Churchill’s black dog (Copyright Robert Fullarton 2014)- An Old article extended, edited..

Churchill’s black dog

(Copyright Robert Fullarton 2014)- An Old article extended, edited..

I had previously written an article on anxiety, now let me write an article on its ugly first cousin called depression.

When you have an illness –and in this case I need not give a diagnostic or medical name for the illness- that cannot be given proper medical treatment for a long term cure, you begin to despair. You have to carry yourself through the thick and thin.  Pondering on the grey uncertainties of the future and the limitations of the present, you despair, and this is especially true when you try to live like “everyone else” at a more elongated position and with a more hectic existence..then you know that you have come too far out from your own comfort zone.

When you cannot work- despite the fact that you want to work, because your bodily systems- be they the endocrinal, the nervous or the immune systems- are unable to function and manoeuvre at an ordinary rate as the average healthy human body works upon, then you are fighting your own weaknesses.  In my case I have accepted long ago, the full limitations and symptoms of my disorder. The infliction grants disorder to the senses, the capacities of the brain to function and this drains the energy of the body- thus daily restrictions to the bed occur and the wrestle to work are common enough. I am driven by a pathological fear of what people think of me at times...especially with the fact that I want to work but often I nearly come to mental collapse after several highly stressful days of full on labour.

Churchill had famously declared to others about his "black dog following him" throughout life, and many creative, innovative and high-minded people of an outstanding caliber of intelligence suffer such a malaise and affliction (I dont include myself in such a list). Greats minds on the fine balance between sorrow and joy -rather than sanity and madness- seem to have their heads touch the metaphysical heights and yet plunge to the lows of Tartarus. Depression is not realistic, not in touch with reality, it seems to be a poor, rather negative response to a crisis or series of crises that trigger our feeling of despondency and defeat, but such feelings are not true.

What can take you out of this toxic mind frame? I pray, it really is the mantle and the refuge of the despairing soul with his rapier to the world and the conditions that limit him, sometimes his own voice of self-defeat can be an enemy in itself. Where are the moments of poetic beauty, each man needs a breathless tide to take us to a greater shore! Watching wildlife from afar has been a boyhood passion that never relents in the face of time, each new species and specimen I find, inspires me to write and even to study further into the mysteries of each habitat and behaviour they entail

Coming with the joys of creativity come the feelings of being overwhelmed and being smothered by the problems of life that counter and contrast the highs we have had earlier on in the week

In the past all I wanted was to escape from this Alcatraz of pain and redundancy and be doped out. I look back with shame on each occasion but I know in my heart of hearts that there is another door, another choice to be made and another person out there who can relate to what I have gone through and to what you have gone through! One loses one's touch with reality -when you are in my situation- every so often and go a little crazy! Life is not a game, nothing is cheap, nothing is won through easy gain, it is herculean at times, a veil of tears, it, it can be heartbreaking, it comes with repetitious questions, but sometimes we find a grace of strength that carries us through on the moment of a great need. We cannot always call such happenings coincidence, and from my experience I will call them miracles, formerly perhaps when I was indeed a very angry, cynical man, I would have thought differently, but now the soft tender skin has had to grow thicker to the harsh conditions of the world. We have to live in hope and be builders on the foundations of meaning (As a Christian that meaning is relationship with Christ, as a living truth).

 We want to fight beyond the walls of limitations and fear is perhaps the greatest of such terrible walls!

I myself worry about the future, constantly, about finding ample full time employment, about my property issues and matters of survival and of course since I have been diagnosed with three illnesses of the mind- I do indeed worry about issues on functionality, dependencies -having to depend on family-, responsibilities and cares that need to be maintained, renewed and looked after. From the highs to the lows the reader must note that the Day is much, much brighter than the night, there is a candle that rises in its luminosity as the new day in a great new creation, do you believe in the infinite night? You possess the key for turning on the switch that converts the dark to light in an instant, no matter how bad it gets, moral integrity, love, devotion and bonds of meaning hang men in a wonderful suspension to keep them from the crocodiles of their own over-rationalities bellow the tightrope walk. For me faith is essential, but this light gets better and bigger, what have I to lose, to try is everything and as one philosopher stated "A start is the most difficult thing to have", I believe that we have the start but need the orientation to make the journey into the unknown. 

Each person woke unto existence and knew not where nor how they came to be, but simply lived and acted like the players on the stage, but life is more than acting its about being, and for me as a Christian its about relationship with God, because I choose to know and choose to follow this path. Depression at times too can an existential crises on the deepest matter of all, where hence did we come from and where are we going? Such will determine one's psychology to face the inevitable and yet be strong.

