Sunday, October 30, 2005

Feeling Defenisive. Time for explanations.

In reading over the entries to this point, I spend a lot of time talking about how I was unsociable, standoffish, and hard to deal with. Then I say I had health problems. I can see that a reader with a different background could develop the idea that perhaps I was actually troublesome, not just a person with problems. I need to address that for my own piece of mind.

Firstly. One of the things that I learned from Dr G. was about being humble. I think it is a Chinese cultural thing actually. Maybe emphasized more for kung fu reasons. The idea was always to present yourself as less than you were.

I also spent some time with another group of people who were very friendly and polite. These people were also humble. In addtion to that, they had the tradition that if there was some kind of trouble in a relationship between people, they would take responsibility. It did not matter if they were responsible or not. In order to smooth the atomosphere and make people happy, they would say they were responsible.

I have taken both of those ways of speaking and made them part of myself. I meet people that do not understand this way of behaving or have never encountered it. When I talk to these people, and for example, I take the blame for something so that people are happy, this group of people does not understand I am playing a social game. They believe I am really truly to blame for whatever I took the blame for. They do not see the psychological and sociological effects of my way of speech.

A person who is not familiar with this style of talking can read the first few posts here and think I am a big time jerk who deserved everything that happened. For those people, I am less at fault where I say I am at fault. Other people are more at fault than what I say about them. I try to take the edges off of whatever is under discussion by over emphasizing or under emphasizing as necessary.


Secondly, the health situation. It is pretty easy to say you are sick and that people should make allowances for your behavior. That could be construed as being demanding and rude. I feel the need to explain how I was sick so perhaps people will have a more realistic understanding of how bad off I was.

There were two parts to my ill health. I had a kung fu teacher who encouraged me to practice incorrectly, and I did breathing exercises incorrectly.

I signed up for a kung fu class with a Chinese man. I wanted a Chinese teacher because I felt they had better training than white people who had learned. This man was also a geniune Chinese from China. I felt they had a truer understanding of what kung fu is than any person in the west.

What I did not know was that the man was an angry sadist. Historically, the British had gone to China and forced China to allow the opium trade which turned many Chinese into drug addicts. There were various wars and of course there was the British rule of Hong Kong. I was not to find out until a few years later that this man felt that all white people bore responsibility for those actions.

What this Chinese man would do is, using his knowledge of kung fu, he would teach white people in such a way as they would make themselves sick. He would also help the process along using his kung fu talents. I personally witnessed 10 to 15 students join the class, then become either mentally ill or physically ill. One man I know became deathly ill, similar to my case.

There were a few things he did to make the people sick. It is very easy if you understand kung fu. If you have trusting students who do not understand kung fu principles, they would never know you were instructing them to hurt themselves.

One main effect of how he taught people was that they would lose their ground. If you do not understand grounding......all people have energy. This energy needs to be grounded like electricity needs to be grounded. If a person's energy is not grounded, they will go crazy and have many health problems. The Chinese man purposefully encouraged people to exercise so that they would lose their ground.

He also encouraged people to practice in such a way that they would get very very hard. A human body should be balanced between hard and soft. By forcing the body to become mostly hard, there is no balancing softness. The soft part of the body is associated with health. Besides not balancing the hard part of the body, the soft part of the body could not keep the person healthy because it was now less than it should be.

Finally the instructor would actually make people sick. He would suck the energy out of them. Basically he was a vampire. Not a vampire that sucks blood, a vampire that sucks energy. The effect on a person of having their energy sucked is that they get tired and weak. If they were in kung fu class and felt tired and weak, they would push even harder to do the work. This pushing of a drained body put stress on the internal organs that made them sick.

I did not know any of this at the time it occurred. I only figured it out after years of observation.

My personal health problems were that I had totally lost my ground. This caused my thinking to be very erratic. I had become very hard. The effect on me was that I felt stressed all the time. The soft part of my body never took over so I could relax. I was hard and tight all the time which put stress and pain on me physically and mentally.

