice tubs, guess who became the No. 1 suspect? He hasn't confessed. No need to.

Constantly seeks improvement

But his flippant attitude/appearance notwithstanding, Montgomery cuts no corners professionally. He's a thinker as much as a doer. For example, he keeps a detailed mental checklist he runs through before every punt. Having mastered distance -- 43.3, 45 and 43.9 averages the last three seasons -- he's working on improving his accuracy.

Accuracy? He wants more punts angling sharply out of bounds inside the 10. He wants more fair catches. Statistically, his goal is a 40-plus average net, never accomplished in the NFL.

"I want to take punting to another level," he said, "and not to be selfish, either. The more consistently I place the ball and the better my hang times, the harder my punts will be to return. That helps my team."

Montgomery held out last year and wound up missing the entire preseason plus the opener against the Raiders. He came to realize it was a mistake, from both a preparatory and a financial standpoint. He lost a game check and started off miserably.

"I'm so far ahead of schedule this summer, I can't believe it," he said. "I feel great."

Looks great, too, I guess. I mean, what's a punter supposed to look like?

The Aftermath - 1998

Kick-starting over; Ravens: Greg Montgomery returns to the basics with his punting technique in an effort to rebound from a season wracked by physical and mental difficulties.

The Baltimore Sun Jul 29, 1998 By: Eduardo A. Encina

Ravens punter Greg Montgomery entered training camp last week a changed man. The black-painted toenails and bleached-blond hair that drew so much attention last year are gone, but one thing Montgomery brought to camp is the desire to rebound from a tough 1997 campaign, both on and off the field.

Last year, Montgomery, who ranks second among active punters in average yards per punt, finished 10th in the AFC at 42.7 yards, lowest since his rookie year in 1988.
But it was off the field where the hardest troubles came for Montgomery. The 10-year veteran suffers from bipolar disorder, formerly known as manic depressive illness, which causes extreme mood swings. He said that it affected him physically and mentally, especially during training camp.
"Every day seemed like forever," Montgomery said about last year's training camp. "It was hard to get out of bed every morning, hard to go work out, hard to eat. I was proud of myself to just get through last season. Now, I am more focused and can concentrate on my punting game rather than deal with that."
And his struggles showed on the field. His kicking lacked the consistency that he was known for throughout his career.
"You hear of other people that have it, like in baseball, where you can go down to the minors," Montgomery said. "But I didn't have that luxury. I had to play it out, and it was really a stone in my shoe. But now I'm feeling better, and it's not really a big deal."
Montgomery, 33, said his condition has improved with medication that he takes daily and by staying in good physical shape. Lifting weights in the off-season has raised his weight to 220, a five-pound increase from last year.
"It's all about maintaining my body physically and mentally," Montgomery said.
"He just wasn't Greg Montgomery last year," special teams coach Scott O'Brien said. "It was the consistency, getting the ball in the air and allowing guys to get downfield where he struggled last year."
Montgomery, who led the NFL in punting average twice while playing for the Houston Oilers, said that last year he tried to make his technique better, yet ended up hindering his performance.
"I am a perfectionist. I always have been, so last year I was trying to do things different," he said. "I tried to do little things to make me a little smoother, like tinker with my drop a little, but then I realized actually I was smoother when I just went out there and hit the ball solid."
To add to Montgomery's saga, toward the end of minicamp in June, he fractured his kicking foot by hitting a camera while taping a commercial, an injury that initially was expected to keep him on the sideline for four to six weeks.
The injury, combined with Montgomery's subpar 1997 performance, has prompted the Ravens to seek other options at punter. They signed free agent Kyle Richardson, a second-year player from Arkansas State, and held tryouts for free agent Reggie Roby last week.
"You just never know with an injury like that, especially on his kicking foot," O'Brien said. "But Greg came back early and we're taking it slowly so we make sure it heals right."
Montgomery is still rehabilitating the foot, but is kicking about 40 balls every other day in practice, a sign that the healing process in going well.
"The injury has been a real pain," he said. "It might have been a blessing in disguise though, because it gave me a month away from kicking and it gave me time to work on my leg and my upper body. As for the competition, this is a highly competitive game and this year I've prepared myself and I think my chances are really good."
Among his teammates, kicker Matt Stover probably sees the most of Montgomery on and off the field. Stover is his roommate in training camp, and Montgomery has been Stover's holder on kicks the past two years.
"He's made the adjustment to his condition," Stover said. "Sometimes when things don't go your way, you tend to doubt your own ability, but Greg is a very positive guy and he's really looking good in camp. He's attacking the ball instead of just kicking it."
As for his appearance, Montgomery still has several piercings and tattoos, but he came into camp with his natural reddish brown hair and no polish on the fingernails.
"That was last year and this is this year," Montgomery said. "It was fun. I was just messing with people, but I think I did it more as a way to take my mind off the depression, keep myself upbeat and loose. But either way, I'm never going to fit in."