Labyrinth Busker Journal - Brian Robert Pearce

Does mental illness exist?
Is Bob Dylan mildly autistic?
Where is Heaven?
Go to HOMEPAGE
 
Search this site or the web powered by FreeFind
Site searchWeb search

Plato and Socrates debate Beauty
Is the Universe breathing?
Is this the missing link?
Black Holes
Zolar and the Astral Layers
Belief, Heaven, Zolar
Jesus? Celtic or Rangers?
THE FACE OF GOD?
From Mead C Whorton Jnr (Louisiana) as Hurrican Rita prepares to strike:
Brian! This is what God looks like:

Hi Mead! You may be right. Maybe he also looks like this:

Visit Mark A. Garlick to see more of his stunning space art
 

Brian
New Orleans- Farewell!!!
Only yesterday
I walked your streets,
Now you are gone.
Like a shooting star
You brightened my lonely nights.
Your music soothed my nerves.
And your women
A thousand times, they Stole my heart!
New Orleans- I cry tears for you!
Only Yesterday
I walked your streets.

Mead Whorton JR
August 31, 2005
 
  Top of page
 

Brian,

Do you recall Joan Osborne singing?

If God had a face, what would it look like
And would you want to see
If seeing meant you would have to believe
In things like heaven and in Jesus and the Saints
And all the prophets ...
Yeah, yeah, God is good
Yeah, yeah, God is great
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
...

Does Mental illness exist?
Brian, have you ever read any writings by the German mathematician Georg
Cantor.  He developed the theory of infinite sets and also did some
philosophical and theological writing. Cantor also suffered from mental
illness. I often wonder if he could have created his theory of infinite
sets if he had been "sane"! And that brings up a good question; What is
normal and what is abnormal. Some of my best friends suffered/suffer from
so called mental illness. They never seemed that strange to me. Society
can be so judgmental. Michel Foucault, the eminent French writer and
philosopher, contends in his book MADNESS AND CIVILIZATION that French
authorities in the 1600's shut away mentally ill people not for therapy
but to police society. Moreover, Thomas Szaz, professor of psychiatry at
Syracuse University, New York, USA has written  books entitled THE MYTH OF
MENTAL ILLNESS(1961) and THE MANUFACTURE OF MADNESS (1970). Szasz has
written , " There is no such thing as mental illness!"

What do you think.
 

Mead

Hi Mead! I think that mental 'illness' can cover such a wide range of definition that it can not easily be defined. Perhaps the best example of this occurred in my
journal, when a fellow busker (Everts) came up to me in a bar and said,
"It seems like everyone is acting strange in here tonight."
I replied, "That makes you strange."
That made him laugh, and resulted in his writing of a song where the chorus ran, "The strangest man on Earth tonight? Is it you?"
The term "Busker" can cover such a wide range of motivations and diversity. In the end, it results in the negation of the term as a means to isolate generalisation. It is
possible to say that a busker seeks reward from impromptu and random audiences, but no other generalisation will fit. Every busker has an individual motivation.
I think mental illness is a term similar to "Busker". It is possible to say that a mentally ill person is someone who doesn't behave or think in a way the mainsream of a
society may class as understandable, but no generalisation will fit. Every person defined as mentally ill needs to be studied individually. It is possible to put names
onto behavioual patterns and a patient might ape these patterns quite well. But that doesn't get any closer to generalising the term "mental illness". It simply isolates
buskers (analogy) who play the guitar and like to play Bruce Springsteen songs (example).
The kind of "mental illness" my journal gleefully embraced was the "derangment of the senses" unveiled by Rimbaud.
What is normal?
A. Something I am not.
What is abnormal?
A. Something I am

