The Velvet Anxiety of Paranoia, page 1

All my friends and family think I'm paranoid...of course, they don't say this to my face, but I know they're saying it about me behind my back!

Paranoia is a term used often to describe conspiracy theorists or people who hold a strong mistrust for the government and political agendas. The term has been historically used to describe a delusional state. The etymology of the word is rooted in Greek from the word paranoos, which is roughly translated into "beyond the mind". Broken down more literally, the word para is equivalent to "outside" and nous equal to "mind", which leads to an interesting consideration; what thoughts are generated from the "mind" or organic brain, and what thoughts are generated from beyond our own physiology, if at all?

The first question then becomes, are all thoughts produced by the brain? Just where do our thoughts come from? If we presume that we are wholly subjected to our physical state, then it follows that all of our thinking is wholly subjective. Yet, is it? Are we not capable of objective thought and if we are, were exactly does this objective thought come from, if not the body? Again, presuming we are nothing more than our physical state, then our life does not at any point experience a disembodied form.

However, we are capable of thinking both reflexively and reflectively. Our reflexive thinking, no doubt comes from our physical being, but what of this reflective state? When we are reflective, we rely upon descriptive terms such as "looking inward" or "listening to our hearts", but when we "look inward", it is not as if we are turning our eyeballs inward to view the insides of our physical state, and while we can quite literally listen to our own heartbeats, this is not what is meant, by listening to our hearts.

When we listen to our hearts, we are considering an "inner" calling that speaks to our dreams, and not those dreams of which we experience through our subconscious state, but those dreams that define our ambitions and goals and desires. Are these goals and desires merely product of DNA or environmental factors or do they represent something less physical and more ethereal?

"If you can imagine it, you achieve it. If you can dream it, you can become it."

~William Arthur Ward~

What a bold and profound statement to make, that what we can imagine we can achieve, and what we imagine, where does this come from? Is it a matter of DNA that we imagine that which does not all ready exist? Do we create from nothing something because we are genetically predisposed to do so, or do we create something because we are more than just genetics? If you can dream it, you can become it! Are we simply products of DNA or do we become who what who we are based upon environmental factors or do we become who we are based upon our own thoughts? Those thoughts that come from beyond the mind.

What is organic and physical can be killed, and easily so. It is not so easy to kill an idea. Ideas are those thoughts that exist beyond the mind and permeate the ethereal world that lives long after the flesh has decayed and gone from rotting stench to dust. Ideas survive us, they survive our progeny, they continue long after we are gone. So, is it a physical and mental disorder to "suffer" from paranoia, or is paranoia just a pejorative placed upon those who hold a healthy mistrust for artificial institutions designed to push forth agendas based upon ideas that outlive the organic beings who instituted them?

Paranoia can and should be a term used to describe those who hold a mistrust well beyond the realm of reasonableness. An unreasonable suspicion that everyone is out to get us. This is paranoia, as we have come to know the term in its current state, and yet, lately the term is being used to describe the behavior of those who have more than enough reason to mistrust particular agenda's.

It is the natural state for all species to want to live free and unencumbered by needless regulation and unnecessary rules that prohibit our natural proclivity to live with liberty. However, more and more, there are those who insist on arguing that freedom is not a natural state, but some artificial idea that can only exist through the grant of government. That liberty is allowed or it isn't, as if people crave suppression more than they crave uninhibited expression and pro survival actions.

While there are people, demonstrably so, that do exist in a state of submission, seemingly craving order and the imposition of rules made by others, over their own liberty, but is such a state natural and healthy? Is it healthy to prefer slavery over freedom? Is it healthy to want to be dominated? Indeed, is there not some perverse dichotomy between the submissive and dominant personality that seems to blur the definition of control? Who is truly in control under such a relationship? Do not the submissive personalities demand a certain amount of control in their need to be dominated? Are there not rules to this game?

For those of us who do not at all wish to play the dominant/submissive game and prefer a game of more equal footing where all players are in control of their own circumstances and responsible for their own actions, the rules are completely different than those rules that seem to dominate a slave/master relationship. For those who feel compelled to control others, are they healthy and reasonable or are they the ones who suffer from a psychosis?

When terms such as paranoia become used to describe people who merely wish to be left alone to live their lives as they see fit, while fully accepting the responsibility for their own actions, then this reveals much more about the person using the term as a pejorative than it does about the people they hope to label as paranoids. They are revealing their own need to control others and in doing so exposing their own psychotic tendencies.

Either paranoia is a term used to describe delusional and unreasonable behavior or it becomes the more malleable term it is currently being used for, to describe an opponents psychological state, in hopes to discredit their reasonable mistrust of agenda's that seek to control what truly can't be controlled. Paranoia should be a term to describe a mental disability and not used to describe the sound logic of those who recognize the world for what it is.

Indeed, many psychiatrist and psychologist will attempt to attribute to paranoia a sense that world is a dangerous place, as if the world is a coddling and safe nurturing haven where all should feel secure and unafraid. However, the world is demonstrably a dangerous place that can wreak havoc in a moments notice and upend any illusions of security in the blink of an eye. Natural disasters, biological viruses and illness, the unquestionable dangers of erratic behavior by many people and the ups and downs of economies as well as the irrational and dangerous policies of government, make the world a very scary and extremely dangerous place to live in.

When those who represent themselves as "leaders" or "the powers that be" deign to ascribe a mental illness as the source of reasonable and logical mistrust of their own agenda, by calling this mistrust paranoia, it only strengthens the resolve of those who hold this mistrust, perhaps even creating a paranoia where none truly existed before hand. A form of psychological warfare if you will. What should be relatively certain in this game of psychological warfare where terms such as paranoia are expanded to describe a normal and reasonable mistrust of concentrated power, is that when these sort of rules are imposed upon the game the paranoia of both sides only becomes heightened.

Trust is an investment and must be earned. Without it being earned it is not paranoia to mistrust those who have not only not earned it, but continue to show they have no intentions of doing so.