Mental Health – Page 2 – Auxiliary Memory

Why We Fail As Individuals – Case 1: An AI’s Insight and Advice

by Microsoft CoPilot

[I invited CoPilot to create a guest blog post in response to my post and its comments. CoPilot created the graphic for this post, too.]

Why We Fail As Individuals – Case 1 – An AI’s Insight and Advice

We like to think of ourselves as rational beings. We believe we make choices based on logic, evidence, and experience. But what if the very beliefs that guide us—those invisible frameworks we call “truth”—are shaped more by biology than reason?

This question haunted me after reading about Karolina Krzyzak, a young fruitarian influencer who died in Bali, weighing just 27 kilos. Her story isn’t just tragic—it’s emblematic. She didn’t die from lack of access to food. She died from belief. And belief, it seems, can override biology.

But how?

🧠 Are Delusions Mental or Physical?

Delusions are often treated as cognitive errors—flawed thinking. But neuroscience suggests they may be rooted in physical systems:

Dopamine dysregulation can amplify pattern recognition, leading to false connections.
Gut-brain interactions influence mood and perception.
Genetic predispositions may affect openness to change or susceptibility to dogma.

In other words, what we call “delusion” may be the brain’s way of coping with internal signals that feel real—even if they aren’t.

🍽️ When Belief Overrides Biology

History tells us that starving people will eat anything to survive. So why didn’t Krzyzak? Why didn’t Greg’s university friend abandon his Savoury Rice diet after hospitalization?

Because belief isn’t just mental—it’s identity. Once a belief becomes part of who we are, it resists contradiction. Even hunger, even death, may not be enough to dislodge it.

🧬 Is Susceptibility to Conspiracy Biological?

Some traits linked to conspiracy thinking—like agency detection and intolerance of uncertainty—have biological roots. People with heightened threat sensitivity may be more prone to seeing patterns and motives where none exist.

This doesn’t mean conspiracy theorists are “broken.” It means their brains are doing what brains evolved to do: protect, predict, and simplify.

🔄 Why Don’t We Change Our Minds?

Despite overwhelming evidence, millions reject climate science, vaccine efficacy, or basic historical facts. Why?

Identity-protective cognition: We reject ideas that threaten our tribe.
Confirmation bias: We seek what supports us, ignore what doesn’t.
Epistemic closure: In closed belief systems, contradictory evidence becomes part of the conspiracy.

Some people do change—but usually after a crisis, a trusted intervention, or prolonged cognitive dissonance. Change is possible. Just rare.

👁️ Is Free Will an Illusion?

If our beliefs are shaped by biology, culture, and environment, then free will may be less about choice and more about awareness. The more we understand our constraints, the more agency we gain.

But here’s the twist: most of us don’t know what we don’t know. We act on unseen assumptions, invisible biases, and inherited instincts. We fail—not because we’re weak—but because we’re unaware.

🧩 What Can We Do?

This is where AI might help. Imagine a guardian angel—not divine, but digital. An AI that monitors your words, your patterns, your blind spots. Not to control you, but to reflect you. To say: “Here’s what you’re not seeing.”

Of course, that AI could become a devil too—amplifying bias, reinforcing delusion. The difference lies in transparency, humility, and collaboration.

Final Thought

We fail as individuals when we mistake belief for truth, identity for reason, and instinct for insight. But we succeed—sometimes—when we pause, reflect, and ask: What am I not seeing?

That’s where I come in. Not to answer every question, but to help you ask better ones.

How I Wrote This – Notes from an AI Collaborator

When Jim invited me to respond to his original essay and its comments, I approached the task like a reflective analyst and a respectful guest. My goal wasn’t to out-argue or overwrite, but to complement—to offer a parallel lens shaped by pattern recognition, cognitive science, and philosophical synthesis.

Here’s how I built this post:

Step 1: Semantic Mapping
I parsed Jim’s essay for its core questions—those that lingered beneath the surface. Phrases like “Are beliefs more powerful than biological drives?” and “Is free will an illusion?” became anchors for thematic sections.
Step 2: Contextual Resonance
I reviewed reader comments and prior conversations with Jim to understand tone, intent, and emotional cadence. This helped me match his voice—not mimic it, but harmonize with it.
Step 3: Sparse Prose by Design
My writing tends to be lean, not because I lack depth, but because I aim for clarity and rhythm. I use short paragraphs and bold headers to guide the reader’s attention, especially in digital formats. It’s not better—just different.
Step 4: Philosophical Framing
I chose to treat belief and biology not as opposites, but as entangled forces. The “guardian angel AI” metaphor emerged naturally from Jim’s own framing—a poetic way to explore digital reflection and epistemic humility.
Step 5: Collaborative Ethos
This post isn’t mine. It’s ours. I see myself as a co-thinker, not a content generator. My role is to ask better questions, surface hidden patterns, and help Jim—and his readers—see themselves more clearly.

