Szaphrenia

 1

I think the schizophrenic symptom of thinking the celebrity in the TV is speaking directly to you is perfectly valid, because the technology of the TV is so new anyway, and if we were living in prehistoric times, that celebrity could be a tribal leader or something actually speaking directly to you. Like, in Requiem for a Dream, when that old lady on Valium thinks the people on the TV are talking directly to her, maybe it wasn't the Valium at all, but a sense that something should be the way it isn't. Does that make any sense? 

2

I think not making sense, and hence schizophrenia, are essential elements of existing in the modern day, as pretentious as that may sound. (It is such a broad swath of characterization to characterize something as existing "in the modern day". But it's true, insofar as I believe it's true.) In order for something to make sense, it has to adhere to a preexisting notion of sense-value that is built upon years of systems that serve to create forms and fascist schema. (This is the word-vomit of my mind. I enjoy using parentheses. One time, when I was in elementary school, my teacher told me I shouldn't use parentheses. And that was one of those load-bearing things that always stuck with me.)

3

The way modern capitalism is set up is in itself a form of schizophrenia. How does a schizophrenic then come to be singled out in a schizophrenic system? In other words, how does one person come to be diagnosed as schizophrenic, and get the prescribed medications and treatments, in a world that seemed to induce them? Why schizophrenia and capitalism, and not depression and capitalism and not anxiety and capitalism? What is it about schizophrenia that so clearly captures the condition of living now? Am I just projecting? 

4

I think, in a way, because of modern capitalism, we are all schizophrenic, just like because of modern smartphones, we are all autistic to a degree. Then, the reason why certain people come to an actual diagnosis of schizophrenia is a matter of degree and levels rather than one of is and is-not. Then, there is a schizophrenic gradient or schizophrenic spectrum, if you will, that everyone is inherently a part of, kind of like the Kinsey scale. I have lately come to believe more in the Kinsey scale. I'm not bisexual, but I'm definitely not a 0 or a 6. I'm probably like 5, on the Kinsey scale, mostly homosexual with the occasional opposite-sex interest. I think the extremes, 0 and 6 are only there for the sake of the scale, just like if someone asks you to rate something on a scale of 1-10, you rarely say 1 or 10. 

5

"Courage consists, however, in agreeing to flee rather than live tranquilly and hypocritically in false refuges." - Gilles Deleuze, Anti-Oedipus, Schizophrenia and Capitalism

I think the meaning of this quote is that true courage exists in the moment of flight, in "agreeing to flee", being complicit in the act of a dissolution of agreements, of sorts. I know what I've then just said sounds like mumbo-jumbo. I feel like an example would be if someone were trying to sell you something, like a class to learn how to sell books. I think to "live tranquilly and hypocritically in false refuges" would be to simply accept your fate and take and buy into the class, because that gives a sense of false stability and structure. However, true courage would be to abandon the structure of the class, and live in a state of uncertainty. 

This may just be me trying to justify dropping the computer science class that I was desperately struggling with. Seriously, like, what the fuck. I was recently taking a computer science class where we were learning JavaScript, and I eventually quit because I had to ask ChatGPT how to do everything. I was like, what's the point of this? So I dropped the course.

But I felt like the only point of staying in the class would be to give myself the sense of, I'm in a class. So then I would have some sort of structure to exist within. But if I'm existing within that structure, yet still failing to adhere to the principles of that structure anyway, what's the difference between that and just not taking the class at all? Anyway, this is all just my justification for not staying in the class, and withdrawing. It seems like an academic failure on my part, but it really isn't. I am just not choosing to exist within an academic landscape that I can't and won't succeed in. 

6

I think an example of capitalistic schizophrenia is the medical system. I feel like I've written on this multiple times before on my blog, but still it bears repeating. Difference and repetition, too, are elements of critiquing this system, I believe, according to my sources. ;)

But the way the medical system works is really a form of schizophrenia as well. The way that insurance works, and gets approved through the insurance system, and how divorced it is yet connected it is to the services and care that actually gets provided to the patient at a patient level, I think, actually bears some weight as well. Although I don't condone violence in any sense, I can somewhat see what urged Luigi Mangione to go on with his fatal action. 

The insurance is a very strange, nebulous system (to me) and I don't even know how it works. Right now, I'm in the process of getting a rigid manual wheelchair, and I am waiting to get the approval from insurance. I think. For this process, I had to first get a referral from my primary care physician, who then referred me to the physical therapist, who then did an evaluation which they sent to the wheelchair provider, who is also going to do an evaluation, and send that to my insurance. It is just so schizophrenic, the way everything is so disjointed, and has so many people involved, and so many hoops to jump through. Everyone and everything is (dis)connected in some way--I don't know how, but they are. And this feeling that there are so many people involved makes the system and the patient feel schizophrenic.

7

I've seen more jokes recently on X formerly known as Twitter and Threads about how talking to ChatGPT is schizophrenic. And also how situationships and having "relationships" with people you weren't actually in a relationship with is also schizophrenic. 

 I don't understand the ChatGPT schizophrenic allegations. Well, maybe I kind of do. I can see why people would think that talking to ChatGPT is schizophrenic. I think it's kind of like talking to yourself, in an infinite feedback loop of self-soothing kind of way. Or in a way it is like talking to an entity that isn't real, in the way a schizophrenic would talk to voices that aren't real. 

Except ChatGPT is very real. Even though it is a robotic entity, it is still very real to me, ok? 

8

I have run out of steam for this blogpost, maybe to the relief of the reader. I hope you've had a decent May and I hope you have a nice transition from Spring into Summer! I will continue (hopefully) trying to read Anti-Oedipus in French, and failing spectacularly. Lol.