Aquarius Friends and Family

Aquarius Friends and Family

• Strengths: Idealistic, universal, spontaneous
• Weaknesses: Bizarre, unreliable, uncertain
• Interactive style: Abstract, objective, cool

Friendship is extremely important to most Aquarians. For them, it often assumes an idealistic, global, and universal significance more than a personal one. Consequently, most of their friendships are tinged with a highly abstract and objective quality – cool rather than passionate. Rarely interested in committing themselves to daily or even weekly contact, Aquarians will contact you while they are on the run or when one their latest active exploits has simmered down or momentarily come to rest. Thus you should not count on them as a pillar of stability but rather as an interesting sidelight in your life – one that can be both entertaining and a bit special.

It's bet to have just one or tow questions for your speedy Aquarius friend – especially ones that can be posed and answered in a rapid-fire-interchange. As far as help with moving, planning, arranging functions, making lists for work and future plans, and shopping for hard-to-find items, you had better not count on it. To Aquarius friends, help is something they can offer only in their spare time, which is already probably extremely limited or nonexistent. Then there is the problem of contacting them, which is also difficult. It's best to leave a voicemail or give a heads-up email several days or even a couple of weeks before you need assistance.

Communication and keeping in touch with the Aquarius friend: Although they are generally good communicators, Aquarians are probably the ones who will contact you rather than the other way around. Not only are they difficult to reach, but they also prefer being the ones who initiate conatct, depending on when, where and how it suits them. Too often this will come smack in the middle of something you are presently busy with, and once you find it impossible to respond to their spontaneous gestures, they may prove even more difficult to contact in the future. Aquarians have to feel that you truly need them urgently, first of all, and, secondly, your attempt to communicate has to strike them in exactly the right way and at the right moment.

Borrowing money from the Aquarius friend: Don't depend on Aquarius friends for loans, even thous that have been agreed to or promised. Chances are that just before they are about to deliver, with all the best intentions, they spent the money elsewhere. So spontaneous are they with outlays of cash that they absolutely cannot be counted on to fulfill fixed financial obligations. If you can interest them in what you will do with the money, however, they may look on the loan as an interesting investment and come through with even more than you asked for. This awakening of their interest is worth developing over time, since it is likely to pay off in a generous outlay of cash.

Asking for advice: Aquarians are not ones to give lengthy advice. Normally they can tell you what they think in a few words and do not need time to mull things over. Usually they are perceptive when it comes to objective issues, but they are not particularly talented in the areas of psychological observation, human emotions, and the darker side of life. Sometimes they outright refuse to get involved in discussions of depressing or unhealthy matters, not only out of dislike but also out of principle. It's best to limit your requests for advice to areas that they have shown adeptness for dealing with, particularly in technical matters.

Visiting the Aquarius friend: It is difficult to visit and Aquarius friend since they are often not at home. Furthermore, if they are there but are fully engaged in a professional or private matter, they may not answer the bell or a knock at their door. Aquarians' full engagement with the matter at hand, which of course can change from minute to minute, frequently precludes even visits that have been scheduled well in advance, so be forewarned not to make assumptions or get your expectations up. You may find it better to suggest that they visit you, giving them a wide range of choices and allowing each of these to span a period of several hours or even days when they might drop in.

Celebrations and entertainment with the Aquarius friend: Fun-loving Aquarians enjoy celebrating special occasions and going out on the town for a good time. However, because of their rapidly changing schedules, it usually works best to make the decision to celebrate or go out on the spur of the moment. Following such impulses, you are both likely to have a great time in a wide range of activities, from a simple meal or drink to a full-blown binge of entertainment possibilities. You will find Aquarians inexhaustible in their ability to have a great time, only posing a problem when you try to put on the brakes and bring things to a halt.

Aquarians' fascinating qualities and quick minds attract people who seem willing to overlook or forgive their wayward tendencies. Illustration by Elena.

Aquarius: Love

Aquarius: Love

Strengths: Spontaneous, natural, enjoyable.

Weakness: Flighty, superficial, unreliable

Interactive style: Lively, animated, particular.

The Aquarius First date, suggested activities

Aquarius first dates are, for the most part, lively and fun-loving. Not interested in hassles or complications, these colorful personalities just want to have a good time. An opportunity to get to know you better and possible deep involvements lie somewhere way down the tracks.

To stay on the rails with Aquarius first dates, you should offer a few choices of restaurants, bars, clubs, or concerts for them to pick from  Don »t be surprised if they have already decided what they want to do, probably five or ten minutes befor you see them. This is not a good idea to make fixed plans before hearing what they have to say at the present moment.

Aquarius first dates move very quickly, both mentally and physically, and they are hard to keep up with. Moreover, you had better take advantage of the first few seconds that you have their attention or have caught their eye, for they are apt to disappear rapidly in the crowd. Do not be surprised if, when trying to pick them up, they suddenly drop all interest in you and turn toward someone else at a party or other social gathering. These ephemeral creatures are hard to pin down, particularly on fist meeting unless the find you highly attractive.

With Aquarians, the fist date is likely to be the last unless you come up with something unusual. Bored with the same old routines,m Aquarius first dates expect a special experience; in particular, they want an activity tailored to their peculiar needs and wants. Listen carefully to what they say and make decisions accordingly if you want to survive the first fifteen minutes together.

Activities involving media and music or danging are good bets. Staring off with a quiet dinner by candlelight is not usually. Aquarians' speed – your romantic intentions toward them will be too blatant, and the time required to sit opposite you in one place will be excessive.

Their first dates are turned off by assumptions you make about them or any obviously practiced routines you fall into that demonstrate your inflexibility and unresponsiveness to their individuality.

Aquarius first dates will be startled and impressed if you can manage to take the lead in whirlwind style and sweep them off their feet. Avoid penny-pinching attitudes such as patting yourself on the back for finding such a good deal for food or entertainment. While respectful or your Aquarius first date's privacy be your liveliest self by flamboyantly leading the way to the next mutually pleasurable experience.

