Pattern Recognition is a novel by science fiction writer William Gibson published in 2003. Set in August and September 2002, the story follows Cayce Pollard, a 32-year-old marketing consultant who has a psychological sensitivity to corporate symbols.
The novel's central theme involves the examination of the human desire to detect patterns or meaning and the risks of finding patterns in meaningless data. Other themes include methods of interpretation of history, cultural familiarity with brand names, and tensions between art and commercialization.
Have you read it? I deal in religious themes and commercial populism. More raw and transparent than one might think. Particularly music. Think Who and Hendrix. Sex which is why I relate to Gay people. Drugs which is my BoyPuppy and medical marijuana advocacy become thematic. Commercialization is mass fiction and so many people have become characters to iconography.
I am sorting out fiction from fact but it comes from facing questions of mortality and not morality. I also learned in the past week that the situation was so "Kafkaesque" (The term, which is quite fluid in definition, has also been described as "marked by a senseless, disorienting, often menacing complexity.) that I have blended my experiences and time sequences. I had never been to a hospital and suddenly I'm narcotized and hooked to machines that kept screeching and no one responded. And released! Three times. It reminded me of things in a previous time capsule which I had no emotional connection to the experiences that I was involved. My reality stream became like mixing paint together until there is no swirl and only new color. BZ. I know about mind control for some reason.
BoyPuppy was a code name for the Armenian Codex. Complex relationships. Destiny and identity. Then it changed. The people and time capsules are all real. I was there. Does that make it true? Depends on the definition of true. For me my reality has incorporated all these stories. They happened. Like light through a prism, I am separating out the hues. They are there where they were not before. It has taught me about re identification, false memories, imprint plasticity and event association and how you can redistribute the content of your brain. Mind is more will than truth. Will is more imposition than improvisational. What happened to me changed the formula. I have transitioned from subconscious to participation in the process because I have a feeling I will need this new tool for survival.
So look at my dates. 1977-the LSD conference and Hoffmann's first trip to America. By 1980, LSD has disappeared for the most part. The experiment failed. But are you looking at the new lists of psychotropics. I want to hook you into emails I have with XXX and XXX who know the new chemists and financiers. They are a bit alarmed by my candid portrayal of events. Big pharma has always payed a part but we are becoming more prescribed including with children. More controllable psychotropics.
So the story has to include my latest escapades. As scary as it has been at times, I have learned how to trigger and restructure my own memory boxes or pattern recognition. Lifewave. What a trip! Now my patch princess is Marilyn Monroe doing Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz. (Remember Grandmother's OZ books).
I'm watching "The Life and Times of Harvey Milk". You should. It's on the blog. Won an Oscar in 1984. I used to blow weed with the guys that put that together. They all had AIDS and died not much thereafter. Take a look a this link. That's where I lived in the City. Right off the Castro if you notice. I watched 7500 young men, boys really at our age now, die with very little compassion from anyone including a lot of their gay friends. Scared and lonely. In my neighborhood. So my thematic structures are warped by that experience of several years. That's why my experience with the City is very personal. Like cutting yourself with razorblades. The fascination becomes the compulsion.
I had a lousy day. I'm scared about Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Truth is such a malleable subject for me and I have a lot of brain tests. Like Dad, if I am going, there must be something wrong. Anything but a hypochondriac. But I can't just live on seizure medication without a diagnosis. Very weird thing happened with marijuana. I can't smoke it at all now. Just like that. Makes my heart hurt physically. So my whole physiology is altered. I am pretty much on a liquid diet but actually gaining not losing. I make some great smoothies with coconut milk (high caloric) soybean isolate, greens with probiotic, oat bran and chocolate. Not bad actually and it keeps my nourishment up. Oh and nutritional yeast which is not only high in B but has 8 grams of protein in each half teaspoon and I do like six tablespoons in there. I am using fish oil because of my cardio issues. I have fresh lemons and ginger for blood thinning. And carrot juice. I make my own black beans and do a bean and rice burrito at night.
