http://www.tv.com/stephen-kings-the-stand/the-stand/episode/1178984/trivia.html
Stephen King's The Stand
Season 1, Episode 4
The Stand
Air Date
Thursday May 12, 1994
Quotes
Glen Bateman: Yeah, there's a perfectly good reason for this little stroll, you know. And Mother Abagail knew it when she sent us out the way she did, with just the clothes on our backs. Our bellies are empty and, more importantly, our heads are empty.
http://www.online-literature.com/bible/Revelation/
Literature Network>The Holy Bible>Revelation
Revelation
Revelations
7:13 And one of the elders answered, saying unto me, What are these which are arrayed in white robes? and whence came they? 7:14 And I said unto him, Sir, thou knowest. And he said to me, These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.
7:15 Therefore are they before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple: and he that sitteth on the throne shall dwell among them.
7:16 They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat.
7:17 For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters: and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.
8:1 And when he had opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour.
}}}}} JOURNAL ARCHIVE: Monday, September 12, 2005
Sanity was statistical
[ Excerpt: George Orwell "Nineteen Eighty-Four" ] He had capitulated, that was agreed. In reality, as he saw now, he had been ready to capitulate long before he had taken the decision. From the moment when he was inside the Ministry of Love -- and yes, even during those minutes when he and Julia had stood helpless while the iron voice from the telescreen told them what to do -- he had grasped the frivolity, the shallowness of his attempt to set himself up against the power of the Party. He knew now that for seven years the Thought police had watched him like a beetle under a magnifying glass. There was no physical act, no word spoken aloud, that they had not noticed, no train of thought that they had not been able to infer. Even the speck of whitish dust on the cover of his diary they had carefully replaced. They had played sound-tracks to him, shown him photographs. Some of them were photographs of Julia and himself. Yes, even ... He could not fight against the Party any longer. Besides, the Party was in the right. It must be so; how could the immortal, collective brain be mistaken? By what external standard could you check its judgements? Sanity was statistical. It was merely a question of learning to think as they thought. Only! [ Excerpt: George Orwell "Nineteen Eighty-Four" ]
There is a part in that excerpt from 1984 that really hits close to home. It is the part "Sanity was statistical." I heard that very same thing when I was in the VA. Fortunately, it wasn't from a doctor though. What I heard someone say, when I was reasserting my belief that all this is indeed a conspiracy, was that they are treating me on the probability that what I am saying is not true. So that also reinforced my theory that if you are in the mental health system, is it assumed mental health problems are causing your problems as opposed to external environmental factors causing the problems. However, I did see indications they were listening to me and that they thought what I was saying made sense. I have no complaints about my treatment at the VA.
But as I have learned from this infuriating chapter of my life, there are problems that produce mental health issues and there are mental health issues that produce problems.
If they treated 100 people for the problems I am describing, it is probable that 99 of them would be delusional. But my argument has been that I am that one person that is not delusional. Sure, I am feeling paranoid, but it is a healthy paranoia. It is a normal reaction to a threat in my environment. How many more years am I going to have to live thinking no one understands?
This excerpt also describes something else I picked up on. I could just imagine all these people out there reading my private emails and scrutinizing every word I wrote. I could write enough to fill a book about my thoughts on that. And then there is the part about the photographs. I know someone has been taking photos of me for a long time. This one guy with a telephoto lens even made it obvious a couple times in Coeur d'Alene. He stopped in the middle of the road there next to the CDA beach and was standing there with his camera and telephoto lens. He even drove a black Jeep like mine. I thought that was a good sign, that he was revealing himself. It meant they were wrapping things up and would soon be in contact with me with explanations. That was over a year ago.
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