jenks
thread death
which is not to turn a blind eye to the dangers which are real and ever-present. we have to acknowledge the dangers of madness (which is terrifying and destructive) and also to acknowledge the dangers of normalcy (less terrifying, but also destructive in an insidious and life denying way.)
i have had many mad friends, some dead, one in prison, others still with us, and i walk close enough to that line to have been diagnosed once, as a 20 year old, with whatever, so i feel an intense sense of discomfort and unease when people start waving the 'nutter' label around. i feel threatened by it. the threat being what rd laing termed 'the destruction of experience'
I hoped i wasn't doing that - I suppose if part of dematerialism is the loss of a physical self then being overwhelmed by the virtual is at some level inevitable and will lead to all manner of potentially new experiences and one of those will be the kind of psychological trauma my poor friend is going through. As Simon points out it's not new and in a different age it may well have been something else which would have been the trigger or it may be that something different and specific to the net is occuring here.