So I don't have a great need to tell my younger siblings all my stories. They know them like they imagine them and I am OK with that. I think XXX grapples with her son's sexual identity so I am quite candid with her. I think his issues are more relative to a high rate of social anxiety which causes displacement and these kinds of boys are ripe for sexual conflict as I know. But I truly don't follow the model that sexuality is imprinted at birth. I was my experience to not self identify until I was about thirty. I had a complex sexual life until then. Oddly enough, those issues became resolved when I had a relationship with a bisexual psych nurse who spoke french.
We had a relationship in 2002 (12 years later) as well but she was uncomfortable with the fact that I did not self identify as bisexual anymore. I think she felt that follows the trend of becoming more gay if you will but that was not the case with me. I make a lousy gay person anyway. Way to unPC and I get into all kinds of conflicts with gay people about the politics of marriage and monogamy. Goes under my heading of resolving social anxiety psychosis. And I have found the most homophobic people are gay. A good friend of mine is a female Jewish gay psychotherapist and she thinks I'm gay and subconsciously homophobic because I tell her things like all married gays that were grandfathered into law without the benefit being transferred to others is hypocritical and they should all annul until equal protection. She's married to another female psychotherapist. They are younger than me and I tell them about the AIDS days when the community got divided between positive and negative and the separation causes classicism which is rampant in the gay community. That and I can't stand older (my age) male gays that cross dress out of the goodwill. Disgusting! Now XXX is a preop transsexual, which is becoming more common because they want to keep their dicks and I call them the third sex. Young gays a pretty cool because they don't have many brick wall but I do worry about their cloud control because they are so open and are not aware of the transitions they will experience with their sexuality possibly.
I fight for human rights which includes religion and sexuality and drugs. Or, as I have learned faith, intimacy and consciousness. I learned the hard way.
Happy Fathers Day!. You have been a great brother in this. I am more open to treatment now because you took an interest. Sorry I am rattling but I got nervous about all this testing. Mortality is easier to grasp than psychosis and that is how I stayed alive. I like your phrases like pattern recognition. I heard Obama talk about we just can't tilt into windmills and I like your phrase better.
It all made me more compassionate. I can accept that as the end point of this experience. I didn't hate, feel cheated or lose my zest for life. I just see people deeper.
As for the picture, Mimi wondered what I looked without the layers so I showed her! That's 135. I was looking at 30 in waist jeans but I just couldn't do it. My wardrobe is basically 34. So I'm wearing silk and sweats and I go out during the day. I don't care. In a nice way! Just and FYI, they called me while I was writing a rescheduled my cat scan for Tues. No problem. Then I will see my doctor later in the afternoon which works for me because she listens to my fears. Neurologist on Thursday. Strange thing is I don't have any idea what to expect and I thrive on expectation.
Love you
Subject: RE: We did a lot of emails
Date: Sun, 21 Jun 2009 09:38:59 -0400
From:
To:
I was just thinking this morning that I want to stay in regular email communication with you. Even if they are short messages. But yes, some really interesting stuff did come out and I will be happily sorting it all out over the next couple of months.
When you started writing, I don’t know what kind of “pattern recognition” was at play, but I knew that we needed to do what we did. I don’t know if I told you this already, but as you wrote, there would be sentences of clarity in which you would discuss what was happening to you or answers to questions that I asked. But I had to really read everything in order to find these. At one point, I culled through the emails to date and pulled out all of these and they told the story of what was happening to you.
From:
Sent: Saturday, June 20, 2009 12:52 AM
To:
Subject: We did a lot of emails
Did you do a search. Lot of conversation. Thanks. It kept me glued. Some interesting stuff. Amazing what you learn when your mind explodes on the internet. You have to understand, it was like a form a torture. I would seize, go by ambulance to the hospital, get pumped with drugs, lay there catatonic, get discharged and know it would all happen again for about eleven days. Sometimes I couldn't even take the ride and sometimes I would seize when I got home. It was like really bad psychotropics. That's why I used the term "Jacobs Ladder'.
I didn't know how else to stay in my mind. Pretty cool brother of you. Probably saved my life or further deterioration. I needed to be hospitalized obviously. That remains the mystery to me. It was rather cruel.