Each reader must note and know that their life does not belong to a psychiatrist but is in their own hands in many ways, they are not the numbers on a hospital list, but the real living beings, who when perceived properly are capable of doing much more, as one must not resign oneself to a fate of hopelessness but be determined to rise to face the challenge, as miracles occur in the extraordinary moments of human compassion, community, empathy and indeed in acts of great faith and grace!

Erosion of society -By Robert Fullarton Copyright 2017

Erosion of society

-By Robert Fullarton Copyright 2017

Its seems to me that the psychology of victimhood has been used to great effect in these recent years, over minorities and majorities, governments and societies, to look at the so-called oppressed and the oppressors and make such the dogma and the taboo of the age we live in. The taboo of course has reached such a farcical state that open-free debate, analysis and reason are road blocked with the common shibboleth of words, slurs and accusations coming from the stoked up fires of the socialist politic. One treads over one’s statements like walking over the shards of cut thread glass, and more appropriately the cut glass of a society being splintered and smashed beyond repair.

We see the degeneration and collapse of society, likewise as great minds in history saw their civilisation plummet to a cataclysm. Social injustice, moral decadence, deep division and the over extension of political power, all contributed to the collapse of the Roman empire, in its final form, Rome on many occasion broke down from senatorial democracy to out-right dictatorship, despotism and autocracy, many shifts and shapes of political power occupied the Palatine and the Capitoline hill, all the evils and ugly sides of human nature were exposed and deeds compiled in the accounts of its many great historians. But the empire reached its zenith and came to its nadir, its power was unmatched but its divisions could not be ignored and so the effects set in, entropy of culture, of faith in its way of life, not only came with the founding of Christendom under Constantine and Theodosius, but a moral and spiritual sea-change made the age old love of all things violent seek, a new way and a new way of thinking. Many had their eyes open to the common human love for violence and self-gratification, something beyond the immediate need and towards the greater good of a universal truth.

Western civilisation is in sharp-decline, its people are in self-doubt, they possess a sort of masochism over their own culture and history, they have bought and adopted the critiques of the continental Marxists and social theorists, that sought to demoralise and cripple the institutions of the western way of life, accusing institutions and traditions in effect, of being oppressive, inventing the persecutory ways of hardship, where none existed, pointing their fingers into the salty fresh wounds of history.

Today I see the media and such disingenuous, utterly non-democratic, vandalism in such groups Antifa as the living nightmare of an Orwellian horde of Zombies that seek to silence all opposition through base violence! The hypocrisy of course is too hard to see, its a sort of abstract painting that you stand back from to spot. I myself find the Black Lives Matters movement to be a sort of hate filled revival of the black panthers and the black supremacist movements of the 1960’s in the dark days of the abuses of African American people and the Civil Rights Movement. Indeed if Policemen have become gun-ho then and are the type to shoot first and ask questions after, then we must have strict prosecution and reform of the institutions of the American Armed forces. All lives matter, let us not point to skin colour and let us not dehumanise any person for their skin colour!

But this has gone too far, its hate for hate, I have seen the arming of young men on the television, as the media too has stoked the racial hatred, has pointed fingers and condemned men like drunken fanatics at a tavern brawl.

One cries racist, like one cries wolf, one just so happens to find racists everywhere these days, they are under our beds, hiding perhaps in wardrobes and certainly walking our streets, like bogeymen our of horror stories they are apparently everywhere!

You see I notice a common breakdown in the rational narrative of debate, topics, of assessing evidence and of course letting the past remain in the past, to repeat these mistakes will –if the media continues to milk the delicate matter- of course lead us down a bad road. Media power of course is omnipresent and that is one of the worst factors we face today, a media so greatly interwoven into our minds and lives, culture and society, with many spawns of one particular ideology, with roots that go inside your head and everyday police the “good and bad” thoughts inside your head, as akin to the power of God almighty himself. The corporate octopus is connected, is growing ever larger and is intent on taking you over until you too become a vassal and all businesses are subsidiaries to the colossal monster itself!

