On the third day

Well, I'm nearing the end of my third day of fasting which is as long as I have ever fasted before. I'm tolerating it better than I had expected, but I'm getting really spacey. I believe that I have entered the phase of fasting where the brain switches over from burning glucose to burning other chemicals which inevitably leads to a change of consciousness. So any time God wishes to make an appearance and provide me with further instructions is totally cool by me. I have had a couple of friends check in with me today to find out what I'm doing and to insure that I am not simply planning on fasting forever and passing away. I have explained that I am involved in a candid and honest open ended process were I am sharing with folks how I am doing. To be blunt, I have no long term plan, I'm playing all this by ear and folks are invited to weigh in and provide any feedback that they wish. But I still have not heard from anybody in either the medical or mental health field. I guess I'm just too lazy and spaced out to make long term plans and provide demands when I'm not sure I will even be able to initial a dialog with anyone. My understanding is that there is zero problems with fasting for the first two weeks, at three weeks things get real sketchy and you are engaging in some true health risks and four weeks is about as long as a person can reasonably expect to live. I've been suicidal many times before, but I do not believe that is the heart of where I'm coming from. But I'm not saying that depression is totally irrelevant either. I believe that many different "mental health problems" are actually manifestations of positive traits necessary for humanity at large, but that humanity is not yet evolved enough to support the expression of psychiatric diversity and that many peoples problems are significantly compounded by societies inability to support and embrace their differences. This doesn't mean that these "problems" don't have tragic sides to them and I recognize that many people essentially only experience the negative side of these "problems" and only wish to be cured and normal. I just believe that there are people who experience the positive and even beautiful side of these problems. For example, which being high functioning autistic has been a real party and lots of fun in many ways, I would never want to be a low functioning autistic person and I would hope, if only I was able, to be rescued and cured from my affliction.

My depression for example tends to allow me to be fearless in certain circumstances as it is very hard to threaten me with death. It gives me a big stick to use and allows me to say to folks with great conviction "you really don't want to go there!" I am not a good person for society to play chicken with. I do embrace life, but I embrace life for all of humanity, not just myself. I've been thinking about my dad lately who passed away from cancer fifteen years ago. My father was about the scariest person I have ever met although his dad was even worse. He possessed a freakish level of agility and physical strength for someone that was only six foot two inches. I worked with him for a while as a construction worker and I remember him being on a set of boards fifty or sixty feet up. I heard some boards fall to the floor and ran over in horror to see what had happened to him. At first I didn't see him, but then I saw his fingers hanging on the remaining boards as he hung from them. When he looked at me I could see that he wasn't scared. He flashed me the cheesiest smile I have ever seen. He was scared that he barely missed dying, but he was certainly awfully embarrassed. Real men do not die like punks!

A year or two before he was diagnosed with cancer a bunch of crack houses opened up on the street that he lived on. He was very disgusted, but didn't do anything until he twelve year old children being used as drug runners. So two gangs of completing crack houses with a dozen or two dozen members faced off in front of his yard with chains, crowbars and other implements of destruction. My dad's response was to saunter out into his front yard with his video camera running. The gang members halted their impending war and asked him what the hell he thought he was doing. He calmly explained that he hated them for being the human pieces of shit that they were and that the chance to make a video record of them beating the shit out of each other was way to precious to be able to pass up. The gang members were so freaked out that they dispersed and went their own ways. My father began going on regular patrols up and down his street letting the gang members know that he was going to make it so rough to sell drugs on his street that the gangs would be forced to move. He regularly called the police about drug deals he was seeing going down. The police were not that interested in intervening, but he was absolutely persistent, was keeping tons of video tapes of drug deal and the police gave in and started showing up when he called them. I actually went on some patrols with him and it was often very surrealistic. I remember him confronting the leader of one of the gangs and the lead was all, "Yes sir Mr. Geisler. No sir Mr. Geisler. My boys know not to do business on your street Mr. Geisler." And so on. His house and truck did gain some bullet holes and one day the family thought someone had blown up an explosive in the yard to scare them. But eventually the entire planet came to a decision that they were just going to let my dad have his way.

Certainly my dad was very brave physically, but I do believe that he was scared of dying an old weak useless man. I think he would have much preferred to go down in battle than to die old and feeble. I really am relating to this now. I understand what it is to be an old beat up warrior who just wants help climbing on his horse one last time, to be handed his sword and be pointed towards the nearest noble and just battle. I'm beginning to feel old and useless and the chance of one last serous battle to do justice and smite the wicked is looking pretty good to me. The level of medical care I have access to is not great and at fifty five I am psychologically prepared for the fact that I will not necessarily live much longer. Many in my family are long lived and it would no surprise to me if I easily lived another thirty years. Who knows? But I do know that my father died the most horrible death a man like him could imagine just a couple of years after running the crack gangs out of his neighborhood. I do know that he would have rather died going down kicking ass than dying of cancer. I feel sick at heart with how many things in our country are going. I feel sick at heart at all the pain and suffering I have witnessed due of man's lack of consideration for their fellow man. I feel very sick at heart for all of the injustices I have personally witnessed and not opposed with all the strength of my body, mind and soul. I feel I am so much less than the man I should have been and I do seek a kind of redemption.

I deeply apologize for how arrogant and egotistical the following will sound. As Spiderman's uncle Ben said, "with great power comes great responsibility." The Lord had gifted me with great power in the intellectual realm. It doesn't mean I'm a great person, it means I came out incredibly well in the genetic crap shoot of life. What you are born with means nothing, but want you do with it means everything. In my life I have waded into a number of moral and intellectual battles that any sane and reasonable people would know were impossible for me to win. I won them anyhow and a number of times I didn't just barely win the battle, it was almost as if no one could do anything to even oppose me. Just in the intellectual arena I have attacked and conquered problems that would have intellectually and emotionally crushed almost any other person. I was considered a "firefighter" in the computer industry. Everyone has limits; physically, emotionally, morally, philosophically and spiritually there is a place where we fear to go beyond. I like to live in these frightening places. In the computer industry I made a practice of always taking on the scariest most intractable problems my group faced. I don't care to fight over turf, so I specialized in dealing with problems no one else wanted to touch. And I almost always succeeded. On my first Windows project I took on and completed a module that the group had actually named the "monster screen" because it was so scary. My point is not that I can conquer any problem. My dilemma with sensory overload that traps me in my apartment is an excellence example. My point is that I can never be sure that I can't conquer a problem without actually jumping in and pounding against it for a good while. So while my desire to create positive change through my political protests may seem nuts at first or second glance, I can't be certain that I can't make an important difference with my protest.

One final but important note is to realize that I have a very warped sense of humor. Anyone who takes everything I say completely literally is looking to go for a very weird ride. Life is funny and if you forget to laugh you are missing out on some of the best stuff life has to offer. An expansive sense of humor is a sign of spiritual development and does much to blunt the impact of depression.