Ups and downs 2

I was browsing in Waterstones today and noticed their display of books on how to be happy. On a similar theme, I see Actimel are still running their yoghurt adverts (you remember the yoghurt adverts featuring Actimel Woman who runs around the place, wearing bright clothes, skateboarding, teasing policemen and generally having a good time.)

Son hates Actimel Woman. I wonder why.

It is very odd to live in a society that has decided that happiness is the ultimate aim (religious types might disagree but even they are supposed to be working towards god-provided bliss).
There keep being articles about the Eastern wisdom of the Bhutans(I think its Bhutan), who have replaced GNP with GHP. There don't seem to be any dissenting voices; happiness is so obviously the aim of life I guess.

Except that if it was I'd be way ahead. For I give Actimel Woman a good run for her money regularly. And instead of congratulations I get nine different tablets from the psychiatrist.

I thought maybe the aim was genuine happiness. Except that happiness is an emotion- it doesn't come in fake varieties. When I am high I am at least as happy as I was when, say, I got married or opened my copy of Roads and Boats. It's jolly good happiness too; solid through and through.

So maybe the problem is that being high makes me unhappy later. It certainly makes me feel somewhat uncomfortable, but I get far more highs than lows and the average is definitely a high plus.

It doesn't make family happy. They fret in a way I find difficult to measure, as I don't notice it at the time. Recent survey of bipolar people and their partners showed that while bipolar people thought their depressions more stressful for their partners, the partners voted overwhelmingly for the highs.

Even so the quality of happiness in a high is so good that I don't reckon the average mood over the family is necessarily negative. But I don't tend to do terribly dreadful things; a colleague at work said her bipolar father bought cars and pets; I buy shiny orange plastic toys. I'm sure I could do dreadful things; I just haven't yet. Which I guess explains the family angst somewhat.

It's not difficult to find reasons why I am not allowed to stay extraordinarily happy. What is difficult is finding reasons that fit in with the general "happy is good" zeitgeist. None of these books had a reference to bipolar/MD in the index. Actimel Woman is clearly high and out of control, but you're meant to buy the yoghurt anyway.

Most people think manic depression is a particularly severe form of depression (Marvin said that he was a manically depressed robot but never seemed to get high). Most people have never heard of bipolar disorder (affects 1 in a 100 but most of those drop out of society one way or another). I will be fascinated to see how much Stephen Fry's upcoming documentary changes things.

I like being happy. I like being very happy. Maybe it's better to achieve it without the chemical shortcut but better in what sense?

Back to work, still on small dose anti-psychotics and therefore eating everything in sight. Chocolate preferred but in this heat it tends to be over sticky. Just finished a pound of grapes in an hour and feeling slightly nauseous.

Things generally well. Son has gone off to stay with grandparents and continue the construction of the pond that was started last year. He is returning by train (adventure) from Southampton on Friday so that we can attend Continuum on Sat/Sun. I was muttering about that being overpriced but having just seen the schedule there certainly seems a fair amount for your money. Can't resist the idea of flatland the rpg but other than that no firm plans as yet. Son is going to dive into the RPGs and probably have to be dragged out on Sunday evening kicking and screaming.

Failing to buy a kayak at the moment- ebay auction collapsed at the last minute, and haven't time to go and pick up another one before holiday. Appropriate boats (for Beloved anyway) seem to come up every week or so- he wants a touring boat suitable for calm sea so we can take it to Scillies. I want a fast pointy thing that takes conscious effort not to tip over. We are buying his first then waiting for something for me to come up at some point.

Lots of money spent- new futon sofabed for lounge being picked up on Friday. Son is moving into larger room (he claims his bed is too small) so we have lost guest room, so guests may now have to share sofa bed downstairs with cats, although Son has promised to move back as necessary. Fluffy fell into the canal recently- we could tell by the smell- but has cleaned himself up eventually. Canal is off limits at present (not that cats care) as full of blue green algae which is apparently rather toxic and irritating. Canoe club cancelled for the duration, not that I have a Saturday afternoon free anyway.

Played Advanced Civilisation last week. Got halfway through a game (6 hrs). It is fun, but I'm not sure that I will ever finish a game. Talking of long, bought the expansion set for Roads& Boats- lots of new options (not all at once) including aeroplanes, bombs and art expeditions. Now plays 6 (hollow laugh) .

Tomorrow day off, playing badminton at midday but otherwise unallocated- better do some maths I suppose. And start packing- will all stuff for camping fit in three rucksacks? As time goes on I am starting to hope that we get good weather!

