Re: Stage 3: Exhaustion

[Kurt Cagle <kurt@kurtcagle.net>]

That's kind of what I suspected myself. I've tried working today, but its
been hard. I managed to get an interface designed, got a few other things
finished, but Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome seems as good an explanation as
any for why I'm wading through molassis. I'm not anticipating a lot
happening tomorrow. May take the day off.

-- Kurt

----- Original Message -----
From: "Rex Brooks" <rexb@starbourne.com>
To: <humanmarkup-comment@lists.oasis-open.org>
Sent: Thursday, September 13, 2001 7:06 PM
Subject: Stage 3: Exhaustion


> Hi All,
>
> Thanks for the break, unless my email is broke and I just didn't get
> your mail today.
>
>   I was filled with dread as I made my way home from a long day,
> feeling incredibly crummy. I didn't want to face a load of mail... to
> answer questions and generally do my job here, and I was feeling
> guilty about it, too, considering what the folks in New York are
> going through right now.
>
> Then I realized that I recognized this state of mind and body because
> I had time to think and feel and evaluate. It's the third stage of
> reaction and the processing of emotions following such a major
> psychological trauma. It's exhaustion.  It's that peculiar form of
> internal poisoning, the result of unused adrenaline and other stress
> hormones released by bodies molded by evolution to react physically
> to such emotional events, but it is not only unused, at least unused
> in the way evolution prepared us to use it, but is revisited again
> and again both through media repetition of stories and images, and
> also in nightmares and flashbacks that are entirely involuntary and
> unavoidable. It is a form of intense, and hopefully short duration,
> post traumatic stress syndrome.
>
> I've been through it in the riots and demonstrations of the late
> sixties, and saw it in friends and acquaintances returning from
> Vietnam in a worse form. Then I went through it again in the Loma
> Prieta Earthquake, and then again in the Oakland Hills Firestorm. And
> now this.
>
> Live long enough and ya learn a few things, whether ya think ya need
> it or not. This is one we could all do without. However, there is a
> point to this rambling. None of us will be able to operate at
> anything like normal efficiency anytime soon. One of the things this
> means for us is that we must redouble our dedication to this task,
> right now. As much as I would love to take a break, and just recover,
> I will never be able to recover and maintain my honesty with myself,
> if I allow this opportunity to slip away.
>
> I certainly hope there is never another such moment in time when
> minds which might otherwise be closed to even considering our work
> seriously are open, at least for a time, to the possibility that
> increasing our ability to understand our often inexplicable fellow
> human beings is worth pursuing-- at least AS worthwhile to pursue as
> retaliation or vengeance or deterrence, or whatever name we place on
> the need to punish the perpetrators and try to prevent such
> atrocities in the future.
>
> Maybe I can see this because I have been through enough similar
> experiences. Stage1 is outrage, anger and/or shock mixed with large
> portions of disbelief if not outright denial. Stage 2 is Numbness,
> usually combined with some denial, that shutting-down that prevents
> anxiety from overwhelming us. Stage 1 and 2 often oscillate back and
> forth for some time until Stage 3, the exhaustion we're all feeling
> now, takes over.
>
> Depending on our emotional and spiritual health, the next Stages can
> lead to positive steps to use our grief, sorrow and outrage to create
> substantive change in ourselves and the world, or negative steps to
> create further damage and destruction, but, regardless the next stage
> is either paralysis or action.
>
> As I said yesterday, I am glad I have work I believe is positive to do.
>
> Thanks,
> Rex
> --
> Rex Brooks
> GeoAddress: 1361-A Addison, Berkeley, CA, 94702 USA, Earth
> W3Address: http://www.starbourne.com
> Email: rexb@starbourne.com
> Tel: 510-849-2309
> Fax: By Request
>
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