Robin Williams' passing

I suspect every manic-depressive views Robin Williams and Jonathan Winters and George Carlin as brothers-in-arms. It's obvious we fought the same demons.

My manic-depressive cycle still gives me problems but they're easy to live with because I'm one of the lucky ones. Medication works for me. I love my life and enjoy every day, but it wasn't always that way. I had years of horror. Mind you, I'm not saying I no longer suffer from mania or depression, but it's so much better than before the drugs.

People who don't suffer from bi-polar disorder (another name for it) don't really understand the stress it places on a person.  And the three men I mention were not only manic-depressive (I'm not sure all three copped to this in their lives, but it's so obvious to me that I call it what it is) -- they were also super-creative geniuses. That adds a lotta coal to the fire. Plus, they lived their lives in the public eye: again, a major stressor.

Sure, it's fun when you're manic. It's wild fun. In fact, there's nothing like it (except using methedrine). When we saw Robin Williams on stage, we always saw a manic fellow. I don't think anyone reading this would deny that this is the case. In fact, I doubt you can be that "quick on your feet" without mania.

But the energy of mania comes from a finite source: the person's own reserves. I'm sure this is why manic-depressives devolve into a depressed state afterwards. You cannot run your body's engine at 200 mph constantly. You run out of steam at some point. And then you fall off the manic high and tumble into the depths of depression. It's your body's coping mechanism. It needs time to recharge -- and it doesn't feel good at all.

Slipping from mania into depression is exactly like coming down from speed. Those of you who have experienced this, know how depressed you can feel when you're coming down. It's a nightmare. So it's easy for me to understand how a creative genius whose career virtually required that he be manic 24/7 could choose to kill himself.

What a loss. I loved this man, as many of you did. But don't blame him for committing suicide. It's a rough way to live.

Please know that I'm not making any comparison between my life and the life of Robin Williams (or Jonathan Winters and George Carlin). I'm not a creative genius; they were/are (JW is still alive). Consider, if you will, the tired face of George Carlin just before his death, and the similar visage of Jonathan Winters in his later years. Exhaustion: that's what I see. And it's coupled with depression. In a sense, physics did them in. You cannot be "high" (i.e., manic) all the time. The crash was always coming, for all three of them.

That's what I think happened to this fine man. I'll miss him. Just thought I'd offer my perspective on it. What a loss.

Hippie epilogue

After telling readers that I was once a hippie and have decided to return to my hippie ways, I feel I must make two things perfectly clear:

1. I always thought tie-dye was ugly. One must have standards.

2. I never once said the word "groovy" during my days as a hippie. Far out, huh?

Useless, actually

The word "actually" is so overused. The truth is that it rarely adds anything to a sentence -- except an extra word. But people stick it into their sentences anyway. It seems they can't help themselves.

"The fire department is searching for the actual cause of the fire." 

How is that different from saying they're searching for the cause of the fire?

What is the solution? Actually, I don't know.

I'm going back to being a hippie

I often think about the 1960s. If you lived through that wondrous era, I'm sure you think about it, too. It was too big and way too colorful to forget. I'm glad I was a part of it.

One of the things I sometimes wonder is why kids aren't doing the same thing today: quitting school, abandoning society and running off to have fun. There are a lot of answers to this question. For one thing, the internet exists now and it causes people to fall into small, segmented "social" groups. And when kids want to see the world, all they have to do is push a button and there it is. That can kill your urge to explore, as in first-person exploration -- living through an experience instead of watching someone else have the experience in a video. Video's fun but it ain't life.

And of course, a huge reason for the original birth of hippies was marijuana, which was new to us back then. It was the releaser, the thing that set us free. It's still around and from what I hear, kids are enthusiastically taking it up again. But they're not talking about cosmic reality when they get high; they're not searching for meaning or trying to "expand their mind". They're just gettin' high, with no goal in sight. Expanding consciousness? That's so tired. Cosmic consciousness died in the early 1970s.

But the biggest thing that's missing now is naivete. We hippies didn't know one damn thing about the world. That's why we were always saying "Wow!" -- because everything came as news to us. We were the opposite of jaded. You'll never get that now. Everyone's "been there, done that". (Or at least they think they've been there and done that. More likely, they just saw a video about it and adopted the "experience" as their own.)

These are the reasons why hippies dispersed to the winds. We were, and then we weren't. Our time ended. Or so we thought.

But the world is too boring, again. Just listen to talking-head TV if you doubt me. Bor-ing. And the United States has gotten much, much uglier in the intervening years. In the 1960s, no one celebrated torture. That's an "advance" we only recently achieved. And opportunity, everpresent in the 1960s, is over and done with. Forget about earning what your parents earned and buying a house. That ship has sailed.

I think that, more than anything, the lack of empathy in the current batch of money-mad Americans will be a driving factor in the creation of a new generation of hippies. As in the original hippie days, there's little reason to stick around, to live in the squares' world and suffer under their nitwit rules. Perhaps it's once again time to tune out and go our own way. Maybe kids will become hippies again, despite their lack of naivete, and they will rise up and create their own society. We do this on the internet but I suspect we'll have to do it in real life, too. We need to separate ourselves from the pinheads.

After all, what benefit is there to remaining with the status quo? I know it's a bit of a pipe dream, but I'm hoping hippie will rise again. And to this end, I've hauled out all my old, beaded jewelry and I'm wearing it every day. I even got a new pendant: a blue rhinestone peace symbol. Heck, no one talks about peace anymore. It's time to raise the banner anew. Hail peace!

Since we're not seeking nirvana this time, I figure our slogan should be: Tune out, drop out and play. There's no hope out there; we'll just have to make our own.

Had any hippie urges lately? Give in to them. G'wan, it's fun. (I know some of you still have your hippie duds in the closet. Haul 'em out and put 'em on!)

Who knew?

I was very surprised to read this bit of advice about cleaning sponges. What surprised me is that I've never heard it before:

For example, it’s obviously important to clean your sink and counters regularly, but what you clean them with makes a difference.

“Make sure you are not doing it with a dirty sponge. So often our sponges harbor all kinds of bacteria. The best way to take care of that: you can microwave it in 30 second intervals or so until it smells good,” said McCraken.

Such a simple thing. Why isn't this shouted from house-tops all across America? I mean, it's so easy and sensible. Anyway, we'll all do this now that we know about it. Right?

The future affects the present

There have been hints of this phenomenon in quantum research for some time. But apparently it is now accepted. Think about this, kids: the future can affect the present. In other words, time isn't what we always thought it was - an inexorable machine, moving from the past toward the future. Sometimes, there are detours.

Aharonov turned Einstein's question around and asked, "Why does God play dice?" He found that Nature gains something very beautiful and exciting with this indeterminism: the present is not only affected by the past but it is also affected by the future. That is, the future (also known as post-selection) can come back to the present (like in the movie "Back to the Future"). So quantum mechanics does not pick out an arrow of time, it works just as well from past to future as from future to past. The quantum world links the future with the past in subtle and significant ways; and in dramatic contrast to everything previously known about time.

This is huge. It's like a whole new corner of quantum mechanics appeared from out the blue. I love it.

Hitchhiking robot traverses Canada

I'm still feeling poorly, so no serious blogging from me. In the meantime, I enjoyed this story and I think you will, too. G'day.