Now I shall ask you a question:
If John (imagined person) dies, would he be impressed if his epitaph on his tombstone read:
"Here lies John. He was normal." ?
Suppose he were a politician. Suppose a fellow politician should stand before his mourners and say
"I think the greatest tribute I can give John is that he was extraodinarily normal; and all his works were very normal indeed." ?
As recently as the middle of last century it was possible for parents to commit their teenage daughter to a mental institute for pre-marital sex or even for loving a
person considered unsuitable. These victims were sane, but years of incarceration in the institute led to them becoming institutionalised and effectively mentally ill.
I'd care to bet that you (as a psychologist) look at each individual case on its own merit, using guidelines established over the years by the summary of other similar
cases experienced by yourself or other psychologists. There would be no point in there being psychologists if there was no hope of curing a condition, or modifying
it.
It seems that thoughts that are advanced or retarded cause the greatest confusions. If you were to show this e mail to a seven year old and ask them (as a friend, not
as an authoratorive adult) what they think about the issue, I'd care to bet they wouldn't understand a word of it. Because of this, they may well look at this mail and
then at you and say, "You're mad."
Bringing in one final analogy: anti biotics will kill harmful bacteria, but they may equally kill good bacteria.

Got the second part of "Heartbreaker" online. Took a bit longer than planned. What do you think of the gender issue it raises?

Cheers Brian

 Top of page


Is Bob Dylan mildly Autistic?
Brian,

Last night I watched part II of Martin Scorsese's documentary on Bob
Dylan: No Direction Home. I must say that it was well done. Scorsese did
an excellent job. Then main point that emerged from the documentary was
that Dylan was/is an artist who simply wanted/wants to write and sing
songs and above all, do it his way. When Dylan went electric, he risked it
all but emerged larger than life. Moreover, very candid interviews with
the present day Dylan seemed to suggest that he never had a political
agenda. Interviews with Joan Baez corroborated Dylan's apolitical
statements. I would have to say that your busking allows you the same
freedom that Dylan enjoys. Of course, if Dylan had been a lesser talent
and not believed in himself, he would have failed. I was also intrigued by
Dylan's answer to a question of what his art was all about.  He simply
replied that he is merely trying to find his way home. I guess we are all
just trying to just find our way home.

Hi Mead! I'll have a think about that light issue. But now, I have a question for your professional judgement:
Having watched that documentary, do you think Bob Dylan is mildly autistic?
In essence, I'm chewing on Asperger's Syndrone. My daughter has been diagnosed as having this (though personally, and privately, I kinda mistrust these sort of boxes and prefer private personality study). I suspect, however, that if a box could be laid my way? I may also fall somewhat into Aspergers.
Looking at that film, I could see Bob was entirely comfortable communicating via the channel his autism enthused him toward. But he seemed to embrace messages from the outside world only if he could apply them to his autistic world. He seemed to understand why the words were put into his songs and poetry, but he did not see any need to explain why he put them there.
Beyond the channel of his autism, I do not think he even KNEW why he put those words there.
I found the way to my daughter's mind was through the toy cars that she loved. She just loves cars - and sees them as people in a way more real than people. In fact, the way in which I introduced the outside world to her was by relating it to the world she and I built with her toy cars.
If she were ever to become famous as a singer (or whatever) and was faced by the kind of press meetings (and questions) that Bob uncomfortably faced, I think she would re-act with the same genuine confusion over trying to answer questions. Because it seemed Bob could not make the connection that the issues aroused by the questions had anything to do with his songs and the playing of music. He wrote a song and moved on, seeing little need to explain meanings.... possibly because he couldn't. Everything he had wanted to say was in the song and belonged harmonically within the channelled world his autism accepted.
Neither his modern day comments, nor his press and radio responses from the 60's, seemed contrived in any shape or form. He seemed genuinely confused by what he was being asked.
The years have given him an improved form of expression outside of his autistic world.
I share his view on art and creativity, in that spending months trying to perfect a song and package it neatly is anathema. Could have written a few songs in that time - and some of these would excite a greater personal interest. All of the transformations of Bob over the years in his style, genre and presentation fitted neatly into his own imagined world. He could not explain how they would fit into other people's worlds.
He did not see there was a reason to do this anyway.
He looked at the outside world with his art - and took a 'photograph' of it. But he could not easily explain why there was a bird in the picture flying in the distance, even though he was aware of it as he took the photograph. He could see where it fitted in the picture and the soul within recognised its crucial relevance to the picture as a whole. For him, that was enough.
He could not articulate the relevance of that bird to those outside his world - or even (possibly) to those inside his world.
Autism would render him as a loner, an outsider. There will always be parts of him the world will never see, nor understand.
So, back to the question:
Do you think Bob Dylan is mildly autistic?

