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Good Notes on the Human Condition!

"How do things go wrong? How do calamities arise? ...And disasters... accidents...  common everyday mishaps...plans going off course... increasing of our human misery... there's a real level of stress - uncertainty - even terror involved...It is the terror of not knowing you see, what will happen next...b/c at any moment anything is possible... The pace of life nowadays - even in a backwater "bubble" such as this - traffic racing... kids riding faster on their bikes...The rush of deadlines... leading us on toward unexpected reversals of fortune...and like that - bam - a crash, an earthquake, an inferno... So what am I getting at you ask? Well - it's simple...We need a plan - a corollary to our intelligence quotient... something to carry with us, "something" to help us get by...There must be something to fall back upon...a sense of what is possible or impossible or most likely to happen or what we must do to avoid this consequence...So with our typical predictable coping strategies - we construct these shelters, these safe spaces, these superstitions for ourselves...yet even these bulwarks, beliefs and conjurings are not sufficient it seems...It is not enough to feel safe for a week, a month a year - b/c even our built-up fortifications can come undone... which is why I must spend all of the energies I have left to find out... Did you get all that? Yes - sir... (Good - I will have you read it back to me in a minute...) But - just to finish - even to stumble upon an answer is not enough - b/c one answer is only a partial answer - and one must seek full clarification - whatever that means...Yes Sir...Edgerton had to admit...this orderly fellow took good notes... a genuine perk for someone like himself who (as he liked to say) had lost half of his sanity and much of his memory in the midst of a life careening downhill for the past 20 years - a promising trajectory that had gone suddenly off track in epic fashion... Failure, regret, disappointment, yearning and pining and striving for brief iotas of clarification - this had become Edgerton's daily bread. And there was Dr. Heinrich as cheerfully robotic as ever - claiming to have the means and the power to put all of the puzzle pieces back together again.  "I have great hopes for you - my friend - a person of such blatant sensitivities and a winning intelligence..." The doctor left out the part that dealt with partial amnesia, unfocused jitters, angry outbursts, panic attacks, sad irritability and crushing melancholia. An excellent specimen - he always said - so ripe for a cure. I bet you say that to everyone - doctor... During the walk - Edgerton made it clear...just write down what I say in the moment and later on I will decipher it later...Splendid...wonderful... Whatever you say - Mr. Edge...  You speak of terror - the Doctor finally chimed in... Do you really think everyone experiences things the same way? Could the uncertainty not be a source of exhilaration for some? I would merely observe based on my studies of patients that there are not a few who seem to crave chaos over the orderly predictability that you seek... (I wish my memories were in order now! Edgerton thought to himself...If I could bring forth the examples that are swimming around in back somewhere...And this Doctor is promising to make me whole again!

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