Haven't paid much attention to the world recently. Although, tragic as it is, I couldn't help remarking on the wonderful phrase "Co Durham inflatable artwork tragedy".

At home again. I'm trying to get some maths done- reached the Unit on Newton's Principia, which is easily the most familiar thing on the course, thankfully.

Studying would progress better if Son wasn't lying on the sofa making pithy comments about continuity in A New Hope which is on loudly and poking me with his toes. And if I could see straight; anti psychotic has made focussing difficult. Seems to have worked though- the fun ride of the last few days seems to be over without any particularly bad conclusion.

Not sure how long I will need to take the extra tablets; I'm sleeping 12-15 hrs a day which is the main side effect (apart from a dry mouth). Probably a week at least. Hopefully I'll wake up a bit in a day or two. I've got to tidy up one essay and write another one in the next 10 days but otherwise have little I need to do. I had an astoundingly productive week before going high (probably the two were connected) so work stuff isn't too urgent.

Spent the last couple of days in the wildflower meadows in the Solihull nature reserve; wonderful place in the summer. Grasshoppers have got smaller and faster than they were when I was young; I have yet to catch one.

We should be off to see Pirates 2 tonight if Son feels better; not sure what's wrong with him but we suspect a hard to shake off virus. He only has a week left at school anyway.

Bus

She was on a bus. The diesel throb, the jolting movement, the feeling of the glass against her cheek, the crick in her neck, the sobbing of someone behind her, the diesel throb- had she thought that already? She was having trouble thinking again.

For a minute she sat without moving, then she cautiously moved her head and opened her eyes. The twinge through her neck and the bright red in her vision were the same thing. She turned to watch the vivid colour out of sight, realising slowly that it was a car outside. There were more of them, more patches of colour, in and out of her sight in a glorious painful muddle. Too fast to count; gardens with red and blue and green, people with huge umbrellas, shining colours, and the blink of orange as the bus drew up at the round bright circle that was the traffic light. Indicators. She was pleased to identify the orange blinks, watched them move in curves ahead of her.

As the engine became louder and she was pushed against the cold window again, she found the vista too much to understand; colours, shapes, movement. She turned her head to look at the stillness of the bus interior. The sobbing continued.

It was a double–decker; there were stairs going out of sight, a luggage rack opposite with a box for free newspapers. She suddenly wanted one, no, she needed one. Maybe something exciting had happened. With something to read she would be all right… but the box was empty. Fighting back panic she stood up, looked round; was there one on the seats, or on the floor? She caught the eye of a man sitting behind the stairway. He was watching her, and she frowned at him. Did she know him? She thought not. He was young, heavily built, scruffily dressed, and she didn’t like the way he was looking at her. She looked away, around, behind her.

There were no papers. None. The bus rolled on, bumping her against the seat. She had nothing with her; And the diesel throb… She fought her way to a decision. She would get off the bus and get a paper. Then she would catch another bus, without the man on it, and go where-ever she was going. Her mind slid away from the thought of her destination. A paper, that’s what she needed.

The bus had no buttons to press. Not on the handholds, not on the sides of the seats, not running along the roof. How could she get off if she didn’t press a button? The panic rose up again. No buttons. Diesel engine, no buttons. Not a red one, not a green one, not a blue one. Not a red one, not a green one, not a blue one. Not a red one….

The bus started to brake and she was pushed forward against the bar of the seat in front. The song of colours was broken. She started down the aisle to the driver’s window and the exit.

Another man appeared. He must have been standing in the stairway. Blue uniform, peaked hat. A conductor. He blocked the aisle.

She opened her mouth to tell the conductor that she wanted to get off but no sound emerged. The conductor shook his head. The bus stopped braking and started up again. The conductor looked stern, and completely uncomprehending. She couldn’t push her way past him. She looked round and the man by the stairs was grinning at her.

Head spinning, she staggered back into her seat. The sobbing behind her had stopped. The bus was still moving. If she looked up she could see the man. If she looked out of the window the colours and shapes hurt her eyes. She had nothing to read. She gazed at her fingers, twisting and untwisting them. Were they really part of her? They looked so odd, so fascinating. Twist and untwist. Time passed. The bus moved. The engine ground, faster then slower, idling then starting again. The doors never opened.

It became dark. If she glanced out of the window now she could see only the reflection of the lit bus around her, the man still staring, the other passengers vague and unreal. Looking in or out was the same. Her thoughts were almost completely fragmented now. She forced her fingers into the gap between the seat in front and the side and the discomfort was something to hold on to.

