Ironically, when reason failed me, I could only find solace in the writings of a man who has been called a ‘rationalist;’ however, after making repeated and failed runs at being an academic and ending up in prison, what made me a kindred spirit with Baruch Spinoza was not reason, but stress disease.
Addiction to adrenalin highs as a prisoner guard, bottomed out in despair after a prisoner tried to kill me and some years later, I found a young prisoner who had hung himself on Mother’s day.
As a stress-damaged prison guard (retired), I found the answer to why the world is so f****ed up from a stress-damaged seventeenth century philosopher, Benedict de Spinoza. His answer is simple: stupid (or as he calls it, inadequate) thinking. Spinoza says the universe we live in makes sense. Our thinking does not. He explored the reason in his philosophy.
Why do I use the ‘F’ word? When I was a prison guard, I found that the two most common words used by prisoners were ‘respect,’ and ‘f***.’ A prison is a very f****ed up place. Anger and despair hang like a morbid tapestry on the walls.
The prisoners respond to their situation with F.T.W. (F*** The World).
In 1992, a prisoner tried to stick a shiv in my gut. I caught the thrust with my hand. The cut, while superficial, went deep into my soul. The adrenalin addiction I had acquired as a guard, became Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. I lost my faith in life. It was not till I discovered Baruch Spinoza’s God Of Science that I found the way to recovery. By the 17th century, a new description of God was emerging from the womb of human understanding. This was the God Of Science. The church did its best to make this a still birth. However, early fathers of Humanism sneaked a bastard version out of the midwife’s hands.
Stress disease in soldiers returning from Afghanistan and Iraq, was recently addressed in a two-part CBS television series called, ‘Mind Battles.’ . While well-intentioned, the program suffered from the two fallacies that usually occur in discussions on stress disease; 1) that it is a mental health issue and 2) that only a percentage of front-line workers have it.
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