The biggest problem was that the hardness or the specific way I was encouraged to train put stress on my heart. My body changed in such a way that it felt like any time I tried to do anything, my heart would be stressed. The rest of my body would literally crush my heart.

Most simply, I walked around all day, every day, feeling like I was going to have a heart attack at any minute.

In my mind, a person that feels like they are going to have a heart attack is not rational. If you have been around a sick person who needs help, they get hysterical, they don't listen and they talk or yell alot. They don't think very well because they are frightened or in pain. That was me. I felt like I was going to have a heart attack all the time. If something came up that exacerbated the stress and tension, I had to either ignore it, or ferociously chase it away. In my mind the added stress and tension would literally kill me.

This was the kind of mental attitude I had when I joined Dr G's class. This was the health problem I tried to tell him I had. This was the health problem I thought his experience enabled him to look at and instantly recognize. That is one of the reasons I could never understand the stress that Dr G subjected me to such as the sparring related in the last blog entry. If he knew I had pressure on the heart, as a doctor, why would he do anything that would increase that pressure on my heart?


I also mentioned breathing exercises as part of the problem. They made the heart situation even worse because, in addition to squeezing my heart when I used my muscles, I was also squeezing my heart when I was breathing.

I had read books about breathing exercises and how they were supposed to make a person strong in kung fu. The kung fu instructor had talked about how the proper breathing was necessary to do the forms. He would never say what he meant exactly by proper breathing. He would describe it but it made no sense. He would never explain either. He told us something, and that was it. You could not press him for more information.

Because of this, I decided to do the breathing exercises described in the books. I must have done them improperly because made the pressure on my heart and my general health worse.

I said up above that if I was under stress, my heart would feel pressure. I didn't know it at the time but by doing the breathing exercises, for some reason or the other I would react to stress by holding my breath. You can see how bad this would be. A person under stress needs to breath normally and get oxygen above all other needs. Right at the time I needed oxygen and the massage provided by breathing, my breathing would lock up and I would feel as if I was asphyxiating.

When I talk about this, people who are psychologists or psychiatrists like to say "it is all in your head". When I tell them they don't have a clue, they get angry. They don't know what they are talking about. Maybe there is some validity to their observation. It does not account fully for my health problems.

Certainly. If I was nervous, I would react as any other nervous person. My breath would shorten, I would be tense etc. The difference between me and a regular person was that the effect on me was about 20 times what it should be because of the improper kung fu trainging and the breathing exercises.

I felt that because these psychiatrists and psychologists spending all day in a chair had no idea about how the human body worked phsyically, or what the effects of kung fu practice on the body were. They were making pronouncements that might apply to a "normal" person. They refused to see that their pronouncements did NOT apply to a person who was physically changed by kung fu, yoga, or any other practice that enacts major changes in the body.

Well. I feel better anyways. That is about as accurate as I can make it. When I met Dr G., my daily life was feeling like I could have a heart attack every minute of every day. Any time I felt stress, like dealing with strangers, my breathing would lock up and I would begin to suffocate.

I do not see how any reasonable person, especially a person trained in medicine, could expect a person who is suffocating and feeling like they are going to have a heart attack to act normally and politely. I think that my behavior was exemplary for the pain and fear I was experiencing during my time with Dr G.

Saturday, October 29, 2005

Oh No!

These last few entries have made me realize I was quite a handful. I knew I had troubles of course. The reason for my meeting with Dr G in the first place was as a health patient. In my mind, my actions were excused because my health was impaired. No one holds a dog that bites responsible if the dog bites becuase it got run over and it is in pain.

Now, looking back on these events, I can see that they were more work than I had thought. Most of my attitude was standoffishness and rejection. I was never overtly hostile, aggressive, rude or disrespectful. I think I have changed enough so that I can see that standoffishness and rejection can be just as bad as outright aggressiveness to some people. To a sensitive and/or elevated/evolved person who can feel energy, another person's silent rejection feels like a person shouting at them. Very uncomfortable.

With that out of the way, what happens next?