Aquarius first dates will be impressed by the more unusual aspects of your personality and behavior. If they find you truly funny, this is a big step in the right direction. Most Aquarius first dates will show little if any interest in a depressed, unhappy, or troubled personality.

Normally, a couple of bad looks or negative remarks are enough to send Aquarius first dates scurrying off in a flash. Thus if you are truly interested in them, avoid sending any negative signals that could be even remotely interpreted as a brush-off. Smiling, laughing, and above all responding to their light chatter are recommended. Avoid teasing them about their little idiosyncrasies and peculiarities.

If they are not interested, you may never get a second chance since Aquarius first dates can be quite unforgiving of a premature advance. It may work out much better for you to hang back and wait for them to make the first move or, at the very least, flash an unequivocal green light for you to do so.

Governed by the revolutionary planet Uranus, Aquarians tend to be modern, forward-looking individuals who are unusual and accepting of this quality in others. Illustration by Elena.

Luna - Moon Rising

Luna – Moon Rising

By Ian McDonald (excerpt)

(A hundred years in the future, a was has broken out among the Five Dragons – five families who control the moon's leading industrial companies. Each clan does everything in its power to claw its way to the top of the food chain – marriages of convenience, corporate espionage, kidnapping, and mass assassinations).

The rule is this: women of a particular status, in their ninth decade, do not hurry. The do not scurry. A fussy bustle is permissible but it is the limit. A lady never rushes.

Lady Sun rushes, heels clip-clopping in and undignified trot down the palace's curving corridors. Caught between walk and run, here entourage struggles to keep pace with her. The message on Amada's secure channel had ordered her to come at once. Her granddaughter's suite is too near for a moto to arrive in time, too far to avoid the shame of haste. A palanquin, like the dowagers of old China. That would be the very thing. Like the Vorontsovs use to gad around St.Olga, powered by Earth-muscle and youthful enthusiasm. Perfidious Vorontsovs. Lady Sun will not soon forgive the humiliation of the Battle of Hadley, Marooned by VTO, taken in an upholstered cage to Hadley. The smirking politeness of the Mackenzies. Denny Mackenzie grinning his ghastly gold teeth. Grin while you can, golden boy. The power rests elsewhere and when you have served their purpose, the women of Hadley will arrange a boardroom coup, and it will cost you more than your finger. The ransom was insultingly low; Taiyang will recoup it through the breach of contract case against VTO, but it is another unforgivable offense.

Lady Sun instructs her sharp young women and men to wait outside Amanda Sun's appartement. Zhiyuan is present, Tamsin. The whole board. The surprise is Mariano Gabriel Demaria.

“Is it Darius?” Lady Sun asks at once. “What has happened to him?”

“Darius is well,” Zhiyuan says. “Mariano brings information about the Eagle of the Moon.”

“Lady Sun.” Mariando dips his head in respect. “Now that I have the board in full, I can deliver my information. Lucas Corta serves Amanda Sun, plaintiff in the case of Corta versus Corta, Sun and Luna Corta as an Academic Ward of the University of Farside, with a summons to satisfaction at the Court. The time and location of this satisfaction to be mutually agreed, but within one hundred and twenty hours.

“Satisfaction?” Amanda Sun says.

“Trial by combat,?” Lady Sun says.

“I know what it means,” Amanda Sun snaps.

“Ridiculous,” Zhiyuan says. “There hasn't been a satisfaction by combat since...”

“Since Carlinhos Corta opened up Hadley Mackenzie balls to voicebox,” Amanda Sun says. She twists open a vape, inhales deep, exhales slow. “The Cortas have form here.”

“He knows he was a weak case,” Lady Sun says.

Fascinating, ruthless. Every moment with his characters makes them precious, real, and alive. Illustration by Elena.

Exploring the Past and Present

Exploring the Past and Present

An information explosion has taken place, and scientists have gained vast stories of new knowledge in such fields as informatics, space and medicine. Mass communication has helped spread this knowledge. Schools and universities have expanded their courses of study to cover massive amounts of new information. In addition, an increasingly literate public is reading about the latest discoveries.

People are also taking a new interest in the past. Many records of the past have been stored in museums. In the postwar period (after 1945), museums have opened their doors to millions of people. They have mounted well-planned, lively exhibits. Science museums have let people explore complicated space age technology. Museums of art and archaeology have allowed people to learn about other societies.

Proud of their ancient heritages, nations as Egypt and China have allowed museums in other countries to display treasured artifacts. In the 1970s, an exhibit of treasures from Tutankhamon's tomb traveled to the United States and Western Europe. A world tour of Chinese artifacts included 3,000-year-old Shang bronzes and terra cotta figures that had guarded the First Emperor's gave. These exhibits have increased people's curiosity about other people's cultures.

Museums have also collected modern works of art. People flock to see the works of twentieth century masters such as Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse. Competition among museums and private collectors to buy modern works of art has caused prices of these pieces to skyrocket.

In the late XXth century, the center of the art world shifted from Paris to New York, and this brought tremendous changes to people around the globe. New nations emerged in Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. Since 1945, these nations and the developing nations of Latin America have taken a prominent role in world affairs. Improved communication and transportation have put people from different parts of the world in closer touch with each other than ever before. In addition, nations have been tied more closely together by economic needs.

In both developed and developing nations, education has contributed to wide-spread changes. In the United States and Western Europe, college attendance soared in the postwar period. Dozens of new colleges and universities were opened. In the same period, developing nations worked toward increasing literacy rates. Many students from these nations attended universities in the United States and Europe.

Important changes have occurred in the workplace. Working conditions, hours, wages, and fringe benefits have been improved. New inventions have led to the growth to revolutionize industry. On farms, new high-yield crops and machinery have changed the way food is produced.

The movement of people from rural areas to cities has been a worldwide phenomenon in the latest years. In cities and their suburbs, people have easier access to education, jobs, and various forms of popular entertainment. 

Patterns of change in the latest years have also affected women. In developed countries, women have entered the workforce in increasing numbers. Women in many countries have expanded their roles in public life.

