It's A Crazy Afterlife

Here's a question you can pose to your pastor on this fine Sunday morning. Or you can wait until this coming Friday or Saturday, if that's when your holy day falls.
   Are crazy people crazy in the afterlife?
   The first assumption is that an afterlife exists, let's agree that's the case. Let's further agree that people made crazy at some point in their life - by brain injury, drugs, what have you - will be restored to their previous non-crazy status in the afterlife. That leaves people who are born crazy. And these people do exist, talk to any mental health professional. What happens to them? Their natural state is disordered, it's the way their brains were wired during fetal development, nothing happened to them to make them crazy, it's just the way the are. The way they were meant to be.
   Do they become non-crazy in the afterlife? If so, what was the point of them being crazy in this life? And don't spout me that 'God's ways are unknowable' stuff, if someone was naturally crazy in this life and they become non-crazy in the afterlife, there had to have been some point to it all, both to the being crazy and to the switch to non-crazy.
   Let's extend this a bit. So far you've probably assumed I've been talking about someone schizophrenic or psychotic or manic-depressive, something relatively benign, at least from a social perspective. What about someone psychopathic? If that's a natural condition, and we have no reason to believe it's not, are there psychopaths in the afterlife? Why wouldn't there be? And if being a psychopath is their natural state, and assuming they haven't transgressed or been absolved of their transgressions, they should be in paradise with everyone else. But if they were, would the afterlife be a paradise? It might be for them, but what about for everyone else?
   But let's assume that crazy people don't get into paradise. For some reason. Which would make paradise better for non-crazy people, but would automatically consign crazy people to damnation for no other offense than being true to their God-given nature. That hardly seems fair.
   Go on, ask your religious professional, I want to hear what they have to say. Go ahead, I'll wait right here.

Another One Bites The Dust

A good friend of mine moved from Los Angeles today. She got a job in Santa Barbara, just up the 101, because jobs are few and far between here in LA. Last week we had a farewell lunch at Canter's Deli, partly because it was close to my job and her house, and partly because it's a very LA kind of place, a local landmark, which makes it appropriate for that occasion. We're both kind of* disillusioned with corporate life and looking for something different, even though we're locked into the paycheck economy along with most of the rest of America.
   Today was her moving day, and I called her at lunch to say good-bye and wish her luck and all the things that you're supposed to do when a friend leaves and you're not certain you're ever going to see them again. And I got a little weepy. Afterwards, I mean, when I hung up. Marna was one of the first friends I made out here, I've known her in all her peregrinations, from Venice to Pasadena to West Hollywood to another part of West Hollywood. Her dog Tex was the calm Buddha center of her universe for two years, and now he's gone and just a few weeks later she's gone. Jeez… I'm tearing up a little bit just writing this now.
   Endings are hard. I've had a lot of endings in the past year and a half, and I'm getting pretty damn sick of it. I know change is inevitable, and for the most part change is good, but that doesn't make it easier to take. I'm tired of the introspection needed to process change, I'm tired of the emotional toll it takes, I'm tired of thinking I'm doing okay only to find that with the slightest provocation I'm really just a raw nerve after all.
   But most of all I'm tired of saying good-bye to family, friends and beloved pets.
   So I'm calling off change. You heard me, no more change unless you get written permission from me beforehand. If you want to move away you have to run it by me, and I may not approve the request. If you're thinking about growing up and moving on, think again. If you're considering a change in careers I'll probably sign off on that, as long as it doesn't involve you moving to Alaska or something. And if you're for some reason thinking about dying, then you just put those plans on hold, no one's going to be taking the Big Sleep any more, not without my say-so.

Got it? Good…


* by 'kind of' I mean 'extremely'

My Brain Is Not Flying

You ever have one of those days where your mind is just vibrating with thoughts, random notions firing left, right and center, all kinds of new things filling your brain and pushing each other around until you just can't stand it and you have to take a moment and write it all down?
   I haven't. Not for a while now, anyway.
   I'm not sure what the deal is – I'm blaming work but it could be almost anything – but I haven't had a good brainstorming day in a very long time. And it's kind of pissing me off.
   Used to be I would get vapor-locked from time to time, where the ideas I knew were up in my gray matter wouldn't make their way down to my fingers so I could write them down or type them out. I don't believe in writer's block, but I do believe that you can get so wrapped around the axle and concerned about other things that you kind of forget how to remember, if that make any sense. Usually when that sort of thing happened to me I would go do yard work, or take a walk, or something else physical and mindless, to unlatch my brain from whatever was holding it down and let it soar free.
   Without fail I would be trudging behind the lawn mower or swimming laps in the pool and I could almost hear the 'pop' as whatever was blocking the flow dislodged. Then I'd have a different problem, trying to remember all these new things when there was nothing nearby to write with or to write on. Still, I'd gotten my creativity back to where it needed to be.
   My brain's not flying lately. Not that I'm doing bad work – I think I'm probably a better writer at this moment than ever – but with long experience has come a routine. I get in my hour or two a day with more on the weekends, write and revise, and keep the creative process going. But I don't have leaps any longer, no frantic flashes of brilliant inspiration or hours-long marathons of pencil-breaking creativity. I think I manage the creative process better, but I also manage it without passion.
   I gotta fix that.
   I need to unleash my brain again, to let it run wild and wherever it wants with me clinging to it like a terrified rider, wondering where and when the mad dash is going to be over and hoping I don't get hurt in the process. Or maybe hoping I do, whatever brings better results.