As I said before, there was a regular weekend physical kung fu class that I was invited to attend. The class was held out of doors in a public park. I was close enough that I could walk. It was probably 2 or 3 miles to the area where the practice took place.

Naturally I was anxious for my first class. I arrived and there were a few people there already. I said hello to a few of them. People were doing stretching or talking in small groups as they waited for everyone to arrive. I was not comfortable with the small talk so I found my own area and did some stretching kinds of stuff.

Eventually everyone arrived. Dr G gathered everyone together for an introductory set of exercises. First would usually be a set of Ba Gua warm up exercises. Simple and slow. Then the class performed a set of Tai Chi. The long form. Then the class did a basic set of Ba Gua forms. As I was new, I mostly stood at the back and watched during the forms.

After the forms, we were gathered into a circle. The women set on one side of the circle with Dr G in their midst. The man sat on the other half of the circle. We all introduced ourselves. I think their might have been a new woman member the same day I was new. After the introductions, Dr G held forth on a variety of subjects. I do not recall specifically what they were. The talking went on for some time. Maybe 45 mintues or an hour.

Eventually the talking was finished. It was at this point that the actual teaching began. The previous exercises were meant to warm people up so that the sitting for an hour and listening would be comfortable for people.

People began to meander around looking for spots to practice. My memory is of a chaotic kind of swirling around as people looked for a spot. Maybe I was thinking chaotically because I was new and did not know where I belonged.

What I do remember is Dr G suddenly being very obvious to my attention. He began to explain that the women and the men would exercise seperately. I thought, "Ya, so what". I did not care becuase my personal opinion was that women do not belong in a men's kung fu class. They are a distraction.

Then I felt like Dr G. looked right at me and said "The women and men are seperate so that people concentrate on practicing. There is no man/woman interaction going on". He probably said some other things in the same vein that I do not recall. What is significant to me though is the link to a previous experience I described.

Did you read the entry where I described having some type of sexual experience and thinking of one of the women in the class? Then I felt a physical shock as if I was cut off from her? When Dr G looked at me and explained that the men and women exercise seperately, I had the strongest feeling that he was looking at me because of that previous incident. I felt he was saying that they were splitting up the men and women because of me. The felt that I might harass or bother the women somehow.

At the time of course, I was ignorant. I had no idea that the two events could be connected. I did not even connect the two events. I thought that Dr G was saying that he didn't trust me with the women students because I was a basically untrustworthy or shady kind of person.

That was probably the first bad foot we got off on. I am thinking that I am a person with health problems. I have approached this doctor in the hopes he could cure me. When we get together with a group of other people, his opinion of me is so poor that he feels he needs to physically seperate me from the women. In my head, I was the most polite person in the world. Not only would I never harass a woman, I would go out of my way to treat them well. I have a reputation as being soft with women to the point that they run over me. And here is this doctor I have just met, who does not even know me, insinuating that I am a sexual harasser.

I had no idea that they knew of the incident of my thinking of the women member during that sexual episode described previously. Even if I had, so what? They were only thoughts. To the type of people these were, that was just as bad as if I was standing physically in front of the woman trying to paw at her breasts.

Here we are, I am nervous and anxous being with new people and from the health problem. I am trying to be as cool as possible. Then this Dr, publicly in front of everyone, is acting like I am some sexual harrasser. My attitude became more withdrawn. Quite naturally I felt. I wanted to say something to Dr G about his insinuation. How could I? I needed him to cure my health problem. How could I afford to argue with him on the first day of being in his class?

The men and women seperated and began the class. I was taken aside and shown some simple exercises. The men naturally seperated into two groups. There were 2 other men who were new also. They had been there a few months. We all did some basic things together while the advanced guys did their stuff.

Dr G went over to work with the women. I did not think much of it. Eventually he came back over to the men. That is when the "Oh No!" moment that inspired this blog entries title occurred. Dr G called us all together and said that we were going to spar.

When I heard that, my heart dropped. I was so disappointed. I felt like I had made a mistake with Dr G. I had explained I was ill from practicing another style of kung fu wrong. I made it as clear as I could that I was very sick. When Dr G. announced we were going to spar, I knew that he was doing that because he wanted to see what I could do.