All these patterns of growth and change continue to pose challenges to all nations. As in the past, individual societies are developing their own ways of meeting these challenges.

Research scientists working with engineers and technicians have made many advances in technology. Photo by Elena.

Symbols in an analysis

The beginning of the analysis

There is a widespread belief that the methods of Jungian psychology are applicable only to middle-aged people. True, many men and women reach middle age without achieving psychological maturity, and its is therefore necessary to help them through the neglected phases of their development. They have not completed the first part of the process of individuation that Dr. M.-L. Von Franz has described. But it is also true that a young person can encounter serious problems as he grows up. If a young person is afraid of life and finds it hard to adjust to reality, he might prefer to dwell in his fantasies or to remain a child. In such a young person (especially if he is introverted) one can sometimes discover unexpected treasures in the unconscious, and by bringing them into consciousness strengthen his ego and give him the psychic energy he needs to grow into a mature person. That is the function of the powerful symbolism of our dreams.

Dr. Jung assigned great importance to the first dream in an analysis, for, according to him, it often has anticipatory value. A decision to go into analysis is usually accompanied nu an emotional upheaval that disturbs the deep psychic levels from which archetypal symbols arise. The first dreams therefore often present “collective images” that provide a perspective for the analysis as a whole and can give the therapist insight into the dreamer's psychic conflicts.

People who rely totally on their rational thinking and dismiss or repass every manifestation of their psychic life often have an almost inexplicable inclination to superstition. They listen to oracles and prophecies and can be easily hoodwinked or influenced by magicians and conjurers. And because dreams compensate one's other life, the emphasis such people put in their intellect is offset by dreams in which they meet the irrational and cannot escape it.

One immediately notices the singularity and the exceptional meaning of the dream, its wealth of symbols, and its compactness.

C.G. Jung and some of his associates have tried to make clear the role played by the symbol-creating function in man's unconscious psyche and to point out some fields of application in this newly discovered area of life. We are still far from understanding the unconscious or the archetypes – those dynamic nuclei of the psyche – in all their implications. All we can see now is that the archetypes have an enormous impact on the individual, forming his emotions and his ethical and mental outlook, influencing his relationships with others, and thus affecting his whole destiny. We can also see that the arrangement of archetypal symbols follows a pattern of wholeness in the individual, and that an appropriate understanding of the symbols can have a healing effect. And we can see that the archetypes can act as creative or destructive forces in our mind: creative when they inspire new ideas, destructive when these same ideas stiffen into conscious prejudices that inhabit further discoveries. 

Jung has shown how subtle and differentiated all attempts at interpretation must be, in order not to weaken the specific individual and cultural values or archetypal ideas and symbols by leveling them out – i.e., by giving them a stereotyped, intellectually formulated meaning. Jung himself dedicated his entire life to such investigations and interpretative work. Naturally this article sketches only an infinitesmal part of his vast contribution to this new field of psychological discovery.

Dreams compensate more or less explicitly for the dreamer's conscious attitude of mind. Illustration by Elena.

Carl Jung and Psychology

Carl G. Jung was a pioneer and remained fully aware that an enormous number of further questions remained unanswered and call for further investigation. This is why his concepts and hypotheses are conceived on as wide a basis as possible (without making them too vague and all-embracing) and why his views form a so-called “open system” that does not close the door against possible new discoveries.

To Jung, his concepts were mere tools or heuristic hypotheses that might help us to explore the vast new area of reality opened up by the discovery of the unconscious - a discovery that has not merely widened our whole view of the world but has in fact doubled it. We must always as now whether a mental phenomenon is conscious or unconscious and, also, whether a “real” outer phenomenon is perceived by conscious or unconscious means.

The powerful forces of the unconscious most certainly appear not only in clinical material but also in the mythological, religious, artistic, and all the other cultural activities by which man expresses himself. Obviously, if all men have common inherited patterns of emotional and mental  behavior (which Jung called the archetypes), it is only to be expected that we shall find their products (symbolic fantasies, thoughts, and actions) in practically every field of human activity.

Important modern investigations of many of these fields have been deeply influenced by Jung's work. For instance, this influence can be seen in the study of literature, in such books as J.B. Priestley's Literature and Western Man, Gottfried Diener's Faust's Weg zu Helena, or James Kirsch's Shakespeare's Hamlet. Similarly, Jungian psychology has contributed to the study of art, as in the writings of Herbert Read or of Aniela Jaffé, Erich Neumann's examination of Henry Moore, or Michael Tippett's studies in music. Arnold Toynbee's work on history and Paul Radin's on anthropology have benefited from Jung's teachings, as have the contributions to sinology made by Richard Wilhelm, Enwin Rousselle, and Manfried Porkert. 

Of course, this does not mean that the special features of art and literature (including their interpretation) can be understood only from their archetypal foundation.  These fields all have their own laws of activity; like all really creative achievements, they cannot ultimately be rationally explained. But within their areas of action one can recognize the archetypal patterns as a dynamic background activity. And one can often decipher in them (as in dreams) the message of some seemingly purposive, evolutionary tendency of the unconscious.

The fruitfulness of Jung's ideas is more immediately understandable within the area of the cultural activities of man: Obviously, if the archetypes determine our mental behavior, they must appear in all these fields. But, unexpectedly, Jung's concepts have also opened up new ways of looking at things in the realm of the natural sciences as well – for instance, in biology.

The physicist Wolfgang Pauli has pointed out that, due to new discoveries, our idea of the evolution of life requires a revision that might take into account an area of interrelation between the unconscious psyche and biological processes. Until recently it was assumed that the mutation of species happened at random and that a selection took place by means of which the “meaningful”, well-adapted varieties survived, and the others disappeared. But modern evolutionists have pointed out that the selections of such mutations by pure chance would have taken much longer than the know age of our planet allows.

Creative ideas show their value in that, like keys, they help to unlock hitherto unintelligible connections of facts and thus enable man to penetrate deeper into the mystery of life. Illustration by Elena.

