The Button Tin

Time to relax.
As a kid I did this by matching up buttons my Mum collected in a wee cylindrical tin, shorter than it was wide, that once had some sort of shiny fake-ruby things that I now realise were sweets. 

These were gone by the time I noticed it, and Mum had put buttons of so many interesting styles, colours and shapes. 
Sometimes there were buttons with pictures.

It was my favourite thing.

There! I'm all relaxed now.

The Tree of Life

Here are three trees that are part of my life. There are actually five trees I can think of that affected so much as to remember them. The two I haven't got pictures for are not included as I don't have a picture, and so will probably visit them soon and update. Road trip!

The first tree is one that represents what I think true love is. True Romance is carving names in nature...
... or digging each others grave in the woods, side by side, and filling your others with the dirt from your own - keeping each other alive.

The second tree is one that more than a few birds call home. It's like an ant colony of bird's nests. I bet they have some cuckoo parties. Sorry about that - it's a language trick, not a joke.

The third tree is the tree of hanging shoes, which is eerie and surreal if you associate the shoes with living people. There are either a lot of missing people somewhere, or a lot of people missing a shoe.

Edit: As promised, and I don't know who I promised, here are the two trees that I have no picture for. The first one was known to us as teenagers as The God tree and I've just sketched out it's position near the lake.

Hopefully The God tree still stands unlike what I now call The Gone Tree. The Gone Tree is now one of those new-build estates.



So I have 4/5 trees left. Maybe they are my life force, like lives in a computer game. Sometimes when you kick over bin and walk over a full cooked turkey or an apple your current life goes up a bit, but extra lives come along occasionally too. I should plant a tree.

Edit Edit: And so here is The God Tree in light dispersing beauty.

Fairytale of the Flat

...and imagination became an equation.

The Irrationality of Rationality

It should be said that my own belief about this mental illness is that there is nothing existentially wrong - it is my reaction to a society construct that I don't fit, and the little pockets of humanity, loving family and friends, nature, music, art is why I'm still around. Real people congregate in invisible circles under darkness as society becomes more homogenised. If this continues to the extent of all time then everything will be the same and there is nothing.

George Ritzer describes this process in society as McDonaldization, which is the belief that everything can be rationalised. However we know that people often act irrationally. So I take this idea that we are rationalising the world and therefore attempting to have all people acting rationally all the time, and propose that this is in fact causing our species demise and the bubbling of mental illness.

I do this by arguing that explicit (Euclidean) mathematics itself does not exist as it is a rational process - the one rational process of analysis that causes nothingness.

I begin this by considering the squaring the circle problem.
The expression "squaring the circle" is sometimes used as a metaphor for trying to do the impossible.
Wikipedia - Squaring the Circle

 

Then it is necessary to think about transcendental numbers - which apparently don't exist as they go on forever and are known as irrational numbers. But what if it is actually the rational numbers that don't exist - these are numbers like 1, 2, 3, 4 etc.

This might seem like madness to most by now I know. So think of it this way. Everyone understands that everything is decaying. By that logic, and that is ironic (take note Alanis), if you take two items that are exactly the same and add them then the sum will be slightly less than 2. The answer will only be 2 at a certain point in time but we cannot pause time (without Bernard's Watch).

So if you are to solve the squaring of the circle, the squaring the circle problem effectively doesn't exist as neither would you.
So for my own existence, irrationality is necessary.

And hence the irrationality of rationality.

What I am trying to say is that mathematics is an abstract idea that has no relation to the physical world. The world is full of irrational numbers that define how the physical world works so as to be unpredictable with absolute accuracy. It may be argued that the margin of error is so small as to be insignificant, however this may be a simplistic waver. A small error may be greatly amplified as it propagates through unknown systems to have completely unexpected and therefore unpredictable effects. This may be the mathematical realisation of what is poetically described as the butterfly effect.