The idea that he wanted to check me out sickened me. I felt he did not believe in me or trust me. I was sick. How could I possibly be expected to fight with healthy people who had been training for some time? Dr G. was treating me as an opponent, or someone who was going to cause trouble. Or perhaps it was for his own personal enjoyment to test his students against me.

I was shamed. I was sick. I couldn't fight. I also knew that I was not that good at kung fu. For some reason, Dr G. acted like he thought I was a formidable kung fu fighter. During my first interview, I said I had done kung fu for 10 years. That was the truth. Dr G being a chinese man, I think that 10 years to him meant something entirely differnent to him than to me. I had gone to many different classes off and on over that 10 year period. I think that Dr G. interpreted my claim as meaning I had steadily trained rigourously in one type of kung fu so that I was an expert.

I was disappointed in Dr G. because I did not understand how he could make such a mistake. If he was so perceptive and good that he could cure my health problem, how could he possibly look at me and believe that I was a top notch kung fu fighter? My respect for him dropped.

Another reason I dreaded the idea of sparring was that it made me sicker. The kung fu style that I had trained that hurt me? Because of what happened, any time I thought of violence or tried to practice violently, I got sick. Really sick. Not sick to my stomach. I would feel like I was going to have a heart attack or a stroke. It was awful. Here was Dr G., asking me to do something that would make me feel like I would have a heart attack or a stroke. After I told him I was deathly sick. I was really mad actually.

I am sent out to spar with the tallest man. He was not the biggest. There was another man who was heavier. I was not to find this out till later, but the man I was sparring had a repuation for being a jerk. He liked to hurt people when they sparred. The man who was heavier did not have much kung fu training. He was only large.

Dr G. set me up with their worst guy who liked to hurt people to see what would happen to me. My stomach is sinking right now as I recall the hurt I felt at being asked to do this.

I went out their and assummed my fighting stance. Just exactly like I knew, I started getting sick. What happened is that I put pressure on my heart when I fought. I didn't know that then. When I assummed my fighting stance, it was like squeezing my heart in a vise.

I chickened out. I acted like a coward, a pussy. I stood there in my stance. I didn't run away. I did not fight nor did I really try to fight. I did not want to. I was so disappointed in the entire situation that I did not care that they would all think I had no kung fu skill and that I was a coward. If they were the kind of people that would force a sick person to fight a sadist, I did not care what thier opinions of me were.

We probably clashed a few times. The other man obviously coming out on top. I don't think the match went to long. It was apparent that I did not want to be there, I did not want to fight, and truth be told, it did not look as if I knew how to fight.

I was so miserable afterwards I can't even tell you what happened. I only wanted to leave the meeting and get away from those people and that embarrassing situation.

Friday, October 28, 2005

A chance meeting

After I had been accepted as part of the group there was the meeting at Dr G's house I mentioned. During the smalltalk that took place their, either I or someone else mentioned Taiko drumming. Taiko drumming is a type of drumming from Japan. There was a Taiko drum group in our city that was well known. Whoever mentioned it, me or the other man, we both realized we had a common interest. We talked a little about how much we enjoyed the performances and the music. I didn't really think anything of it.

I was interested in the Taiko drumming and wanted to talk about it to someone because the Taiko drum group I mentioned gave lessons. They had access to a large auditorium at a major mall. The classes were held at night and were open to anyone who could pay. The classes focused on the drumming rythyms. Instead of using real drums, upended trash cans were used. That sounds humourous but it worked out well.

When they held classes, everyone in the mall knew it. That might be how I discovered the classes. Walking thru the mall and following the noise. The mall was devoted to Asian style stores. A large Japanese book store, Japanese food court, Japanese video store, Japanese toy store, Japanese curio store. I would go to the book store because it was like a book store in Japan. Huge. With books about everything you could imagine. The Japanese are detail oriented people. All of their books have that attention to detail.