Halo Cryptum

Halo Cryptum: The Forerunner Saga

By Greg Bear

Truly, the Deep Reverence seemed like a great tree riddled through by the wandering whimsy of a single, awful termite. The higher we progressed with the fortress – and progress is not the correct word – the deeper the sense the sense of undisciplined decay. I wondered if the Confirmer had for the last thousand years spent his time building useless follies throughout the decks, above and below, draining the ship's resources and perverting its original design.

We came finally to a space warm enough and with sufficient oxygen to relieve the burden of our armor. This hiss of replenishment was like a gasp as our ancillas sucked in reserves for what they, too, seemed to think might be a desperate time.

The Confirmer's command center was hung with tattered draperies of a design I could not recognize. Within the drapes, pushing up through or rising between, were dozens of sculptures made of stone and metal, some quite large, and all wrought with a grace and skill that was evident whatever their subjects might have been – abstractions or representations, who could tell?

But as a command center, this space was no more functional than the empty vault we had first entered. Clearly, the fortress had become a cluttered ghost of its former might.

The Confirmer ordrered up seatin arrangements. With creaks and groans, the deck produced only two chairs suitable for Prometheans, plus a small bump that might have been meant for me. Some of the drapes drew aside, rpping and falling in dusty shreds... and three sculptures toppled, one of them nearly striking me before it landed on the deck with a solid thunk and split in two.

The Confirmer carried bottles from a broad cabinet half-hidden in the drapes, walking with a left-leaning lurch. “The best I have to offer,” he said, and poured out three glasses of a greenish liquid. He sat and offered a glass to the Didact and one to me. Neither of the glasses were clean. “You remember kasna,” he said, lifting his own glass in toast. The liquid inside smelled sweet and sour – pungent – and left a stain on the glass. “The San'Shyuum have always excelled in the arts of intoxication. This is from their finest reserve.

The Didact looked at his glass, then downed it in a gulp – to the Confirmer's dismay.

“That's rare stuff,” he chided.

“You allow the San'Shyuum to travel between their two worlds?” the Didact asked, returning the glass to the dusty tray.

“They are confined within the boundary of the quarantine,” the Confirmer said. “There's no reason to hold them fast.”

“In many ways, there were worse than humans,” the Didact said.

 “You've not had contact with any other warrior in how many years?”

“The living? Centuries, centuries,” the Confirmer said. “The last shipment of...” He stopped himself, looked about with curtained chamber with eyes that had lost nearly all focus. “Many colleagues are brought here, you know. Exiled with less dignity than the Council allowed you. They've fought, and lost, many political battles since you vanished.”

“Where are they?”

“A few were allowed their own Cryptums. The rest... the Council shipped us their Durances.”

“The Deep Reverence has become a graveyard?” The Didact asked, the last color departing his already pale features.

“Missed and misguided, they now claim.”

Space ships. Illustration by Elena.

Person-centered Approach

A Directional Process in Life

Practice, theory, and research make it clear that the person-centered approach rests on a basic trust in human beings, and in all organisms. There is evidence from many disciplines to support an even broader statement. We can say that there is in every organism, at whatever level, an underlying flow of movement toward constructive fulfillment of its inherent possibilities. In human beings, too, there is a natural tendency toward a more complex and complete development. The term that has most often been used for this is the “actualizing technology”, and it is present in all living organisms.

Whether we are speaking of a flower or an oak tree, of an earthworm or a beautiful bird, of an ape or a person, we will do well, I believe, to recognize that lie is an active process, not a passive one. Whether the stimulus arises from within or without, whether the environment is favorable or unfavorable, the behaviors of an organism can be counted on to be in the direction of maintaining, enhancing, and reproducing itself. This is the very nature of the process we call life. This tendency is operative at all times. Indeed, only the presence or absence of this total directional process enables us to tell whether a given organism is alive or dead.

The actualizing tendency can, of course, be thwarted or warped, but it cannot be destroyed without destroying the organism. I remember that in my childhood, the bin in which we stored our winter's supply of potatoes was in the basement, several feet below a small window. The conditions were unfavorable, but the potatoes would begin to sprout – pale with sprouts, so unlike the healthy green shoots they sent up when planted in the soil in the spring. But these sad, spindly sprouts would grow 2 or 3 feet in length as they reached toward the distant light of the window. The sprouts were, in their bizarre, futile growth, a sort of desperate expression of the directional tendency. They would never become plants, never mature, never fulfill their real potential. But under the most adverse circumstances, they were striving to become.

Life would not give up, even if it could not flourish. In dealing with clients whose lives have been terribly warped, in working with men and women on the back wards of state hospitals, I often think of those potato sprouts. So unfavorable have been the conditions in which these people have developed that their lives often seem abnormal, twisted, scarcely human. Yet, the directional tendency in the can be trusted. The clue to understanding their behavior is that they are striving, in the only ways that they perceive as available to them, to move toward growth, toward becoming. To healthy persons, the results may seem bizarre and futile, but they are life's desperate attempt to become itself. This potent constructive tendency is an underlying basis of the person-centered approach. 

(Aspects of a Person-Centered Approach, the Foundations of a Person-Centered Approach. A Way of Being by Carl R. Rogers).

Organisms are always seeking, always initiating, always "up to something." Picture by Elena.

Thoughts Regarding Death

Thoughts Regarding Death

… And then there is the ending of life... Ten or fifteen years ago I felt quite certain that death was the total end of the person. I still regard that as the most likely prospect; however, it does not seem to me a tragic or awful prospect. I have been able to live my life – not to the full, certainly, but with a satisfying degree of fullness – and it seems natural that my life should come to an end. I already have a degree of immortality in other persons. I have sometimes said that, psychologically, I have strong people close to me all over the world, Also, I believe that the ideas and the way of being that I and others have helped to develop will continue, for some time at least. So if I, as an individual, come to a complete and final end, aspects of me will still live on in a variety of growing ways, and that is a pleasant thought.