This is the problem of numbers and using non-human techniques to create order in a society of human beings (who have become human doings in the ordered unfolding Orwellian prophecy). The most natural way to behave is irrationally. The moral is, I think that disorder is caused by order - and I just need to learn to cope with all the order around me and know inside that I'm right.

Order should only be used to create the machines - this maintains our control over them. So if order is being used for humans, who is in control? So I say bend and break the rules but don't be a dick.




I'm a man of science but I'm also a man.

This form of dual rationality-irrationality needs to be skewed more irrationally - thinking, questioning and constantly creating your universe. This includes science, arts, thinking through the unsolved mathematical problems, music, doing things for no particular reason but that you love them.

This includes loving people too,

So I conclude, for everything to work, we must find Bernard's Watch.

Flat Information Video

Shut Up Keith - KFTea

It was teatime and time to do a deal with the Devil, or KFC. Hell's outlet. Consuming KFC was a necessary evil in approaching my inhibitions and not ducking out by ordering a takeaway online. I could have gone elsewhere, but there is a particular system of ordering, and set of questions, and so I could prepare answer cards.

It was kind of like that Bob Dylan video, only that he was singing about disillusioned 1960s American youths, while I was Keith ordering some fried chicken from a questionable fast food machination using a series of logical cue cards.

I did however realise as I walked into KFC with my hood up, it being a particularly rainy day, that handing a note over the counter could raise suspicion. Now my decision not to cop out may well have the cops out and I may be exercising my right to remain silent legally. Thankfully my action was not construed in this way and I left with a sense of success but also shame.

I will leave the fight for Animal Rights for another weekend where I live my entire life before slaughter with 30 other engineers in a cage of just a few square feet only to be eaten by a higher and morally evolved and hence culpable being.

Shut Up Keith - Work

My morning routine began as normal – I’m awoken by my flatmate’s alarm (he sets several alarms of a different tone that build to a crescendo and me crashing through his door to stop this endless ringing and wake him up with a violent shake). For my troubles I get to use the bathroom first where I look into my eyes and think that these used to be atoms of something else, sometime, somewhere.

A nod to my flatmate as I left began my journey into silence and metaphors. I thought about this and then stopped. It was just me versus my mind until I can cancel out thoughts with mindless talking.

The bus journey to work was covered as I own a Ridacard and so another nod was appropriate recognition for the driver. Thumbs up as I alighted and no suspicions were aroused so far. Thumbs up began to set the tone of my day.


I had decided that I would try not to alter my routine and so there was no covert tactic of heading to my desk through the laboratory as if I were some sort of Batman villain. My first encounters with colleagues were a mixture of more nods, thumbs up and people acting strangely. It became apparent that everyone was more uncomfortable than me as they had to conduct a one-way conversation with a nodding Norn Irishman, or citizen of Earth as I prefer.

I had a 09:30 meeting via Lync that I decided to attend such is my duty. I think this picture pretty much sums it up as I explained to a colleague in Toulouse that I did not have duck-tape over my mouth as in picture on my charity page.

Just Giving - Keith Harland

At the Deli was where I got to make the first practical use of signs, with one as a serious aside about the reasons for all of this – to raise awareness of mental health issues – and the other that juxtaposed perfectly – ‘Special please’. I also discovered that a few select phrases could get a man by – ‘Thank you’ and ‘I don’t know’. I find not knowing makes me want to find out and combined with manners will get you far in life.

Now it was time for a walk. So I walk through Saughten Park where there is a surreal tree of hanging shoes. There are a lot of missing kids somewhere.

The afternoon shift was much easier. It is amazing what can be achieved when you stop talking in circles and shut up. I was more inclined to agree and so force myself into completing tasks I never would have otherwise (thumbs up is easier and feels better than thumbs down – try it).

Thumbs up and the ‘Careful Now’ sign at my desk had done its job –

– I’d stayed silent and I was on my way home.

Silence in Motion
__________________________________________

Get on bus,

Ridacard – “Beep”,

Nod,

Get off bus,

Thumbs up.
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