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January 22, 2012 

Let’s Talk About . . . Depression

Things have gotten pretty political around here lately, and I know that doesn’t interest everyone, so we’ll put that on hold for a while for your sake, and frankly, for mine. I just can’t take it for too long. I just find myself getting worked up over it all, and I need to take a break, to step away for a bit.

In that vein, I’ve decided it’s time to talk about something a great many people don’t understand. Depression is a very real medical and psychological condition, which isn’t solved by “a little more Jesus,” or “Just get over it,” or “He really should just grow up.” I have heard each of these responses to the topic of depression, and how it’s not real, it’s “just in your head,” and if you were stronger it wouldn’t be a problem.

I think a lot of the ignorant comments surrounding this disease comes from, well, ignorance for one, but it’s a very difficult thing to understand when you don’t know how it feels. I will attempt to dispel the fog surrounding how it feels to be depressed. Understand that how /I/ experience depression may be very different than someone else, but generally, many of the hallmarks are universal. This post is one I have tried to write a number of times, but have never quite been able to come up with the words, but after a particularly tough morning, I sent what follows to a friend, and for the first time, I felt like I had a decent glimpse of what it feels like:

Some days everything just goes wrong all at once and it feels like everything you have is just slipping away into nothingness, and you’ll be left standing there staring into the void wondering what you did to deserve this, what you could have done differently to avoid it. But then you realize that it doesn’t matter anyways, because it’s all gone and there’s no getting it back, no recovery, there’s only you and you have two choices: pick up and move on or stay put and let the void consume you, and you wonder if there’s even a difference.

Imagine you’ve gone to a soothsayer, who has a penchant for never being wrong, and she tells you that “Tomorrow, your world will end. You will not go to heaven, you will not go to hell. You will cease to exist, and everything about you will be forgotten forever. You will leave no legacy, you will simply never have existed.” The opportunists in the crowd will take this advice as carte blanche to have a ball. But really think about it. Look around you at everyone you love, everything you’ve done. All the lives you have touched, and all the lives who have touched you. Nothing. NOTHING will remain. Your life and all the hard work you’ve put in amount to nothing. And nothing meant anything. Why did you even bother?

Pretty depressing, huh? Now imagine waking up with that feeling every morning. Imagine taking a shower, brushing your teeth, doing any of the hundreds of mundane little things you have to do just to get ready to, what, go to work? And what for? Does it matter? Will it ever?

It’s those thoughts that fester in the mind, that gnaw and eat their way through any barriers of thought and reason. They form an impenetrable downward spiral, neigh impossible to stop, even when you know it’s happening. Fear leads to doubt, leads to anxiety, leads to self-doubt, leads to loathing, leads to nothing. All roads lead to Nothingness.

These are feelings that I have lived with since I was about 9 years old. It started off with my just not feeling quite right. I remember not really feeling like all the other kids /looked/ like they felt. So I started to fake it. I kept it to myself because I didn’t understand it, and it was easy enough to keep up the act, but when I got to high school, I began to wear thin. I spoke with a mentor about everything, and started seeing a counselor. I didn’t like him, and quit going. I also got on medication, which I took for a while and quit. That song and dance was repeated often. I’ve been through more medications than I can remember, and I’ve seen a handful of counselors, most of whom I ended up quitting, disappointed in their inattention and silly games. I have continued to quit the medications cold-turkey when I get on them.

It has been a long process, and I have not been the best patient, but I will, this coming week, be visiting the doctor to get back on the medication. It’s occurred to me that maybe I need to get this depression in check, because there are too many people who it affects. My ability to keep up the act 24/7 has waned, and I’m beginning to lash out and hurt people around me. So it’s time to swallow my pride, and get the help I need.

But as for depression itself, some people are depressed because of some major life event they can’t get a handle on. Some people are depressed because of neurochemical imbalance. Some people are depressed for, well, the list goes on and on.

There’s good news, though. Our good friend Science has given us a plethora of anti-depressant medications which fiddle with your brain bits and help you feel normal again. There are counselors, and therapists, and pastors, and gurus, and friends, and chocolate. It’s not the same for everyone, but it’s no less insidious, and it can cause some very real life-altering problems.

So let’s talk. Do you know someone who is clinically depressed? Are you? How do they deal with it? How do you? Do you have any questions about depression? If so, please ask, and I’ll do my best to answer them. So let’s talk. Let’s all gain a little understanding.

January 21, 2012 

Let’s Talk About . . . More Privacy Problems

I use my name in my URL. I use my name as the author of these posts. I am not afraid of being found on the internet, nor should anyone who uses Facebook, twitter, etc. Especially if you have ever (even accidentally) left the GPS information in a picture you posted, or a tweet you made. Let’s face it: in this day of unending connectivity, we are more identifiable than ever.