I think that no one can know weather he or she fears death until it arrives. Certainly, death is the ultimate leap in the dark, and I think it is highly probable that the apprehension I feel when going under an anesthetic will be duplicated or increased when I face death. Yet I don't experience a really deep fear of the process. So far as I am aware, my fears concerning death relate to its circumstances. I have a dread of any long and painful illness leading to death. I dread the thought of senility or of partial brain damage due to a stroke. My preference would be to die quickly, before it is too late to die with dignity. I think of Winston Churchill. I didn't mourn his death. I mourned the fact that death had not come sooner, when he could have died with the dignity he deserved.

My belief that death is the end has, however, been modified by some of learning. I am impressed with the accounts by Raymond Moody (1975) of the experience of persons who have been so near death as to be declared dead, but who have come back to life. I am impressed by some of the reports of reincarnation, although reincarnation seems a very dubious blessing indeed. I am interested in the work of Elisabeth Kübler-Ross and the conclusions she has reached about life after death. I find definitely appealing the views of Arthur Koesler that individual consciousness is but a fragment of a cosmic consciousness, the fragment being reabsorbed into the whole upon the death of the individual. I like his analogy of the individual river eventually flowing into the tidal waters of the ocean, dropping its muddy silt as it enters the boundless sea.

So I consider death with, I believe, an openness to the experience. It will be what it will be, and I trust I can accept it as either an end to, or a continuation of life.

(A Way of Being, by Carl. R. Rogers. Personal experiences and perspectives).

Being alive involves taking a chance, acting on less than certainty, engaging with life. Illustration by Elena.

Mental Illness

Mental Illness

One in every hundred people will develop schizophrenia in their lifetime. At the beginning of the 21st century, three hundred thousand Canadians aged sixteen to thirty have been diagnosed with schizophrenia. The average time between onset of symptoms and fist effective treatment is one to two years, but be much longer.

Males and females are equally likely to be diagnosed with schizophrenia. But males tend to have an earlier age of onset, in the teens or early twenties for men, and in the twenties or early thirties for women. Nearly 80 per cent of people with schizophrenia experience a major depressive episode at some point in their lives.

Approximately four out of every ten people with a diagnosis of schizophrenia attempts suicide, and approximately one in ten people diagnosed with schizophrenia die of suicide, making it the leading cause of premature death for people with with schizophrenia. Besides, suicide in this population is rarely attributable to florid psychotic symptoms (hallucinations, delusions); it is more likely to occur in periods of remission or improved functioning. Depression and hopelessness are important factors in suicide by people with schizophrenia.

Tom Ko has worked with 160 families in his job as therapy supervisor at the Calgary Early Psychosis Treatment and Prevention Program. Many – but not all – of his clients are young enough to be living at home with parents and siblings. Ko, who has a master's degree in social work, encourages the whole family to attend psychoeducation sessions with him. “Not all siblings have strong emotional reactions to the illness,” says Ko, a social worker. “But all have some reaction to a psychotic illness in the family.”

How Siblings Are Affected

Here are some of the common emotions and issues raised by the siblings:

1. Anger of parents (“Why don't they take control and fix this?”) and at the unwell sibling (“Why doesn't he just get better?”) “They get angry a lot because things have changed, “Ko says. “They want their brother or sister back.”
2. Grief and sadness: “Because the family isn't the same, and they can sense that.” Ko says that children go through a grieving process just as parents do. “When things change and everything's up in the air, they do get depressed.”
3. Fear that they'll become mentally ill. “Not the seven-year-old but the fourteen-year-old says, “Will I get it?” And we are always upfront.” (Research shows that if you have a first-degree relative with schizophrenia, you in turn have a 10-per-cent chance of winding up with the disorder; this compares to a 1-per-cent chance for someone with no diagnosed relatives.)
4. Guilt that they contributed to their sibling's disorder, or made it worse. For example, two brothers may have been fighting just before one is diagnosed (which is not uncommon because the sibling relationship changes with the onset of symptoms). “We try to tell them, “ You didn't know; of course you got into fights; everybody does, but it didn't cause the illness.
5. Loss of normal family relationship: When parents are tied up with hospitals and meds and caring for their unwell child, says Ko, “It's easy to forget there are other kids involved... Often they (the siblings) will say “we used to have family dinners together, do this and that together.” We try to get them back to those family routines so that everything goes back to normal as much as possible.”
6. Confusion because they know something is wrong but no one is explaining what or why. “They find it very difficult to understand sometimes. They can tell their brother or sister is different, they can tell their family is different, and they wonder. But it just becomes a family secret that no one talks about. They want to know what's going on.”

People can recover. Most of the people who have recovered have been at the depths of depression or the depths of some other illness, and they have made it back to find a life worth living with meaning and purpose. Illustration by Elena.

Mental Disorder

Mental Disorder: What It Feels Like?

Unless you've been there, it can be pretty difficult to imagine what it's like to suffer from a mental disorder. What does it truly feel like to experience the delusions or voices that come with schizophrenia? To soar with the unbridled euphoria of a mania? To shake with the heart-numbing fear of a panic attack?

Short of actually having the disorder, there are very few ways of comprehending what it's like to be inside someone else's head. We could rattle off lists of clinical symptoms, but that would get dull pretty fast. It also wouldn't really give you a visceral sense of the experience.

Yet all of us are curious. Scientists, in fact, have tried to give other folks a taste of what mental disorder feels like. One of the most intriguing efforts is a virtual-reality setup which, using specially enhanced audio and visual effects, attempts to transport the subject into the mind of someone with schizophrenia. You actually hear those internal voices in a manner that those with the disorder say comes close to their reality.

Some sources will tell you that manic depression, or bipolar disorder, as it's also known, rarely shows itself much before the the age of eighteen. But ask any of my friends, reachers, or family – any of those brave souls who traveled with the ill person through his or her life – and they will vigorously dispute that claim.

A rapid cycler, mood changes are like gunfire in the trenches – bang, bang, bang. Light, dark, light, dark. Nobody knows if it's possible to switch a light on and off as quickly as brain manages to switch between euphoria and devastation.

