I’m still feeling depressed and anxious most of the time.  Fortunately I don’t feel a lot of anger and frustration.  Maybe I’m just too depressed to be angry anymore.  I did manage to leave my apartment and do some shopping the other day.  Other than that about the only time I leave my apartment is to buy food.  I hate that I hole up so much, especially with as beautiful as the fall leaves are.  But even almost one year after my accident I am still scared to drive.  I have been to my parents’ house only once this entire year.  I skipped out on Easter because I was scared of the possibility of family conflict concerning politics and current events.  I hope I’m being excessively paranoid but with schizophrenia the feelings of paranoia are so overpowering it just as well be real.  And unfortunately most of my family are politics and news junkies.  All of my psychiatric breakdowns this year were due to stress caused by politics and current events.  I imagine most of my non mentally ill readers think I’m being weak for having breakdowns over politics and current events.  But I don’t care anymore.  I’ve had people tell me that I’m not a ‘real man’ because I don’t have a wife or paid employment.  Well, your Jesus didn’t have a wife or paid employment during his ministry.  I guess he was a loser too, eh? I just don’t want to deal with the lack of empathy and lack of understanding anymore.  I prefer to stay home anymore because I see only lifeless and angry faces on the people I meet in public anymore.  And a while back I was trolled by some jerk I had no connection to just because I was advocating for more peace and understanding in the world.  I’m just tired of fighting a losing battle.  I’m just tired of people always being mean and angry to each other.  I’m tired of not seeing progress.

I still get discouraged and depressed a few times a day.  Sadly things like the election and seeing how angry and divided my friends are over it is probably the main contributor.  I imagine there are parents explaining to their kids that elections didn’t used to be this nasty or divisive.  But it is discouraging seeing my friends fight each other and fight me.  I mean, come on already.  Listening to my friends argue and fight over the election is really discouraging and stressful.  I think many of my ‘normal’ friends are more insane than I am, especially when it comes to voting.  I have a hard time believing that these are the same people who were saying “United We Stand” in the months after 9/11.  It’s been mind numbing and soul killing watching this election unfold over the last year and a half.  A politician spends many millions of dollars and a year and a half campaigning for a $400,000 a year job to set priorities, budgets, and agendas for the country, and the job lasts for only four years, eight tops.  And you normals think this is sane?

Regardless of who is elected, I don’t foresee the march of science and technology advancement slowing one bit.  Some people in my country were concerned when NASA ended the space shuttle program several years ago.  But private companies like SpaceX have proven more than able to pick up the slack.  When I was a teenager I was unhappy that my government cut funding for a particle collider that would have been larger than the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland.  But CERN has picked up the slack that was left when my leaders chose to be short sighted and not care about pure science.  In the early 200os, my country banned most stem cell research only to see countries like South Korea and China increase their research in this field.  And Japan has always been a leader in robotics research.  Germany has good robotics research too.  As was pointed out in one of the links of my last blog, even developing nations are building up their renewable energy infrastructures.  People in my country would be wise to pay more attention to the world outside of the U.S.  We are not the only country in the world with free markets or advanced science or manufacturing.  This isn’t the 1950s no matter how bad you want them to be.

Speaking of America not being the only ones with advanced tech,  Foxconn, one of the largest manufacturing corporations in China, has just  put in 40,000 robots in their Chinese factories.  Even Chinese labor is losing out to robots. And our candidates prattle on about how they are going to bring manufacturing jobs back to America?  Maybe for the engineers and programmers servicing the robots but not for the guy or gal who never went to college or trade school.  I would not want to be working in manufacturing, clerical, call center, or truck driving work within the next several years.  If any of my readers are in such work, you may want to have a back up plan in case your job gets automated.

Another thing that kind of irritates me about this election is the myopic hatred of immigrants.  As far as I’m concerned, we’re all immigrants if what the anthropologists and biologists say is accurate.  The ideas that we’re going to force out millions of undocumented immigrants, ban all Muslims, and cut ourselves off from the outside world are insane.  If it wasn’t for the H-1B visa allowing foreign scientists to work in America, my country would not be very competitive in science research.  And it is science research that creates new industries and technologies that make entrepreneurism possible.  Henry Ford did not invent the automobile but he did make it available to the masses.  And if it wasn’t for scientists and engineers researching the internal combustion engine, the automobile wouldn’t have been possible.  My countrymen should not be outraged by immigrants and we should not isolate ourselves from the rest of the world.  We definitely should stop making war on peoples and nations that don’t agree with us or have resources that we want.  We’re going to have to cut our losses eventually and admit that all these prolonged wars were mistakes and didn’t solve much.  And I don’t see any candidate saying they want to end the wars.  That’s another thing that irritates me about my politicians and my countrymen: they seem to think that violence will solve everything.  No it won’t.  As someone who spent much of his childhood being bullied by schoolmates, I can tell you that you don’t forget or easily forgive people that mess with you over and over again.  I was bullied and I still remember the people that did it even 20 to 30 years later.  There are always unforeseen consequences.  Killing people won’t make them like you.  It will make the survivors hate you.

I’ve probably said too much already and opened myself up to a great deal of harsh criticism.  But if I do get harsh criticism from people for this post it only proves my point that you normals are acting insane about your politics.  And it is irritating and nauseating. Knock it off.

I’m compiling a series of lists, and providing links, to show what we as humans have accomplished in this the year 2016.  If you are anything like me, you are probably tired of hearing only politics in your news feeds.  Who decided that politics were the only bits of news that were fit to print?  That must have been yet another memo I missed while growing up.  This is meant to only be for illustrating purposes and by no means meant to be a complete and definitive list.  As of this writing, we still have two and a half months left in this year.