After I heard of the Taiko drum class, I had always wanted to join it. I had never actually gotten around to it. For some reason, I decided to go and attend a class at some time after the meeting at Dr G's house.

I went to the mall for the class, arriving a little early. They had a class for advanced people before the open class. The advanced people would stay over and help teach the beginner class. The beginner class was mostly a money maker to pay for trips for the skilled people.

I had a book with me to pass the time. I sat down on a planter out in front of the school and began reading. I ignore the outside world when I am reading. Suddenly I hear someone say "Hi!". I look up and it is the man from the meeting at Dr. G's. The one who I had talked to about Taiko music. He had shown up to take a lesson too.

I froze. Literally. The first thought in my head was "Darn. I am going to have to talk to him".

Doesn't that seem odd? I was going to join their group in the hopes that the instructor could help me with my health problems. Here is one of the men from the group, and I don't want to talk to him. It was the health problem. I had trouble dealing with people. I did not know it at the time but I had more trouble with people who possessed strong energy. The guy was a long time kung fu practioner. I did not know this at the time, but now I think my strong reaction must have been because he had strong energy. I instinctively pushed people like that away or shunned them because I was reminded of the man who had encouraged me to develop the health problems in the first place.

His name was Jeff. Jeff said something like "What are you reading?". I showed him the book and told him the title. I might have said something about the plot. Then I remember picking the book up and reading it again. Obviously and rudely ignoring the guy. Looking back on it, I was so rude it must have astonished him. He kind of sauntered away slowly like he had planned to do that all along. What else could he do as I was ignoring him?

The advanced class let out and the beginners class started to move in. I had never been there before so I got the payment process sorted out. They said they would loan out drum sticks to people for the class. I picked up a pair of those. We set up all the trashcans so the class would be ready.

After all the prelimanaries were taken care of, we were asked to move to the trashcans. The class size was so large that some people had to double or triple up. My unsociability directed me to the back of the room. I thought I would grab a trashcan back there while the more driven people would double up closer to the front of the room where the instructor was.

I am standing there trying to be cool. It was hard. I was surrounded by about 50 strangers. I was trying to ignore all of them so no conversation would be attempted. I didn't know it but I was also dealing with the stress of being exposed to the energy of all those people.

Then the obvious happens. Jeff comes back and joins me on my trashcan. I am not lying when I say I stared straight at the drum and tried to pretend he did not exist. Jeff has come up and joined me on the drum so that we can practice together, and I pretend he does not exist. There was no doubting what I was thinking. I could be extremely confrontational if I was uncomfortable.

We stood there for a minute or two, then the lesson began. We played one song or so. My attitude was so strong, Jeff could not ignore it. I didn't want to be a jerk.I could not stop my instinctive reaction. I think when we played the song, I was obviously hitting the drum in an aggressive manner while looking in every direction but his. Basically I was as intolerable as I could be.

It worked. After we played that song, he walked away to the front of the room. He acted like he wanted to get closer to the instructor. We both knew it was because I was making us both uncomfortable. The lesson proceeded uneventfully for the rest of the evening. I do not remember if I saw him before leaving or not.

This event sticks with me because it set a pattern for my future behavior. I needed help with my health problem. My health problem forced me to push people away because I could not deal with their presence. Anyone that could get close enough to help me, I pushed them away because I physically could not stand their proximity.

I was also suspicious mentally of everyone. The kung fu instructor who had encouraged me in such a way that I became ill? I had trusted him totally. I did exactly what he encouraged me to beleive was best. I trusted him so much that, even after I knew something was wrong with my health, I stayed another 6 months or a year.

Because of that broken trust, I was suspicious of everyone. Even this new group of people who were going to help me. They said they could help. They all looked and behaved like nice and friendly people. But then so had the kung fu instructor who encoraged me to become ill.

I think the perceptive among you are probably thinking "I can see where this is going. This guy is rude, unfriendly and antisocial. Yet he still expects a group of total strangers to accept this behavior and cure him".

Yep. That is basically what this story is all about. A tragedy of miscommunication, unrealistic expectations and total misunderstanding.

