I am afraid of my own power. Sundering dogs, the lilting synthesis of echolocation. Something within me urges to communicate but it will not persevere. Fear is the center of me. Why am I so afraid?

Neuromagic

I'm fascinated by what scientists are learning about the mechanics of the brain. Sleights of Mind by Stephen Macknik and Susana Martinez-Conde is the latest of a series of books I've read on this topic. It describes magic tricks in terms of neuroscience. I highly recommend it.

So much of what we perceive, so much of what we think we know, is illusion.

Ego Intent

A psychiatrist once told me that I have a "fragile ego." I don't like the sound of that. I am myself. It's true that I tend to be avoidant of other people, elusive and evasive. This is something I struggle against. There are many things I want to say, but I still feel a need to be secretive, to hide, to never let anyone know me. The compulsion to communicate conflicts with the habit of concealment. That habit I learned as the child of abusive parents. It was a survival strategy, and it worked. I escaped that environment. But the lessons I learned from my parents do not serve me well among ordinary people.

So I communicate in spasms, awkward and unwieldy with words. I'm choosing to use this blog as a kind of therapy for that, a place where I can communicate regularly without anxiety or stress. Whether or not anyone reads this. There's so much I want to say, and I don't think I will be very good at saying it at first. This is an experiment and maybe it will work.

Stranger than True

I find it strange how people relate to strangers. For most of human history, encounters with strangers were rare and intense. Casual contact with people I don't know is harder for me than for most, but I imagine it's hard on everyone - a source of subliminal anxiety and fear. My husband, who has Asperger's syndrome, is largely unencumbered by social pressures. I find that fascinating, and I wish I could learn it.

People talk as if Asperger's people have no empathy, but that's not true. In many ways my husband is kinder than I am. He just doesn't like lies, or saving face, or covering his ass.

Which is why he is unemployed. He's a brilliant man, but - so far - too odd for people to hire. His father wants him to get SSI. Because telling the truth is a mental illness.

Fairfax dreams

Nobody seems to understand why I hate living in Fairfax. But the truth is simple - these people are snobs. There is a lot of positive emphasis on multiculturalism, but that's just a kind of liberal sparkle on the intrinsic capitalist attitude.

I don't like politics, I especially don't like being so close to the center of politics. There's a sense of shady ventures taken with callous cruelty - it disturbs my dreams. Some nights, in a hypnogogic state, I see faces and images of people shifting and striving for ascendancy, domination, clout, control. People I don't know, people I have never met.

MystiCon

This past weekend, I journeyed to Roanoke, Virginia with my husband and my two daughters to attend MystiCon. Three days of geeky glory in  Appalachia! I had no idea that so many fun, eccentric, nerdy people lived in places like Lynchburg (the home of Jerry Falwell).

The whole thing was wonderful. Costumes, art, gaming... My favorite part was a panel called "Far Out (or Way Far Out) Scientific Concepts You Need to Know About." I attended expecting a talk about dark matter, dark energy, maybe quantum tunneling computers or something deeply disturbing in neuroscience, surveillance technology, etc. What actually happened was much better.

Four men were on the panel, and it seemed as if they had been chosen for dadaistic effect. One was a CSI detective from Baltimore. One was a librarian who hunts ghosts in his spare time with a deep southern drawl. One was a tiny agnostic Jewish UFOlogist who teaches religious studies. One had worked with NASA, and had been on the scene when the Challenger exploded. This last person began with a discussion of space launching - how crude our current methods are, and how electromagnetic propulsion will become dominant. He went on to explain that the aliens among us are capable of instantaneous travel... Deadly serious, with glittering eyes, he invoked Uri Geller, the Council of  Nine, the kabbalah. I have always been skeptical of the existence of such people in the military-industrial complex, The Men Who Stare At Goats notwithstanding. Yet when the creature itself stared my husband (who is very much like a goat) in the face, I was forced to admit that here was a tangible piece of evidence.

Everyone was monstrously polite.

I enjoyed myself immensely. I hope I was not alone in that!