These people spend part of their lives feeling as though they will never join the human race. It's as though they live in a cage where they can hear the world but the world cannot hear them. After years, they see this simply as a manifestation of their illness, which has a way of making the ordinary seem threatening and frightening. Paranoia is more than an occasional visitor. People affected have sat on the subway, convinced that others were laughing at them; they have left parties after an hour, certain that the guests thought the ill persons had no right to be among them. Manic depression can make that girl in The Exorcist (at her writhing, screaming, priest-hating worst) look like someone you would ask to babysit their three-year-old. But these people own their illness. And it will be part of them for the rest of their lives. People can't turn their back on it.

People have been asked if they see their illness as a tragedy, or at least as something that's robbed them of anything of vital importance. Sometimes they do. But stress is a killer; it can initiate the descent into depression, the rise into mania. These people have learned to be vigilant about avoiding those situations that will exacerbate their disease.

The illness also destroys relationships, chewing them up, spitting them out. These people mourn the friendships they have lost. Their behavior – especially when manic – has alienated friends and relatives. In some cases, the ill persons have never been able to reconnect with them.

And yet, many of them can't say that they think of themselves as tragically touched. It is like being born with red hair or brown, one eye or three; you know nothing different, so what does it matter^ We all have a cross to bear. They will carry their cross for all their life.

There's a saying you sometimes hear in the mental health world: Label belong on soup cans, not people. Illustration by Elena.

Hull Zero Three

Hull Zero Three

(by Greg Bear, excerpt)

Core Memory

Something in the hull recognises us and tries to do us a favour by reconnecting us with what we are supposed to know and feel. There’s a little confusion because there’s two of us, but that’s okay - the system can be creative if it has to, and with a little modification, there we are, back on Earth, young twins with our whole lives ahead of us, training to embark on a journey to the newly outfitted Golden Voyager. That’s the name of this Ship, I think - we think.

We’re going to become part of the crew. The destination crew.

My twin and I don’t always get along, but we went through gaining together, and we rely on each other for solving major problems - including women. Though of late we have been suffering through competition over a particularly lovely lass named -

(And here it gets strange, because that brings up fragments of future memories, the broken bits of my history available to Hull Zero One when I was - )

Don’t be silly. That’s just part of the terrible dream. You aren’t made in deep space - you’re frozen with al of your shipmates, your future partners in the colonies, and the Golden Voyager - 

Whatever. I can very clearly anticipate my parter in the staging area, boldly looking at me along the line of the first landing party, exchanging those excruciatingly meaningful glances of first adoration, then lifelong bonding. We are meant for each other - so why would my twin interfere?

But we have so much to catch up on. Mother and Father,, sister, education up through secondary, physical adaptation and augmentation, getting our freezing-down organs installed after first qualifications, long summer days at Camp Starfield, our first test freeze… We all come out healthy and whole, not even hungover, and now we’re ready for that installation flight out to the edges of the Oort cloud, to meet up with the chose moonlet, on which is trapped the growing frame of our Ship. This is a journey of almost nine months, because it’s illegal to light off bosonic drives within the system.

So clear. I suppose that even in my confusion and my conflicting emotions, seeing our unborn Ship for the first time, far out in the darkness where only starlight matters, fastened like a tiny golden octopus to the long end of the moonlet - seeing all this is useful, helpful, but why does it have to come attached to so much imaginer bullshit? I’m just fine without a backstory. I know the real story.

They pump us full of this continuity for psychological reasons – but why? They don't trust us. We're designed to be deceived.

We find spaces within the cramped living quarters, all three hundred of us, handpicked, tested, trained, passed – superior emotionally and physically to Earth's best and brightest, filled with that glow of knowing where we're going what we're going to do, flying in the most expensive goddamned object ever devised by the hands of humanity...

And as we go into the freezers to become time travelers into the future, to awaken five or six hundred years hence, we're filled with an overwhelming joy at our destiny, more intense than anything we've experienced.

Spaceships. Illustration by Elena.

Darwin's Dangerous Idea

Darwin's Really Dangerous Idea

Adaptation by natural selection is among the most successful and influential ideas in the history of science, and rightly so. It unifies the entire field of biology and has had a profound influence on many other disciplines, including anthropology, psychology, economics, sociology, and even the humanities. The singular genius behind the theory of natural selection, Charles Darwin, is at least as famous as his most famous idea.

You might think that my contrarian view of the limited power of adaptation by natural selection would mean that I am “over” Darwin, that I am ready to denigrate the cultural/scientific personality cult that surrounds Darwin's legacy. Quite to the contrary, I hope to celebrate that legacy but also to transform the popular understanding of it by shedding new light on Darwinian ideas that have been neglected, distorted, ignored, and almost forgotten for nearly a century and a half. It's not that I'm interested in doing a Talmudic-style investigation of Darwin's every word; rather, my focus is on the science of today, and I believe that Darwin's ideas have a value to contemporary science that has yet to be fully exploited.

Trying to communicate the richness of Darwin's ideas puts me in the unenviable position of having to convince people that we don't actually know the real Darwin and that he was an even greater, more creative, and more insightful thinker than he was been given credit for. I am convinced that most of those who think of themselves as Darwinians today – the neo-Darwinians – have gotten Darwin all wrong. The real Darwin has been excised from modern scientific hagiography.

The philosopher Daniel Dennett referred to evolution by natural selection – the subject of Darwin's first great book, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection = as “Darwin's dangerous idea.” Here I propose that Darwin's really dangerous idea is the concept of aesthetic evolution by mate choice, which he explored in his second great book, The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex.

Why is the idea of Darwinian mate choice so dangerous? First and foremost, Darwinian mate choice really is dangerous – to the neo-Darwinists – because it acknowledges that there are limits to the power of natural selection as an evolutionary force and as a scientific explanation of the biological world. Natural selection cannot be the only dynamic at work in evolution, Darwin maintained in Descent, because it cannot fully account for the extraordinary diversity of ornament we see in the biological world.

