Can You Tell I'm Mentally Ill?

Or, as the poet and herbalist B-Real once said, “Don’t you know I’m loco?”

I’ve long held that everyone is damaged to some degree. It’s inconceivable to me that a person could exist a week on this godforsaken planet without some sort of psychic damage. I’ve long held that everyone could use a little therapy. And if you meet a perfectly balanced and well-adjusted individual and you don’t immediately see some sort of dysfunction, then you should understand that they’re some sort of pod person and they can only be stopped via flamethrower.

Encouraging everyone to get therapy is a very ‘Austin’ and ‘liberal’ thing to do, I guess, but the internet has not convinced me otherwise. In fact, it seems some are eager to adopt various mental disorders for the attention.

But now we have an AI to tell us we are insane simply by reading our internet posts.

https://techxplore.com/news/2022-03-ai-mental-disorders-based-web.html

I don’t currently possess the RAM for all of the hot takes and glib responses crowding my brain right now. I’m imagining this AI looking at … well, ANY comment section, then melting down like ‘JOSHUA’ at the end of War Games.

“The only way to win is to not read the comments.”

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I have merch. That seems strange for me to write. There are shirts and notebooks. I’m pretty pleased with the designs, all fashioned by the staggeringly talented MATM.

So here you go.

https://jason-murphy-author.myshopify.com/

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How much human flesh have you eaten?

Right now, you’re probably thinking, “Zero. I have eaten ZERO humans.”

But I’m betting you’re wrong. In US meat-packing plants, apparently there are TWO AMPUTATIONS PER WEEK.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/jul/05/amputations-serious-injuries-us-meat-industry-plant

Here’s the part where some of you will say, “Yes, but there are extraordinary protocols in place to prevent any of the ‘long pig’ from making its way to your dinner plate.

And to you I would say, “Bullshit.”

Sure. Those protocols exist on paper, but the juggernaut of the US meat packing industry - like so many other juggernauts of late-stage capitalism - likely only treat these rules as guidelines.

If these guidelines are violated, what happens? A financial slap on the wrist? The costs associated with this are more than likely factored into the overhead of these companies. They can afford to overlook a little cannibalism.

It’s not a question of if we’re eating human meat, it’s how much.

It may be past time for us to all revisit Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle”.

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Madness and cannibalism! That’s what you came for, right?

Speaking of, I watched a superlative documentary about Folk Horror this weekend. The term is far more far-reaching than I expected. I previously thought the term to just include rural European freakshows like ‘Wicker Man’ or ‘Blood on Satan’s Claw’, but the excellent and exhaustive documentary, “Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched.”

It’s a thorough and scholarly look at the history of folk horror in film. If you’re anything like me, you’ll take notes of all of the obscure flicks this one will introduce you to.

Currently, I’m about halfway through with a 70s British spookshow that was ostensibly for children. ‘The Children of the Stones’.

I’m both disappointed and relived that I wasn’t exposed to this as a child.

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Listen. I get it. None of the above was a very good way to start the week, certainly not with … well, everything.

So give yourself a few meditative minutes (or all day, if you need) to stroll through Skyrim.

\m/