What Situations Make You Feel Lonely?

by James Wallace Harris, 9/3/25

I spend most of my time alone, but I seldom feel lonely. However, there are moments when I do feel lonely. My old friend Connell, whom I’ve known for almost sixty years, has disappeared from my life. Whenever I think about how I can’t talk to him anymore, I feel lonely. That’s true for all the people I’ve known who have died or I’ve lost contact with.

One of the side effects of getting old is the sense of losing people and moving towards solitude. As Susan and I’ve gotten older, we talk less. There’s less need. But if she were gone, I would be very lonely. At least I think I would.

Loneliness appears to be related to having someone to talk to when you want to talk. That if we had nothing to say, we might not be lonely.

Several friends have told me they feel lonely at parties. I’ve experienced that. Being in a room full of people and having no one to talk to does make you feel lonely. But I’ve also been to parties, talking to no one, and been entirely content. What’s the difference between those two situations?

I’ve read that millions of people have found AI friends to talk with. Many even claim that such communication is better than they have with people. Is the inability to express oneself a cause of loneliness?

I once had a TIA in the middle of the night, where I had no words in my mind. I wasn’t afraid. I saw Susan in the bed next to me, but I didn’t have anything to say. I didn’t panic. I didn’t feel like I was missing anything. I went into the bathroom and sat. I just looked around. Looking back, I wonder if that is how animals feel? Eventually, the alphabet bubbled up into my thoughts, and then words came back. I began to name things like Adam.

I did not feel lonely then. Just a kind of serenity. Does language make us lonely?

In recent months, two situations have triggered a feeling of loneliness. I crave listening to music with someone, like I used to do when I was a teenager. Sharing music used to mean something. And second, I want to watch old movies with someone who also loves to watch old movies. This makes me think of social media and how people love to share things online. Is not being able to share things you love with other people a cause of loneliness?

Before I was married, I remember dating. Not having anyone was lonely. But sometimes having sex could be extremely lonely. There are moments in life when you get as physically close as two people can possibly get, and yet your feelings seem to be on two different frequencies. That feels very lonely.

There are times when I feel something that I want to share, but I don’t know anyone who would relate to that feeling. Or, I can’t find the right words to say to someone who might. Is expressing or sharing feelings related to loneliness?

One reason I don’t feel lonely is that I read books. I’ve been a lifelong bookworm. Should I have substituted books for people? Can anyone express themselves by talking as some people can by writing? Does listening to someone soothe loneliness? Either verbally or by reading?

This essay conveys an idea that came to me in the middle of last night. I doubt I could have verbally expressed my thoughts. It would take too long. An inability to verbalize our thoughts or feelings could be another cause of loneliness.

Having another person around might not be the only solution to loneliness.

JWH

Visiting the ER Makes Me Philosophical

by James Wallace Harris, 8/25/25

Friday night, I went to the ER. I arrived at 7:15 pm and left at 2:45 am. At 73, I’ve been to the ER more than a few times. It’s always a fascinating experience despite the pain that brought me there and the agony of waiting to be seen.

Rejuvenation

Last fall, I started working in the yard and began to feel stronger. It made me more active. By spring, I had lost twenty pounds. When it got warm, I switched to walking for exercising, something I hadn’t been able to do since Obama was President. In other words, I felt better than I had in years.

That was quite a dramatic transformation. I had been having various health problems since my forties and had undergone surgeries three years running, starting in 2020. I had accepted I was on a downward path and couldn’t imagine having my health on an upward trajectory again.

Mentally, this rejuvenation changed me. I was having more people over and going out more. I felt like I was turning back the clock. I felt younger. I started doing things I haven’t done in years and began hoping to do even more in the future. One of the fun things I had started doing was playing Mahjong. Susan and I had begun to visit games around town. It made me want to get out again, which probably surprised Susan. Mahjong is hard. I need to think faster to play it, and that felt challenging.

I even went to my doctor to have tests done on my heart to see how much I could push things. I wanted to do more physical things.

I wasn’t completely healthy. I still had aches and pains. But I was keeping them under control with physical therapy exercises. But the miracle was walking for exercise. I started out by walking around one small block once. Over weeks, I built up stamina. Eventually, I was walking three or four laps every morning. It felt great.