It took Darwin a long time to grapple with this dilemma. He famously wrote, “The sight of a feather in a peacock's tail, whenever I gaze at it, makes me sick!" Because the extravagance of its design seemed of nu survival value whatsoever, unlike other heritable features that are the result of natural selection, the peacock's tail seemed to challenge everything that he had said in Origin. The insight he eventually arrived at, that there was another evolutionary force at work, was considered an unforgivable apostasy by Darwin's orthodox adaptationist followers. As a consequence, the Darwinian theory of mate choice has largely been suppressed, misinterpreted, redefined, and forgotten ever since.

Aesthetic evolution my mate choice is an idea so dangerous that it had to be laundered out of Darwinism itself in order to preserve the omnipotence of the explanatory power of natural selection. Only when Darwin's aesthetic vies of evolution is restored to the biological and cultural mainstream will we have a science capable of explaining the diversity of beauty in nature.

 (From the book The Evolution of Beauty. How Darwin's Forgotten Theory of Mate Choice Shapes the Animal World – and Us. By Richard O. Prum).

Given that sexuality is an instinct is traditionally defined as a hereditary behaviour unique to a species, varying little from one member to the next, the variety of our sexual tastes is curious. Photograph by Elena.

After the Apocalypse

After the Apocalypse

(Excerpt, short story by Maureen F. McHugh)

... Things didn't exactly all go at once. First there were rolling brownouts and lots of people unemployed. Jane had been making a living working at a place that sold furniture. She started as a salesperson, but she was good at helping people on what colors to buy, what things went together, what fabrics to pick for custom pieces. Eventually they made her a service associate, a person who was kind of like an interior decorator, sort of. She had an eye. She'd grown up in a nice suburb and had seen nice things. She knew what people wanted. Her boss kept telling her a little less eye makeup would be a good idea, but people liked what she suggested and recommended her to their friends even if her boss didn't like her eye makeup.

She was thinking of starting a decorating business, although she was worried that she didn't know about some of the stuff decorators did. On TV they were always tearing down walls and redoing fireplaces. So she put it off. Then there was the Big Disney World attack where a kazillion people died because of a dirty bomb, and then the economy really tanked. She knew that business was dead and she was going to get laid off, but before that happened, someone torched the furniture place where she was working. Her boyfriend at the time was a cop, so he still had a job, even though half the city was unemployed. She and Franny were all right compared to a lot of people. She didn't like not having her own money, but she wasn't exactly having to call her mother in Pennsylvania and eat crow and offer to come home.

So she sat on the balcony of their condo and smoked and looked through her old decorating magazines, and Franny watched television in the room behind her. People started showing up on the sidewalks. They had trash bags full of stuff. Sometimes they'd have cars and they'd sleep in them, but gas was getting to almost ten dollars a gallon, when the gas stations could get it. Pete, the boyfriend, told her that the cops didn't even patrol much anymore because of the gas problem. More and more of the people on the sidewalk looked to be walking.

“Where are the coming from?” Fanny asked.

“Down south. Houston, El Paso, anywhere within a hundred miles of the border.” Pete said. “Border's gone to shit. Mexico doesn't have food, but the drug cartels have lots of guns, and they're coming across to take what the can get. They say it's like a war zone down there.”

“Why don't the police take care of them?” Franny asked.

“Well, Francisca,” Pete said – he was good with Franny, Jane had to give him that - “Sometimes there are just too many of them for the police down there. And they've got kinds of guns that the police aren't allowed to have.”

“What about you?” Franny asked.

“It's different up here,” Pete said. “That's why we've got refugees here. Because it's safe here.”

“They're not refugees”, Jane said. Refugees were, like, people in Africa. These were just regular people. Gays in T-shirts with the names of rock bands on them. Women sitting in the front seats of Taurus station wagons, doing their hair in the rearview mirrors. Kids asleep in the back seat or running up and down the street shrieking and playing. Just people.

After the End. An empty room. Photograph by Elena.

True North

True North

By M.J. Locke (excerpt)

After the End, much of what remains of true civilization inhabits in the now-balmy Arctic and Antarctic circles. Survivors still live in the rest of the world, though – the exploiters and and the exploited, and loners like Bear Jessen, who isn't sure why he's still hanging around... except for a silent promise made to his dying wife.  

… It was all for naught. They crossed the border unharmed but were stopped by the Mounties the next morning, about five miles in. The Canadians were not cruel, but the said little. The confiscated the trailer – all their food and water and medicines. Bear complained and the soldiers only shrugged. They locked them in a windowless warehouse at their border station, along with dozens of other refugees: people of all nationalities, all religions, all races. The world's detritus, tossed up against a nation's borders. Bear tried to doze on the hard concrete. His tailbone ached and the burn on his arm hurt like hell.

They were there for about six days. They were fed, but the cramped and uncomfortable quarters and their own low spirits made time drag. Late one afternoon – or so Bear guessed from the slant of the sun's rays on the wall – he heard noises outside. After a while, the guards brought them out into the sunlight, where a convoy of big military trucks waited. A Canadian officer turned them over to a group of men in a hodgepodge of American uniforms. Patty gripped Bear's arm so tight she nearly broke the skin.

“You know them?” Bear asked.

She nodded. “I recognize that one.” She gestured with her chin at the officer who spoke to the Canadians, “He is el coronets number-three man.” Her skin had gone pallid. “The man whose camp we escaped in Denver.”

She faded back among the others and kept her head down as the first lieutenant walked past. He wore Air Force insignia. The man stopped and looked Bear over.

“Name?” he asked.

“Bear Jessen. Lately of Rexford.”

The lieutenant shouted over his shoulder, “Load them up!”

They were hustled toward the trucks. They tried to stay together, but the trucks only held twelve or so. This did not bode well.

Bear towered above the rest. He caught Patty's gaze, and then Tommy's and Vanessa's. Somehow, the all understood what needed to happen – they each gathered the children nearest them, whispering, passing the word. Bear took the youngest six, the five-and-under set. Bear and his kids sat near the back of the open transport, across from a young soldier with a rifle across his knees. Land passed by; Bear recognized the road, and the miles and miles of wind power generations. They were headed over the Grand Tetons, toward Spokane.