Now this is the sort of thing we don’t see in a democracy, but its the product of a sick-democracy that is coming to its final stages, when men are enjoying the fruits of past labours and endeavours, the complacency and comfort of such a society becomes, stagnant, becomes weak and the former diligence of great minds rusts under the self-flagellation of a masochistic society that is an apologist to its enemies and a accuser onto itself. Such a society divided will not stand and the signs are very apparent! The process of course has been inflated and proliferated by our ubiquitous and garrulous media, who have done much to censor and shut down free-speech and such is a sign of the collapse of democracy towards a sort of corporate and elitist tyranny. The prosecution of criminals and common human vandalism, of course faces roadblocks from political and ideological incentives, legal entanglements and social dissents, if the existence of constitutions and laws become farce then justice will be derailed and the safety of men threatened in these insane times of self-doubt and silence.

Too many have viewed “social justice” as the finality of good and evil in a sort of twisted dogma and invention of the post-war generations, but the pre-existing morals and lessons learnt from history and other civilizations prior to the western capitalist system, show the need for man to return to belief in objective truth. The words “in the beginning there was God”, may seem blasphemous to the 21st century rebel without a cause, but let us see how secular government will fare in the future as radical fringe movements along with mainstream socialist ideology erode the past, the history, morals and traditions of this society. Shall we have another society as terrible and abominable as the Soviet experiment or the Nazi regime, or shall we have something similar but one with another name, offering hope at first, but failing to provide and in turn showing its brutality, and known only when it is too far. Indeed only when the chicken is in the mouth of the wolf, does it cluck in hopelessness! The enemy within is just as dangerous as the enemy without!

Christian Aphorisms -On Faith and Life- Robert Fullarton

Christian Aphorisms
-On Faith and Life- Robert Fullarton 

Copyright 2017

Puny ethical codes mean nothing without a principle and point of reference for which, morality has an eternal truth to, men these days are well able to promote such codes of conduct but for the standards of humanism, for political end, they are the see-through measures of policy and paper thin law, but have no radical heart nor power often behind them. Morality without God, is invented by wishful thinkers and subjective activists who butcher what they cannot stomach, namely that which judges them and all men alike. A truth is seen to be offensive by those more concerned with pleasing everyone and not fulfilling the truth in turn, they likewise seek not to offend anyone and therefore cannot live by the truth, because they cannot understand that the truth is in direct opposition to the proud man whose heart cant be humbled, because he will not sacrifice to God, what is God’s in the first place.

 Where the ancient societies of the Canaanites, the Phoenicians and Carthaginians offered their children to Moloch, Baal and Tanet, the God of the Hebrews, of the Christians and of the creation gave his son in our stead, the sacrifice he demands is that of giving life, courage and love in the face of the limitations of man’s heart.

The emotions we have, the feelings, the beliefs and sentiments are they not more than mere labels of information. Worship of knowledge without credible meaning or reason, what does it add to? The scientist he systematizes knowledge, it is a theory and not an experience to many, not something that pertains to an intelligent wish or great desire. Life itself, is called the senseless happening of accident, but man thinks his thoughts are sensible despite the paradoxical conclusion. He devalues life and his own life, he believes that he invented the rules, and wont concede his heart to the God he has denied. Man believes he has written the manual on life and that nothing can exist outside the terms given by the manual.

One needs only to read one’s bible at root and core to find the commands of the teacher and the master, to know the age old problem of man and the eternal solution acted out, lived and transformed.

Our lives need to be radical, as a radical love that warms the fringes of the cynic and makes him question his own motives and reasons for distaste with man and world combined.

Through the fire there is life, out of its smoke came a noble soul that was granted rest after the great labours and travails of the race of men, which endure, which rage, which are warring on through mind, body and soul, and seek rest to the point of spiritual decimation. One man’s morale can come to the point of such a decimation, as life seems to be baseless, hopeless, a taxing venture, a test concerning everything from which the mind can fathom and for those who are ignorant of such matters, life is a test no matter what they say and it is all this and more. We are so weary not so much in physical fatigue but when the belief of the individual cannot see resolution and confirmation that all their hopes will come to final expression. The finality of man is in the pre-existing mould, those of the world cannot understand why life began and why God begot their feelings, but call it a senseless mess and ceaselessly try to kill the hope that men have placed in the cause of heaven.

God’s ways to us, appear as riddles to us in action but in reality they are the perfection of his wisdom and his order in the chaos and the fear of men, that are fulfilled in perfection too.
Escapology comes with forgetting about the world; and even just a glimpse outside the world is akin to a holiday in paradise, where we breathe again, from having once been starved, suffocated, ostracised, bedraggled and straggled of love. Apathy is the air of civilization, which culminates in the construction of the steel city, whose life existence breathes loneliness. The Christian in contrast seeks a love that is beyond anything the city can offer, or what conventional man knows and believes!