A MATTER OF EXPERIENCE
I am fascinated by several branches of science. Science is the reason we, in so many ways, have been able to survive and evolve. The computer I am sitting before, IS, thanks to Science. When I was a child, I was able to go to a tropical island without fear of contracting a killer disease, thanks to Science. There are thousands of websites devoted to knowledge gained thanks to Science. I understand the world in which I live to a greater degree, thanks to Science.
Just let me say, I love Science and it must be genetic, because all of my children have an interest in Science. It truly is a fascinating element of, as well as enhancement to living. In fact, I fully understand that were it not for Science, many of us might have a shorter life span, a more painful life span or no life at all.
Science is even making it possible to fix problems while a human being is still in the womb. A knowledge of genetics is allowing people to make better or at least more informed choices concerning procreation, surgeries and even careers.
Unfortunately, I have seen the damage of Scientific experimentation with human beings. More specifically in the area of psychiatry. Especially when theories are thrown out to the general public. Please forgive me, but the general public is not a conglomeration of Scientific genius capable of considering theory, circumstance, nuances of personality or shifts in the economy as it relates to everyday living.
The general public knows how to infer. It knows how to manipulate a situation to make it SEEM like something it isn’t. This can become religion, policy and prevailing politics.
There is a painting which hangs in my mother’s home. I’ve not been to my mother’s home in a decade. It is the only painting left of her work. She was impressionist in her style. Ten years ago, she told me that she did not know that. She also told me she was “just an old schizophrenic” and no genius. I know better. But I hesitated to argue with her, because she has been fed so many lies that her twisted mind would accuse me of abusing her. So I left and never went back. Through the grapevine, I’ve heard she does sketches from time to time and the quality of those sketches are awe inspiring. Of course they are.
Ignorance and white trash politics killed my mother a long time ago. There was an innocense to her genius. She was not an evil genius. She was a menacing schizophrenic. Sterilized of her creative impulses, she mocked everyone around her in some perverted fashion which seemed to say, “Anything make sense to you?”. “Wanna see just how bad I can get?” She was and is still that child trying to keep up with a hard world, hiding the abuses she endured. The medication numbs her and without it she’d probably be more of a threat to herself than anyone else.
I cannot, in good conscience be a spectator to that insanity. It hurts too bad. Because there is still that part of me which wants to save her.
The painting which hangs on my mother’s wall is important to me. It reflects what I knew of my mother. That is all that is left of what I knew of my mother. I’d like to forget her cruelty, her misery.
The damage is done and cannot be undone. My only conclusion about my mother’s responsibility in her own demise is that she was far too concerned about what others thought of her and desperately wanted to be accepted and she just wasn’t sophisticated enough to tread in the waters of the heavy weight.
She did not fit in to any class or scheme and she lost herself in the process of attempting to. She was, in a way, too good and too concerned about the feelings of people who were going to destroy her.
Through it all, she was, in essence, a guinea pig and I can only speculate as to what type of scientific data her life provided. Or mine, for that matter.
She tried very hard to convince me that I was like her and destined to be insane. Several psychologists played along with it by providing me the story of insanity and genetics. My mother was even allowed once to have me committed for a three day hiatus at a mental hospital. The hospital was an incredibly bad place filled with incredibly pathetic people. I befriended a young man who’d been beaten through his youth by a step father. I remember him fondly. He was a good kid. His mother was using him while mine was getting some kind of wierd satisfaction. At any rate, when I was released, I had to go to court. The court released me and I walked out into a very bright afternoon and continued to walk to my mother’s house. I walked in and picked up my children.
It’s all been very interesting. Very stressful. Devaluating and demeaning in the political sense. It was meant to be. I am less a catalyst than I am a part of the never ending river. You can chuck your trash in the river, but my policing chemistry picks it out. Cleans it up.
There is an evolutionary element to my nature. It has drawn a line. I’ve collected my own data.
