...finally my first blog item. :)
Wow.... It was a long time ago that I started this blog site. I remember taking one look, feeling confused, and then intimidated.
I was feeling overwhelmed at the time taking care of my older sister with no outside help. I was fighting with social security to get her benefits (I was on disability at the time and sharing what I got with her). I won that battle and was stunned to find out that even though I got her a nice settlement it didn't seem to help very much. Since then she has fluctuated from near-clarity to paranoia. Throughout it all, in all times, I see in her reflections of my mother, my aunts, my siblings, myself. The last reflection scares me most.
She is on the mainland now, among though not with my siblings. I get a lot of mail and sometimes it is good. Lots of times it is heartbreaking. And still confusing.
To see someone grappling with their sense of reality can't help but to make me question my own. I am afraid almost all the time I will lose my grasp on whatever hold I have in my ability to recognize, appreciate, maintain, treasure this life I have. How can I ever be sure that my perceptions are real? I am reminded of John Nash, Jr. and his struggle with schizophrenia. Such a beautiful and magnificent mind he has. If you want a good read, you might check out A Beautiful Mind, by Sylvia Nasar. I cant quote it exactly right now, because I don't have the book with me, but someone once asked him why he trusted his delusions. His reply was to the effect that he trusted them because they came from the same place his mathematical reasoning came from. John Nash, Jr. won the Nobel Prize for his work on Game Theory.
So this was where I was when I signed up for this blog. I question my reality all the time. That makes me acutely aware how fragile and multifaceted perception is. And perhaps more respectful of how other people construct their own 'reality'. I try not to challenge the way people see things, and try more to learn how to interact in a mutually functional way. And I struggle not to feel lost or overpowered. I don't think there is a single reality any more. I am beginning to think that perhaps people build around them a world they can cope with and regardless what I think is correct or not, to them it is real. My chore is to learn how to interact with it effectively, humainly....