empathy with the chronically anxious

I feel that the greatest loss of time in my life has been empathising with anxious people. I've been quite good at it because it has been my natural environment, but I am not sure it is always a profitable expense. 

Malaysia is famously anxious - one of our national tropes is pent-up anxiety, and we contributed the word 'amok' to the English. I have written to a greater extent on this before. 

My parents, only one of whom was born in Malaysia, were both anxious wrecks for the most part.

So that is how it became my natural environment, two levels deep around me.

Nowadays I expend some energy here and there in this activity, but generally I am wary of taking profits upfront, as anxiety tends to be a debilitating condition for those who have it chronically. They do not often get well fast enough to make superficial therapy a well-paid endeavour. Professional therapists will string this out and it is a goldmine. I do not prefer to participate in that. 

Maybe one day, I will. 

agama kepatungan hati

Hidup di Malaysia memang pelik. Semua pihak mematungkan agama. 

Satu disyaki mematungkan sebatang kayu.

Dia pulak ingat kawannya mematungkan khayalan. 

Kawannya pulak ingat seorang lagi mematungkan manusia.

Seorang lagi itu ingat orang yang lain mematungkan wang.

Adapun yang disyaki mematungkan kekosongan. 

Ada lagi yang disyaki mematungkan keindahan.

Ada lagi yang disyaki mematungkan tamadun.

Ko patungkan apa? Tahu tak, apa itu maksud agama? 

GABA : DMN suppression

TIL : the GABA neurotransmitter is greatly involved in suppressing the [ Default Mode Network, DMN ], an operation which is required for control to pass to the [ Executive Control Network, ECN ] ... hence the link between GABA boosters like barbiturates and executive function disorders, such as those of the Autism spectrum.

In college I figured out how to quantify conscious experiences. Now I get to learn about how the experiences are controlled. Fun.

what happens if I turn X off?

Studying complicated structures, with multiple overlapping control planes, such as the nervous system : I find it is useful to read first 

• in terms of "what happens if I turn X off", 
• instead of "what does X do". 

They are essentially the same question - however due to cultural reasons, possibly related to the anthropology of linguistics, the positive statement "subject-has-predicate" does not generally provide details of "subject-not-has-predicate". This is quite interesting for various reasons.