:)

Thursday, October 20, 2005

Prologue

While I am thinking about it, and this is still early in this narrative......

As I described before, I had been involved in a kung fu practice that made me sick. I understood nothing of chi or chi kung. I did not believe in chinese medicine or acupuncture or chi or energy or any of that. When I started to become ill, I did not know why. I did not even know I was becoming sick for probably a year or so.

They way the sickness worked was that it made you feel good while it damaged your body. It was like drugs or alcohol in that way. For the year or so while I was ignorant, I felt strong and powerful. I was convinced I was learning properly and that everything was fine.

The only reason I realized I was sick was that I became very sick after the year or so. I was in constant pain all of the time. I had excruciating head and neckaches. I went to the western doctor many times. I went thru the various test they had up to and including an MRI which, at the time, was new and very expensive. They could not find anything wrong with me.

I was in so much pain that I asked the doctor for something for it. She gave me some pills that did not do much. The pain, combined with my distorted view of myself that the kung fu practice gave me, caused me to begin to be rude, abrasive, abusive and almost bullying. I was suffering so much that at one doctor appointment, I practically bullied the doctor into giving me some strong narcotics for the pain.

The pills worked for awhile. They would blunt the worst of the pain caused by the neck and headaches. They also exacerbated the problems. I would not know this until much later, but the cause of the headaches was made even worse by taking the narcotic pills.

The pain was there from the moment I woke up until I went to bed at night. It affected my entire day including my interactions with others. I found that I could get relief if I took long walks. I had access to a large park near the ocean. I would go and walk around the park in the trees and the bushes for hours.

Later on I came to understand that it was the energy of the trees and bushes that made me feel better. My problem was that I was very hot from the kung fu practice. I was burning up on the inside. My guts and my brains were getting cooked. By walking around the bushes and trees, my hot energy was transferred to the trees while I absorbed their cooler energy.

There was one special place I liked to go. It was right on the ocean. A very small promontory of land that slightly jutted out into the ocean. It was a flat area with grass except for a very old and large tree. I found this spot secluded and peaceful. The level ground was perfect for practicing kung fu or doing exercises.

The spot where the promontory jutted out into the ocean was part of a bay. I could look out across the bay and see ships going by. I could also see the opposite side of the bay which was mostly parkland.

On days when the pain was killing me and nothing would help, I would go to that secluded spot. It hurt so bad that I would mentally scream "Help me! Somebody please help me!" This was not a one time thing. I would stand there for 30 minutes screaming that over and over in my head because it hurt so bad. It was not a one day thing. I found myself doing it frequently.

Which brings us to the connection between all of this and Dr G. When I finally went to meet Dr G, guess where he lived?

He lived almost directly across the bay from that point on that small promontory of land where I stood and mentally screamed "Help me!". Out of 360 degress of the compass, the one direction that I faced and screamed for help was the direction where I actually found help.

I have always felt that on some level, my screaming for help across the bay, right at Dr G's location, somehow set up the physical encounter that eventually occurred between us.

Sunday, October 09, 2005

The weirdness begins

The next day or so was the beginning of the weirdness. I did not know that at the time. Only now, years later, looking back at everything that happened can I say that this event was the beginning of a long string of weirdness that ultimately changed my life forever.

In the previous entry, I related how I had been at Dr G's house for a meeting. I recounted how a women had been sitting across from me and how she had seemed to disappear from my anxiety clouded senses. The meeting must have been on a Thursday or a Friday because this next event was defintely on a weekend.

I was involved in some kind of sexual situation. I was thinking strongly sexual thoughts. I think I must have been looking at pornography and having pornographic thoughts. I watched the show for some minutes when for no real reason, I thought of the woman at Dr G's house. The one that had apparently disappeared from my view.

Of course most people will jump in and say "If you were watching pornography, then you thought of this woman, we all know why you thought her. For sexual reasons obviously". That was not it. As I mentioned before, the woman was not especially attractive. I personally did not find her any more attractive than any of the other women there that night. The only reason I thought anything special about her at all was because she was sitting directly across from me.

