Flat Affect

Who wants this flat affect? I sure don't. I cansee how if would be useful in certain very specific situations. But so what? It's the time of year when everyone buries their bald ostrich heads in their books and never deigns to look up, because if they ever did they'd be so sensitive to the actual world that their retinal ganglions would explode and induce little arabesque swirls of multicoloured patches of visual field as they spill their potassium out onto neighbouring neurons, firing them in a punk-rock-wall-of-sound way. I've felt it; felt my desire to create anything ebb; felt my acceptance deteriorate and slowly turn to annoyance; felt that keeping contact with people was a burden.

It is not a burden. I welcome it. But not this week. Or maybe the start of next week. Cognitive systems are firing and the affective division is curiously silent (except for the most basal affective states: fear, formless fear, free-floating anxiety, anger, disgust). Hopefully the chronically elevated levels of cortisol won't turn my hippocampus into swiss cheese, such that I'll be a completely different person when I emerge from this particular glut.

Well, that's cheerful. This is the life I chose; although I chose this life more for the freedom of action and choice than the inevitable anxiety.

Consider: ""A true friend is somebody who you call at 3 a.m. and say 'I'm in a prison in Mexico' and (s)he replies 'No worries, I'll be there in seconds'."