That said, the Internet lends itself to a great sense of anonymity if you choose. Domains can be registered under any name (for now), you can post to websites under any number of pseudonyms, and you can tell anyone anything you like, because, you don’t have to connect your real life to the internet. This has its positives and negatives, to be sure.

On the positive side, it allows people in oppressive countries to voice their concerns and complaints in a forum everyone can see, and not become a prisoner of the state in the process. On the negative, it allows people to get away with any number of heinous acts of abuse and depravity against people, children, etc. I don’t think anyone can say that it wouldn’t be good if we could do something to stop these acts, particularly those involving children.

Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX), the very same representative who introduced SOPA, has introduced a new bill right on the heels of the suspension of PIPA and SOPA. It’s called H.R. 1981 or the “Protecting Children from Internet Pornographers Act of 2011.” The bill would be more aptly named “H.R. 1984,” but I suppose the PR fallout would be a bit much.

I linked the bill there, but The Atlantic explains it well enough.

In short, the bill would require your ISP to keep records of everything you’ve done on the internet, attached to your IP address and YOUR NAME, along with financial information and any other personal identification. These records would be kept FOR 18 MONTHS. So, now, your ISP has a big database of your personal information tied to everything that’s been done through your internet connection.

There are a number of perfectly legal activities one could engage in online that one would rather not be remembered. While perhaps offensive to the moral sensitivities of some, the fact remains that pornography or adultery or what have you are perfectly legal. These should, in no way, be able to be used by your government against you in any way. But under this new legislation, they could be. Suspicious spouse? File a divorce, and get a subpoena during discovery, and your entire browsing history is suddenly public record.

As it stands, the reasons for which a person’s data could be subpoenas are extremely lax, leading to a government by fear, which in fact, is a tactic the Atlantic points out was used quite effectively by Russia’s communist leadership. But the lax position on subpoenas is really a minor problem. The problem is in the requirement for a database to begin with.

Let’s put aside for a moment the absurdly heavy-handed approach to catching a very small number of criminals, and focus on the track record of companies keeping our data safe: Sony is hacked for months before they notice, Bioware was hacked, exposing EA data, Zappos, Sony again, and . . . well, do you get my point? Intrusions happen. And they are happening a lot. Perhaps they’re just getting more press, but the fact remains: data is NOT secure, no matter how hard they try.

So, when someone hacks your ISP and gains the data in this master database of you, it’s just a matter of contacting you (using all that fun information they have about you), and blackmailing you for whatever they want, really, or they’ll tell the world you have a latex fetish. Or you meet up with people from Craigslist. While maybe not wholesome, these actions are not not illegal, and they’re certainly no one’s business but your own. Certainly not the hacker’s, and certainly not your government’s.

Don’t get me wrong: child pornography is a dastardly, disgusting thing, and it really should be stopped. However, as I said with SOPA, the loss of liberty of an entire country for the capture of a few is NOT justice. It is, in fact, the opposite, and I don’t believe for a second that these congressmen believe this (and any other similar) bill is for the greater good. This bill is hiding behind abused and defiled children, in the interest of increased government surveillance. Shame on Rep. Smith, and shame on our government for trying.

Lamar Smith has shown a clear disregard for the safety and protection of any of his constituents, and it is a symptom of a government who assumes it no longer has bounds, or a commitment to its people. It’s a symptom of a government, of a leadership, so used to getting exactly what they want, they will do what best serves themselves, not the people they represent. It’s a disgusting glut, and as we enter election time again, we must keep that in mind.

SOPA and PIPA may be dead, but the fight for the safety of the internet and privacy from our government is far from over. Stay vigilant, and don’t let up.

So let’s talk about what we can do. About what steps we can take, who must we contact, and where do we go from here?

January 18, 2012 

Let’s Talk More About SOPA

I’ve posted about SOPA and PIPA before. It’s a pretty big deal, mostly due to the rather wide berth it gives rights-holders in censoring and redefining the flow of information on the web. This needs to be stopped, and the only way we can do that is by letting our elected representatives understand where we stand on the subject. Below, you will find a sample letter (and, in fact, the letter I sent to my congressmen).

But, keep in mind there is another evil. The rights-holders who are pushing this legislation and some new ICANN rules (about which you can read more on Adam Curry’s Blog) are really the target of our ire. While our elected officials should certainly not be pushed around by corporate lobbyists, we must also understand that they pay those lobbyists with the dollars we spend on their entertainment. We, as a people, have fought Big Tobacco, Big Oil, Big Medical, and now we need to add Big Entertainment to the fight.

We need tell them that it is NOT okay to push for a decrease in our freedoms. It is NOT okay for them to dictate national and international policy for the internet. What they’re trying to do is NOT okay. And we shouldn’t stand for it. Just keep that in mind as you consider SOPA, PIPA, and any other legislation proposing to do the same.

