Porcupine's wisdom

According to the Chinese ancient wisdom, everything in this universe evolves within yin and yang energy. Yin represents the feminine, water and passive. Yang is the male, fire and active. Both have to be in harmony, which exists to maintain balance in our universe and within each of us.

            My body had to undergo a major shock at the age of twenty-seven to recognize that my yin and yang balance was severely distorted. True, at my birth I received the perfect fire and water combination. I was born in a female body on the tenth of July in Moscow during the Soviet stagnation period. My zodiac sign is cancer and my year of birth is the dragon. The cancer is water and the dragon is fire. However, as one Soviet politician once put it: ‘we tried our best, but you know the rest’. The hospital where I was born did not have any hot water on that lucky day, and my small body was washed with cold water. This first event in my life is reflected in the picture taken immediately after the cold water procedure. Everyone looks happy and cheerful, except me. The creature in the photo has a blue face and looks like it is going to die. Which almost happened, as according to my mum, I developed a terrible flu and was lucky to live. What’s lucky is a big question, since I am not that sure that my life has been particularly lucky.

            In any case, after the cold water and the flu, the yang element took over, and I developed the strange idea that life is about survival. One has to put in enormous efforts in order to be alive, feel happy, and receive love.

            By the age of twenty-seven I was convinced that I had everything one was supposed to achieve with this kind of thinking. I had a nice job by society’s standards, was exercising my body like mad in a very good gym and was dating all kinds of weirdoes, which as far as I could see, was the case of almost all of my friends. And I strongly believed that I had put in enormous efforts in order to have the life that I had.

            Then, what was wrong with me, you might ask?

            One sure thing was that I had terrible problems with my mind. It was unable to shut it up. Although I seriously doubt that my power animal was a little mouse, I have the impression that my mind was constantly busy with analysing and scrutinising. Once I tried a trick, I made an attempt to get rid of my thoughts. I was even able to watch them at some point, like dark heavy clouds around my head.

            ‘Ekaterina, you are not worthy!’

            ‘Ekaterina, you are stupid.’

            ‘Ekaterina, you are a failure.’

            ‘Ekaterina, you are a total failure.’

            ‘Ekaterina, you are bad.’

            ‘Please, god, take away my mind.’

            ‘There is no god!’

            ‘I need a cigarette.’

            ‘You are mad!’

            ‘Please, god, help me.’

            ‘According to Nietzsche, god is dead.’

            ‘Nietzsche was mad.’

            ‘So, are you.’

            ‘AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA.’

            You see, I did have a problem.

            Another black spot in my biography is my name. My name, Netchitailova, is the size of a skyscraper in New York city and caused me only trouble while subscribing to libraries or opening a bank account. Netchitailova is unpronounceable in other languages other than Russian and means unreadable. This in itself is quite a pity, since my biggest passion in life is reading. Though it is not as bad as some other names in the Russian language. Imagine if you have the name Netchactlivaya, which means unhappy, and try to convince strangers or your friends that you might be in a cheerful mood.

            The third thing, which is for sure, is that officially I am indeed mad. A certificate from psychiatrists that I’ve been psychotic is definite proof of my madness.

            What is psychosis, you might ask? The usual scientific definition explains this phenomenon as a state of mind which is characterised by a loss of contact with reality, accompanied by delusions and hallucinations (including hearing voices). Well, it probably does not say much to you as, according to this definition, the majority of the world population is in constant psychosis. Someone is suffering from a delusion of being on a mission from God to liberate the world from terrorists, another believes in extra-terrestrials and I know a woman who makes millions of dollars by claiming that she can communicate with dead people.

            A real psychosis is when your madness is confirmed by a certified psychiatrist.