Saturday, January 17, 2009

Vying for authority between a mentally ill person and a normal person

When a mentally ill person and a normal person converge on a place and the ill person attempts to engage the normal person in vying for authority over some functional aspect of the place, the situation in the mentally ill person's mind is one of logical links leading outward from the place in two strands, one interest type functionality for the mentally ill person, and one exterest type functionality effected by the normal person. In the normal person's mind it is all interest, because they have lots of pure interest type terest and carry this into anyplace where they have authority.

It is the ill person's only hope that he develop his interests in conflict with the interests of the normal person. The two strands are fundamentally different in quality and movement along one is unreasonable to the other, absolutely and without possibility for compromise. Only by superior scaling, bringing in a larger range of considerations and economies, can the mentally ill person prevail over the normal person in a situation where there is vying for authority.

The significance of this result is vast, for it applies to all matters regarding the handling of the mentally ill person's life by the mental health industry.

Courtship of Crystal Newell continues

More action with Crystal Newell, my girlfriend:

She doesn't consider me worthy of being her only boyfriend, though she does seem willing to let me tell everyone she's my girlfriend.

Today at dinner I sat down at a table in the dining room filled with people. Then Crystal came in and walked right past me and sat down at a table at the other end of the room where another guy was eating. I decided to act.

I got up with my tray and sat down at Crystal's table. I proceded to eat, watching her eat.

In a minute or so I hit upon a conversation to strike up. I said, “you know I'm courting you.” She looked confused. I said, “do you know what that means?” more confusion. I said, “it means I'm fighting for your hand.” more confusion. She said, “my hand?” I said, “yeah. Do you know what that means?” she said no. I said, “it means I want you to consider me your only boyfriend.” she seemed noncommital so I risked a “isn't that nice?”

Then she made a belittling face and a little wince, all combined into one. No words thouogh.

This continues to be a difficult courtship. I'm not sure yet how much she knows about courtship, or how much experience she has with it. Just what the quality of her amorous aspirations are is hard to tell. If they're high, I stand a chance. If they're low, that is, more or less gutteral, then I don't stand any chance at all and she's just enjoying going out with me because it beats hanging around the nursing home, but apparently even then it doesn't beat it by much considering how easy it was for her to tell me on practically the eve of the second opera, which I cancelled with her because of this, that her mother might be coming in to see her on the day of the opera and she might not be able to go.

For me it's a logical step by step process of eliminating every chance that her amorous aspirations are high. As long as there remains one chance of it I am going to give her every opportunity to show it. The logic is brutal. Once the last chancNe is removed the courtship will be zero. Not “over”. Zero. Right now it's one.