Brian,

I finally have time to answer you question on Dylan. First, we must
examine the criteria for a diagnosis of autism:

1) Impaired reciprocal social interaction relative to developmental level.

2) Impaired verbal and nonverbal communication relative to developmental
level.

3) Abnormally intense and narrow interests.

These individuals often exhibit little eye contact, usually have problems
dealing with social situations, and very often exhibit an obsession with a
certain subject matter like puzzles or numbers. [or writing ten thousand
page journals-just a joke, Brian]!

Studies indicate that a number of artists and mathematicians exhibit
symptoms of autism or in some cases they are autistic.

Focusing in on Dylan. Dylan was a master writer of poems/songs and
apparently interested in little else. Through his gift of verse/song he
was able to create his own abstract world. Which I am sure was very
comforting for him. When you apply the above criteria to Dylan, he was/is
obviously autistic. Otherwise, he would not have created his beautiful and
haunting songs. I can imagine a world without Mr. Tambourine Man, Chimes
Of Freedom, and Like A Rolling Stone but it would be a far less beautiful
world. Think of all the beauty Dylan and his autistic world has given us.

My undergraduate degree was in mathematics and I found it to be very
comforting.  Solving a problem or proving a theorem is much like  writing
a haiku or a song. One can have order and beauty in an abstract world
which is not subject to the denigration of reality. Anytime , I
experienced a setback, I could always retreat to the safety of the world
of mathematics.

I hope that I have answered your question on Dylan. I am posting the first
two chapters of [Autism : Explaining the Enigma] by Uta Frith, one of the
world's foremost experts on autism. By the way, she is Professor of
Cognitive Development at The Institute of Neuroscience at University
College, London. If you like her writing, check the book out or buy a
copy.  I am also posting a copy of {Autism in Mathematicians} by Ioan
James from The Mathematical Intelligencer 2003.

"It seems that for success in science or art a dash of autism is
essential."-Hans Asperger.
 

Top of page

Brian
Good news, I believe that
Rita is going to spare New Orleans. Personally, I wish that it would spin
out into the Gulf and dissipate.

Best Wishes,

Mead
 

> Hi Mead! Thanks for the copies. Looks like Houston could be hit hard.
> Katrina hit around the 31st. Looking at my universe sequence table, 24th
> Sept is
> equivalent to 27th.
> No problem. Re - action and preparation mollify it on day one. But day
> two
> and three might be a problem. Seems to indicate unexpected problems.
Cheers
Brian

BLACK HOLES
Hello Brian,

I believe that I previously related to you that on my first enounter with Einstein's Special Theory of relativity that I immediately thought that this was an answer to immortality and God.  Maybe God is light and this would explain his omnipresence. Maybe blackholes which suck up light are related to Evil. So many theories!!! Mead

MEAD C. WHORTON, JR
 
 

Hi Mead! My personal idea about black holes was formulated in my journal, when I wrote about time lines. Filling flesh onto those musings, I suggest that black holes are light travelling in an opposing direction from us. Given the vast distances in the universe, imagine shining a torch into it and seeing light streaming from it. If you switch off the torch, the light previously emited will continue to travel. Once it progresses beyond the distance of the speed of light it will no longer be visible to the torch bearer. But the particles of light will continue their journey. Such an event would make it appear as though light is being swallowed and can't escape. A black hole could represent the light from a sun or a galaxy that is moving in an opposing direction from us. It could be our sun or galaxy.
Unless this retreating light encounters something that could reflect it back or refract it, the light will continue to appear to us as a dense mass of powerful blackness.
The possibility that emerges from this is that black holes could tell us where we are going and where we have been, in context to the universe as a whole.
As for hell? The word comes from the German and it means light. Hell is spoken of as a fiery domain. It seems the most tormenting and destructive position for a soul to be is within the fusing and turmoil of a sun. It could be purgatory or annihilation - or a cleansing process in line with higher ascension.
Could black holes be the tunnel described by so many as a route to Heaven?
Be in touch. Keep in touch.

Brian,

A very interesting piece. I still think that God may be light.  Or maybe
all of us become light when we die and spend our immortal existence
whizzing around the universe.  What a marvelous experience that would be.

Mead In America
Top of page