Sample Letter:

—-
To whom it may concern:

Currently, under your watch, two bills are being considered which will be detrimental to the free Internet as we know it. One in your purview, one in the other half of congress. The bills are SOPA and the Protect IP Act. These bills mean to allow corporate and governmental censorship across the globe, based on the flimsiest of accusations and without judicial review. They must not be passed.

Understand, my objection lies not in the purported reason for the bills. Online theft and piracy have grown to ridiculous proportions, and the rights holders have a right to justice. I do not have a problem with that. However, many acts of atrocity have been leveled against mankind under the name of truth, of justice. And while SOPA and PIPA are no genocide or ethnic cleansing, they do pose a significant threat to the future of innovation, of the Internet, which the UN has declared a basic human right. How can you reasonably assert that the destruction of a global commodity, which enables global communication and cooperation to an extent unheard of before, is a fair and just way of dealing with an effective minority of misfits and misanthropes?

First, for such a law to be reasonable, it must learn from the mistakes of the DMCA. These bills do not. Under their provisions, there still exists no judicial review, the accused still stands guilty and punished before being sentenced, and that goes against our most sacred law: The US Constitution. Secondly, these bills give wide and far-reaching punitive powers to rights-holders, which can affect websites far outside of the (expansive) jurisdiction of the United States. The method outlined in these bills would change the backbone infrastructure of the entire internet: DNS records. These records are what tell your computer where a website is located. They translate that “google.com” into an IP address which is how computers tell other computers where they are. A bit oversimplified, but good enough. By altering these records, you threaten stability and efficiency of a global communications medium, which has enabled people world-wide to protest cruel and oppressive governments. Is endangering that means of communication worth the few dollars in sales you would protect for Warner Brothers?

Further, the method outlined is largely ineffective. While you may block access to a website by its name when you change the DNS records, that website is still entirely functional and reachable by its IP address anyway. So what good have you done, other than to make ever so slightly more difficult, but still entirely possible to navigate to an infringing website? All the while, opening up the internet to gross exploitation of these bills for corporations to shut down (even if temporarily) rivals and competitors. This isn’t justice for anyone; it’s a business strategy for media companies.

This country was founded by a group of people with a radical sense of individualism. Granted, many of the people wanting freedom from British rule had business interests in mind, and we cannot forget that, but they also believed in those rights for everyone else, including their competitors. These two bills, and their sponsors, are a shameful mark on the face of our country’s history, showing blatantly and obviously that we are now willing to kowtow to corporate money and interests, rather than being vigilant to protect the interests of the people. And in this case, the interests of the world itself.

You walk a dangerous precipice. This is a watershed moment for our future: do we uphold freedom and protect the greatest means of global community ever invented, or do we protect private interests and trust funds, the world and the internet be damned? We voted for you. We dislike SOPA and PIPA. We trust you do make the right choice and vote against SOPA and PIPA as they stand.

Thank you for your time.

—-

January 16, 2012 

Let’s Talk About . . . Meditation

These last few days, largely as a part of my renewed kick to be healthy, I’ve taken to going for walks after work. I go for about an hour, which end up being a little over 3.5 miles. In that hour, I plug in my headphones, queue up some music from my phone or Spotify and just walk.

It’s become apparent to me that this activity is healthy in a way other than for my heart. It’s a salve for the soul, really. A moment of peace in an otherwise hectic day. I know a good number of you already know this. But it’s a new sensation for me. Rather than getting bored with the monotony, I look forward to a chance to de-stress and decompress at the end of the day. A chance to just drown out any other problems or pending issues, and it just gives me some time to relax. And pant a little. But that’s okay too.

It got me to thinking as I walked this evening, how much such a routine could be beneficial for everyone. My wife has recently purchased a rabbit which lives in our guest room. Before bed, she goes to let it out of its hutch, run around a bit, eat some hay and oats, and just generally be cute. Don’t believe me?

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See? Told you so.

When she gave that as a reason for purchasing the rabbit, I scoffed a bit, but now I see the value in it. You’ve got to have something to release, to switch-off, at least for a while. It helps you re-focus, re-evaluate your position, and just generally be a little more content than with what you’ve got, and where you are.

It gives you a chance to think, too, if you like. To work out a problem in a non-threatening, non-pressing environment. During that time of meditation, whatever form it may take, lets you take a fresh look at whatever’s been bothering you lately, and often, you can find a solution, or at least figure out something to try. Somehow, not being under pressure allows you to think a little less “in-the-box”, allows you to be a little more creative.

Let’s talk. So how about you? What’s your outlet? Your time of meditation? What do you do so you don’t have any responsibility, and can just relax for a while? If you don’t have that time, I’d challenge you to try it for a week. Even just a few days, and report back with what you’ve found out about yourself. Let’s all just sit back, relax, and enjoy ourselves for a few minutes a day.

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