The conductor was back. He wanted her to get up, to move back. The glass partition between the front and back of the bus (Smoking, she thought in a moment of clarity. For smoking at the back. Long ago) had turned opaque. Behind it the seats had been replaced by narrow austere beds. On the nearest one her own nightdress was laid out, on top of the flat pillow. She picked it up, running her fingers through the fabric, amazed that this part of her was here. The conductor, who she now saw was a woman, indicated that she should change and get into bed.

There were two other women, younger than her. They were changing into nightwear, desperate not to look at each other. She looked behind her and through the aisle gap in the compartment could see a man pulling down his trousers. His underwear bulged unevenly; she looked away in embarrassment. She didn’t want to undress here, in front of these strange women, so close to these strange men. She wanted a paper. She wanted her own bed. But the conductress was insistent, raking her arms as she pulled her top off , pushing her nightdress over her head. She jerked away, and finished undressing herself.

She wanted to climb into bed, to hide, but the sheets were tucked tight across the mattress. She pulled and pulled at them, eventually yanking one side out completely. There was a thin blanket on top and nothing more. She huddled as well as she could under the covers.

She didn’t want to close her eyes, not in this place, but the conductress had other ideas. After watching the youngest girl being force fed a tablet- it had been her sobbing before, the sound was unmistakable- she took the round, pink pill without protest. Within seconds her eyes were dragged shut and the engine lulled heragainst her will into dreamless sleep.

When she woke, she didn’t know where she was. There was an engine sound, there was movement, but she was lying down with a pillow under her head. For a moment she thought she was on a boat. On holiday. Holiday must be good. So why did she feel so awful?

She opened her eyes. There was a painted metal roof, and on one side there were peeling advertisments. She was still puzzled until she saw the silver rail stretching up to the roof. A bus handhold- she could almost feel the sensation of holding it as the bus rocked.

Her covers had come completely loose in the night; the blanket and sheet were on the floor. Her nightdress was rucked up around her waist; she hurriedly wriggled it down to her knees. She felt uncomfortable, and her mattress was damp; in embarrassment she thought that she must have wet the bed in the night. She rolled onto her side away from the damp patch and looked through the aisle gap towards the front of the bus. The beds had turned back into seats, the man was standing there, fully dressed, halfway along the aisle, looking at her. When she saw his face she rolled back over, heedless of the state of the mattress, pulled her pillow into her chest and cried until she slept again.

The bus carried on. Time passed. Things changed. Eventually she could look out of the window and see only things; not shapes, not colours. She could look at her hands and see only hands. She didn’t want a paper; she had no interest in what was going on. She no longer noticed the man. She took her tablet every night without fail and in her world nothing ever happened until she woke again. And one day the bus stopped and she tentatively stepped off. This wasn't the destination she'd had in mind, but at least she had arrived somewhere.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uklatest/story/0,,-5941410,00.html

Polyamory appears to be flavour of the week. Both the New Scientist and the Observer have articles on the subject

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/woman/story/0,,1813313,00.html

While it’s interesting to read what they have to say, the articles are both rather disappointing in the same ways.

Firstly it appears that one must travel half way across the world to meet these peculiar people in multiple relationships. The result is a feeling of “strange Californian cult” which makes it difficult for the reader to identify with the subject matter. Apparently everyone in the UK labels themselves monogamous, whether successfully or not!

Second each article discusses polyamory, and in particular the lack (or reduction) of jealousy involved in terms of evolutionary biology and psychology. Which is in itself reasonably interesting, if highly speculative. But the conclusions reached by various experts; that polyamory is not evolutionarily beneficial, therefore unnatural, therefore impossible to sustain as a lifestyle, could have been written thirty years ago with “homosexuality” inserted.

It would be nice to think that one thing that we have learned in that time is that people don’t fit a single mould and that they can design their own models for relationships with as much (or as little) success as with using the conventional model. To be fair, the Observer article focussed on the boundaries and the fact that for polyamory to work the participants have to think more, rather than less, about the nature and quality of their relationships. But in general both articles managed to make the subject seem unusual and difficult. Which is a shame.

It’s a nice word though. Polyamory. Rolls off the tongue.

I stayed up till 2 am Fri night playing Cleopatra and the Society of Architects. Sat am I got up early to go to a OU tutorial. By Sat afternoon I was gleefully dragging Son round the local hospital fete, buying orange things ( I now have a push along orange snail with a rotating yellow and red ball in the centre) and winning soap on the tombola. Sat evening I dashed back into town because I discovered a desperate need for tealights, and filled the room with little lit flames and roses to watch Dr Who by.

Today I'm better again (although running a slight temperature). Late nights are definitely a bad idea. Written an essay on the reception of Newton and Leibniz's calculi and watched the tennis final.