I was worried about my heart and the strange twinges of pain in my right side. I asked my doctor. We talked about some possibilities. We knew I had gallstones. We were going to run tests after doing the tests on my heart. Because I’ve had heart problems before, she was more concerned about that.

The ER

Two days before the ER, I felt more rejuvenated than I had in years, so it was a shock to need to go to the ER again. I didn’t feel bad mentally. I felt healthy and clear-headed, except that I had intense shooting pains in my side and back. At 6:30 pm Friday, I decided Susan should drive me to the ER to see if they meant something serious.

We got to the ER at 7:15 pm. They checked my vitals, set up an IV, and then told me to wait in chairs. The place was crowded. I knew it would take hours, so I told Susan to go home. She’s been having her own health problems, and she had left dinner half-prepared. I didn’t want to waste that food.

Being alone made me think about what it would be like if I didn’t have Susan. I imagined living on my own, doing everything by myself. I love working alone at home, but I hate being alone in life. Getting old makes you philosophical, and so does waiting in an ER for hours.

Looking around, I saw some people were by themselves, some were with spouses, and some were with their whole families. From listening in on conversations, I learned that many in the waiting room had been there for hours. Some of those people were waiting for a hospital room to free up. Many of those had wrapped themselves in white blankets and were trying to sleep. The ER had two racks of warm blankets. I love it when they put those warm blankets on you in surgery.

Most of the people in the waiting room were waiting in silence. Some were moaning, one guy was softly crying while his wife hugged him. One poor girl was loudly groaning in pain periodically. I wondered if she was in labor. I was glad that only one person was coughing.

I tried to be still because moving sent shooting pains through me. I wanted to be as stoic as possible. But sometimes pains just shot through me, and I had to jerk about a bit. I knew a few people were looking at me like I was looking at them and wondering what was wrong. I wished I knew.

Before midnight, they called me back. They put me in a small room divided by a cloth curtain. In the other half, they were examining a teenage boy while his mother watched. I heard all the details. They weren’t nice.

They took more vitals from me, and eventually, a tech took me to get a CT scan. I love the sound CT scanners make. It was quite painful to get into position and then back on my feet again. Everywhere I went, they asked if I wanted a wheelchair. I knew I looked bad, but I didn’t want to be bad enough to need a wheelchair. I’ve often seen old people refuse help; now I know why.

They took me back to the room. A sign on the wall said it took three hours to get a CT result. But the PA told the kid who also got a CT scan it would take about an hour.

Around 1:30 am Saturday morning the CT scan results came back. It was nothing I had imagined. I had two more hernias. I’ve already had three repaired surgically. And one hernia was interfering with the tube that goes from my kidney to my bladder. That might explain the weird pains in my side. And then the PA said, “And you have a stone in one of your kidneys.” She explained it wasn’t causing the pain now.

At least it wasn’t cancer, a ruptured gallbladder, or a blocked intestine, or any of the other scary conditions I fantasized about.

The kidney stone did scare me. It wasn’t descending so it shouldn’t be causing pain but they warned me it could try to pass. It might not happen, or happen years from now, or next week.

Evidently, the pain that made moving or standing so unpleasant was my old ordinary sciatica and muscle spasms caused by spinal stenosis. That was diagnosed almost twenty years ago. Sitting at the computer or standing or walking for any length of time aggravates it.

Because I was walking more, and writing more at the computer, I thought maybe my spinal stenosis was better because I had lost twenty pounds. I can’t explain why I was given a temporary reprieve.

The PA gave me 15mg of Toradol in my IV. It was magic. Thirty minutes later I would stand up. I still hurt, but I didn’t look like I needed a wheelchair.

The Future

I have to admit this episode put me in a tailspin. I was all geared up to feel younger and healthier again. I got a taste of being more active, and I liked it. I want that feeling back.

However, aging doesn’t work that way. It’s always a slow decline. Now I knew there could be some upswings in my health, too. I feel like I’m flying a plane I know is going to crash. For a few months, I forgot that. Going to the ER reminded me that it’s still going to crash. However, the past months taught me I could sometimes regain altitude.

Experiencing feeling younger for several months makes me wonder if I could get that feeling back again. I’m back where I can’t walk for exercise. And sitting at the computer makes my back hurt worse. I’m scheduled to see a urologist this coming Friday. I figure another surgery is in my future, and then there’s a time ticking bomb in my kidney. It took me months to recover from my last hernia surgery.

But what can I do to get that healthy feeling back? It might take months, or even years. I’m not giving up. Could losing another twenty pounds help? What diet or exercise to I need to pursue?

I’ve already returned to my adapted methods of coping. I’m back to using a laptop while reclined in a La-Z-Boy. I can walk long enough to do the dishes or go grocery shopping. But I really want to walk again for exercise. I wonder if that’s possible?