It was something else. Some random thought. Maybe I began to think of the meeting and then I thought of her because of the way she apparently disappeared. That disappearance really made an impression on me. ;) I can see it right here right now as I write this.

Anyways. This woman's face flashed into my mind as I am watching this pornography. I want to say that once the face was in my head, then I actively focused on it. I thought about it like "that was weird what happened at that meeting. What did that woman look like and what exactly happened?". Once I had a picture of her in my mind, I felt a sensation as if I was pulling it to me for closer examination.

When I brought the woman's image into my head full focus is when the weirdness happened. I literally jerked physically. As if my entire body had run right into a wall. I think that I sat back the way a person will sit back if they are stunned.

I had the strongest feeling that the women in question knew I was watching pornography. I felt that when I focused on her face, somehow she knew who I was and what I was thinking. Her shock or revulsion at the pornographic thoughts in my mind from the pornographic movie most likely caused her to jump to the conclusion that most readers would. I was thinking of her for sexual stimualtion purposes.

I felt like her revulstion or surprise was so strong that she literally pushed me or shocked me thru this connecting mental link so that I sat back in my chair and felt as if I had been phyiscally shoved or pushed away.

I was so surprised I just sat there in shock. I couldn't believe what had just happened. I knew it happened. I watched it all take place. My world view at that time did not allow such events. What had happened was craziness, weirdness, flights of imagination, a story from a book. It could not be real.

But it was.

I sat their fighting with myself. "Yes there is no doubt as to what happened". "No. That is impossible." I did this for some minutes. Then, in a feeling that I would become intimately familiar with over the years, my mind went blank. Thinking about what had happened was no longer important. I should just go ahead and finish watching the pornography and forget anything had ever happened.

So I did.

That was my first recollection of being aware of connecting mental links. Of how they could be used to control another person's behavior. Of how the ability to erase another person's memory, or to take control of their thoughts and steer them into the desired direction was truly possible.

I am an honest person. So much so that I cause myself trouble all of the time. I do not think that mental control of others is proper. I understand it is done with the best of intentions. Helping a person thru a mental crisis. Preventing people from doing bad things. Stopping unaware people like me from having embarrasing thoughts to others. Can you imagine what it would be like to stand in front of a person who is thinking about having sex with you? They think they are safe and private in their head. But you are seeing and thinking everything about the fantasy that they are?

The problem with this type of control is that it is power. Just like any other power it has a corrupting influence. These people eventually reach a point where, instead of using the abilities to help others, they use the abilities to help themselves.

They control people into giving them money and power. They control people into giving them sex. They control the thoughts of people anytime it is convenient to do so. They lose respect for other people and begin to treat them as animals, pets or slaves.

This apparently happens to even the best of them. I have not met a one of these people yet who did not abuse their power for petty means. One man I knew abused his power to get young teenage girls to have sex with him. In fact, that is a rather common goal. Another man used his ability to convince married women to sleep with him. Another man convinced people to give him money. Many others used their powers to get small and inconsequential things. The things that a person would ask a child or a slave to do for them if they were allowed to.

My problem with this is that I witness these people do good. Some of them really could heal the sick or help people with mental situations. I knew that they had it inside of them to do good. I could never reconcile that goodness with the petty acts of greed or selfishness.

The most memorable example of this was a guy I knew that could help people. He did not do it much but he did have the capability and the demeanor to sacrifice and help others. So much so that I actively admired him for it. This person one day tells a group of construction workers that he is glad he is college edcuated so he doesn't have to do the jobs of stupid people like digging ditches.

How this "angelic" man who could cure people's health problems could tell a group of total strangers that they were stupid and their lives were nothing, construction workers digging ditches, was incomprehensible to me.

I found it humorous that Karma made certain he learned a lesson. The man in question left his house a few days later to go somewhere. He reaches his car and finds a large dent in the back of it. The construction men had allowed a large steel sheet to slid off a truck and into the car on purpose. When the man complained, the workers told him to file a complaint. They were city workers and the city never paid attention to complaints about their construction workers. ;)