A few items that caught my attention from an article on listverse.com, 1) SpaceX vertically landed several rockets, 2) brain implants have allowed a quadriplegic to move his fingers, 3) stem cell therapies have allowed stroke victims to walk again,  4)scientists have discovered how to turn captured carbon dioxide emissions into stone, and  5) extremely long term data storage methods have been discovered.

6) Heat resistant ceramics can now be 3 D printed, 7) an enzyme that prevents sugar being stored as fat was discovered by scientists at the University of Montreal, 8) light activated nanoparticles at are able to kill anti biotic resistant bacteria was demonstrated at the University of Colorado, 9) scientists have shown that graphene can be safely used on neurons, which could lead to better brain implants, 10), scientists have proven T-cells can be used to treat cancer.  This short list was provided courtesy of hrl.com, eurekalert.org, colorado.edu, phys.org, and sciencealert.com.

11)  Scientists in United Kingdom have been given approval by regulators to modify human embryos using techniques such as CRISPR-Cas9, 12) Scientists in Germany have made breakthroughs in fusion energy generation, 13) Stem cell therapy reverses age related osteoporosis in mice, 14) scientists in Germany have determined certain mutated genes can safeguard against heart attacks, 15) Renewable energy surges to record levels around the world.

I’m trying to cut this list short.  I plan on making several entries to this blog like this between now and the end of the year.  Unlike some of my previous blog entries, I am providing links to the articles announcing these breakthroughs. What I have wrote has been made possible by google searches and wikipedia links to original articles.

After several rough days I think I’m starting to feel better.  Went out and bought a lot of groceries this morning. I had been eating out twice a day for the last week because I wasn’t motivated enough to go out and go grocery shopping.  Doubtless I wasn’t eating healthy during those days. Bought mostly non perishables like soup, rice, and ramen noodles.  I’m starting to rebuild my winter emergency supplies.  We had our first freeze in my hometown a few days ago.  The leaves are turning, the corn harvest is going on, playoff baseball is starting, and college football is in the thick of it’s season.  October has traditionally been a happy time for me.

Still taking the daily multi vitamin.  I’ve gotten to where I don’t need 10 hours of sleep every night.  I’m now down to 8 hours a night.  I’m finding myself needing less sleep.  And I don’t drink as much caffeine as I usually do.  Maybe that’s why I’m getting more consistent sleep and less irritable.  I exercise a little every day and I still lift weights three times a week.

Overall I’m feeling better than I was a few days ago.  I’m feeling more energetic and more motivated.  I don’t feel as irritable and the hallucinations have subsided.  I’m also no longer feeling depressed like I was last week.  I still don’t socialize as much as I have in the past but I am getting out of my apartment more often.  I keep in contact with friends and family, mainly over the phone and Facebook.  I probably wouldn’t have much of a social life if it wasn’t for internet and cell phones

After weeks of few problems and no relapses, I’ve started having problems again within the last couple weeks.  Most of the time I just want to sleep or stay in my apartment.  I’ve been averaging 10 hours of sleep per night for at least a week.  The only time I leave my apartment is to get something to eat.  I’ve been dining out more as I’ve lost the motivation to cook or do grocery shopping.  About the only real housekeeping I do is taking out my trash.

Anymore I feel very short tempered and paranoid about most people.  My paranoia that most people are willingly stupid has come back.  And I definitely have little tolerance for stupidity and ignorance.  I’ve never saw the appeal of being dumb.  I guess it wasn’t until the last several years did I realize that growing up with both parents as medical professionals and having a house full of books wasn’t the same experience most people had growing up.  In the back of my mind I know I shouldn’t be so tough on ignorant people.  I have to keep reminding myself that one really smart and accomplished person can easily make up for the actions of hundreds of ignorant people. I have to remind myself of that on an almost hourly basis.  That’s probably why I watch so many science and tech documentaries.  Science and technology give me more hope for the future of the species than any other human endeavors.  It’s not even close as far as I’m concerned.  Yet it is very discouraging that so few people pay any attention to science and technology advances.  It’s even more discouraging when it’s my elected leaders and policy makers who are the ones who are ignorant about science.  I’ve been dealing with pridefully ignorant and mean people my entire life.  It was tough doing so as a child and it’s no easier as an adult.

I’m also getting paranoid that most people are mean and violent by nature.  Maybe it’s because of the violence I see in my newsfeed and the hateful comments I see my friends and friends of friends leaving on Facebook and twitter on a daily basis.  I also see it every time I leave my apartment in the blank, lifeless, and joyless expressions I see on most people’s faces.  Some of these people look like they’d hurt someone just for looking at them wrong.  It just saddens and angers me that most people I see are angry and unhappy all the time.  And this has been going on before the election even started.  I know the election has most people on edge and angry.  But after the election, then what?  People will be angry about the holidays.  Then they’ll be angry about the winter.  Then they’ll be angry about their jobs and spouses.  Then they’ll be angry about their chronic pains and aches.  It seems to me that most people want to be angry.  Most people it seems find identity in their misery.  I don’t understand it.  I’ve felt unhappy for a good chunk of my life and I want to be miserable as little as possible.

At this point I know I am backsliding into old problems with schizophrenia.  The old paranoias are coming back.  I’m becoming short tempered and irritable much of the time.  I’m avoiding other people as much as possible.  Most days anymore the only face to face conversations I have are when I’m checking out at a convenience store or fast food restaurant.  I don’t want to do anything besides sleep.  About the only positive of these last few weeks is that I’m eating less and I think I’ve lost a few pounds.  It’s just been a rough last few weeks.  And I’m ready for it to pass.