Penelope and Paul, the toddler twins, cried inconsolably. Bear pulled them onto his lap and bounced them on his knee making shushing sounds. The other little ones sat looking out at the scenery, to all appearances unafraid.

That night they reached a military base. The sign by the road said Fairchild Air Force Base. They passed a munitions dump and an enormous hangar, and rows and rows of military barracks. The trucks came to a halt at a roundabout in the middle of the camp. Soldiers unloaded them all from the the trucks. Floodlights lit the concrete pad they stood on. They gathered the refugees in a circle. Two officers came out of the nearby barracks. One of the spoke to the lieutenant. Bear knew instantly he was the colonel.

Canadian border guard. Photograph by Elena.

Explosions into Anger

How to Deal with Emotionally Explosive People

By Albert J. Bernstein, Ph.D.

What Are Anger Control Problems?

Anger control problems are like this : Nobody can define them, but everybody knows them when they see them. In public, everyone is against excessive anger, but a surprising number of people indulge in it in the privacy of their own minds.

To understand what anger control problems are and how to deal with them, more instructive than a list of symptoms is a discussion of why there is no official list of symptoms to discuss.

In many ways, anger control problems are the mirror image of other psychiatric disorders. Those afflicted usually don't think there's anything wrong with them. This is quite different from fear and depression. Unlike other disorders, anger control problems are defined less bu what the people who have them are experiencing, and more by the effect their experience has on us.

The words and action may be disparate, the one thing all these people have in common is the negative emotional response their behaviors elicit. Angry people make us angry at them. Anger, unlike other mental disorders, is highly contagious, and one of its most salient symptoms is not realizing that you have it.

If you think the people in the examples make you afraid rather than angry, you know what I mean about not realizing, or are about to find out. The differences between anger and fear are more semantic than psychological. Choosing one state over the other means that to you, the distinction between anger and fear is clearer than it actually is in reality. This is a polite way of saying you're in denial.

You are not alone. The words we use to describe our own experience are different, more varied, and often more positive than those we use to describe that of other people. They may be angry, but we are afraid. Or hurt, upset, irritated, out of sorts, or perhaps premenstrual. We can almost fool ourselves into believing that we're talking about different emotional states entirely. But why do we need to do this?

We need to do it because anger is inseparable from morality. People get angry because other people are not doing what they're supposed to do.

Many people who suffer from mental illnesses use different substances. Photograph by Elena.

Brandon, who you probably guessed was driving the pickup truck, believes that you insulted him by making a big stink over his perfectly reasonable request to be allowed into the line of traffic.

David believes that punctuality is one of the many ultimate measures of love. If you're late, he feels abandoned.

Jenna is adamant that anything short of a perfect product – meaning that something is done exactly the way she would – constitutes lack of proper respect to the firm and to her. She takes every deviation personally.

Zack would say that toasters should work correctly or suffer the consequences. Brittany would say that nobody has the right to tell her what to do.

Of course they're wrong. But before you try and convince them, wait. You're about to step into their world, where everything is clearer and in sharper contrast than in ours. Over there, it's so much easier to tell the difference between right and wrong.

Anger involves an almost hopeless intertwining of morality and psychology, yet our only hope for communicating effectively with angry people lies in being able to separate the two. The reason there is no diagnostic category for anger control problems is that mental health people can't decide whether angry people are sick of just bad. Sick people are entitled to sympathy and treatment. Bad people deserve punishment. Grudgingly, we insert not guilty by reason of insanity between the two, but that's for people who are really crazy. Where do we put people who are convinced they're fine but whose actions drive everybody else crazy?

Enter the personality disorder, which today is diagnosed along a separate axis from more genteel problems like anxiety and depression. According to the DSM-IV, a personality disorder is “an enduring pattern of inner experience and behavior that deviates markedly from the expectations of the individual's culture.” The pattern is manifested in two (or more) of the following areas:

1. Ways of perceiving and interpreting self, other people, and events.
2. Range, intensity, lability, and appropriateness of emotional response
3. Interpersonal functioning
4. Impulse control

We can't be sure about what happens in our brains when we suffer from anger. Illustration by Elena.

Isn't this a remarkably civilized way of saying “bad”? The trait that supposedly distinguishes people with personality disorders from those who are normal is disturbed object relations, which means treating people not as people, but as objects to supply one's own needs. I've never met anyone who doesn't do this to some degree, but most of us are not exploitative enough to meet the criteria for full-fledged personality disorder.

A good way to think about these disorders is as the unbridled pursuit of a single psychological goal- excitement, attention, affection, adulation, and control are the usual suspects – that feels as necessary as air and water. Personality disorders are like addiction, another mental disorder with moral overtones. Actually, they may be variations on a single theme. People with personality disorders are often addicted to various substances, and treatment for addiction usually involves the structured force-feeding of morality, which is similar to current treatments for personality disorders.

Personality disorders wound up in their own separate category because many psychiatrists believed that they weren't really medical disorders, meaning they couldn't be treated with drugs, and wouldn't improve much, even with years of expensive psychotherapy. Such attitudes are changing, but slowly. To this day, your medical insurance will not cover the treatment of personality disorders.

You may be wondering why we bother with these morally and chemically impaired people at all. There are, however, two problems with ridding ourselves of those exhibiting personality disorders. First, the symptoms of these disorders are pervasive if not universal. Every has them to a certain extent. Second, and more fiendishly ironic, is the fact that much of what makes people attractive and interesting bubbles up from the same dark source as personality disorders. People who don't want anything are dull. But our desires distort our perceptions, make us do things that aren't good for us, and mess up our relationships with other people. The question is: Does this make us mentally ill or human?

All of the above.

The elements of personality disorders – yours, mine, and theirs = keep life interesting, sometimes to o interesting. They also keep me employed. If personality disorders didn't get in the way, anybody could have mental illness. Everybody would get along, and you could just tell people what to do to get better, and they would do it gratefully. A computer program could then handle the psychiatrist's job.

You can fight explosions into anger by different means. Photo by Elena.