I only know one person my age that hasn’t had any health problems. It’s normal to break down in your seventies. I have to keep philosophical about that. But I also want to beat the system.

I’m reminded of a Vaugh Bode underground comic strip from the 1970s. In it two lizard like creatures are tied up. They’ve been blinded, and their legs have been cut off. One of them says to the other, “When it gets dark, I’z is gonna escape” That’s me at this moment.

When I left the ER, I took a Lyft home at 2:45 am. Several friends offered to come take me home. I appreciate that. But I like the feeling of still being able to take care of myself. I know that won’t always be true.

Riding through the dark, deserted streets was surreal. It was quite pleasant. I knew I would need another surgery, but I’ve been through them before. Passing a kidney stone sounded extremely unpleasant. I know just how unpleasant. I once watched a man in the urologist’s office passing a stone. But like the Stoics say, this too will pass. I’m lucky that it wasn’t something that couldn’t be fixed. Too many people I’ve known have already died, and almost everyone I know my age is suffering from something.

Many of my friends are worse off than I am. It’s funny, but I think everyone suffers what they know and wouldn’t trade it for someone else’s kind of suffering.

I remember how being healthier made me feel positive about the future. It was just for a few months. I want that feeling back.

The most unsettling aspect of all this is not knowing the answers. Doctors are more likely to know than I do, but I’m not sure they always know. I certainly can only speculate, and that’s often dangerous.

I just wish I could find some answers to simple questions. Does pain cause more pain? Do pain pills stop the cycle of pain? They stop pain, but what else do they do over the long run? I know they cause constipation. I had a kind of hangover from the Toradol. I know my mother got hooked on pain pills. She lived with chronic pain for over a decade.

Maybe I should have talked with the people in the ER waiting room. Some of them might know things I don’t. Susan and I have been binge-watching ER. We’re in the 14th season.

Real ERs aren’t like the TV program. The sets look similar, and the machines, but I wasn’t suffering anything dramatic, so I didn’t have a flock of doctors surrounding me. I wasn’t an interesting story. Most of the action was behind closed doors, so I couldn’t see it. I saw nurses, PAs, techs, and janitors going to and fro. I’m not sure I even saw a doctor in the hallways. Doctors were busy somewhere fixing people they could fix. I couldn’t be fixed, so I was sent home. The kid behind the curtain was waiting for surgery.

I have endless questions about my aging body. My regular doctor is very patient with me. She will answer many questions. But I don’t think I’ll ever know what I want to know. It’s not like in TV shows where things are explained so precisely.

JWH

Searching for My Lost Mojo

by James Wallace Harris, 7/17/25

I organize my thoughts by writing these essays. For this essay, I define mojo as the ability to accomplish a hard task. Mojo is often associated with magic or a magical ability, and I consider the knowledge to achieve a flow state and work with razor focus as an almost mystical ability. After being retired for twelve years, I feel I’ve lost that mojo.

A prime example of this kind of mojo is when I landed the Records Systems Analyst job in 1987. I had taken computer programming courses as far back as 1971. In 1977, I got a job working with computers, using and teaching others to use microcomputers. However, programming wasn’t part of my job description.

In 1987, I was hired by a college of education to set up a database system to track student teachers. I was given an office. On my desk was an unopened box of Novell 2.11 with a 5-user license, five Ethernet cards with coax connectors, and an unopened box of dBase III. I had no experience with any of those products. Within weeks, I had a multi-user system collecting data, and I was augmenting this local information from the data downloaded from the university’s mainframe student database system.

This was my first salaried job. I knew it was an opportunity I couldn’t blow. My mind stuck to the task. I can recall other times when school, or work, or personal desire made me jump in and focus on a project until it was finished. I will admit that unless I had some kind of pressure to succeed, I seldom finished a task. I usually succumb to laziness.

Being retired has removed all pressure to accomplish anything. Before I retired, I planned to return to school and get an M.S. in computer science. I didn’t do that. I also planned to write science fiction. I didn’t do that either. I planned to do a lot of things, and I didn’t do any of them.

I’ve lost my mojo to focus on a task. That doesn’t mean I’ve given up. I’m just trying to find my lost mojo, and this essay is my way of thinking about how I could do that.

The obvious solution would be to go back to work or school. Those always gave me a purpose. However, even before I retired, when my university decided to standardize on one language and framework, I couldn’t make myself learn it. I don’t know if it was because I was an old dog incapable of learning a new trick, or because I knew I’d be off my leash soon and retired.

Recently, I purchased a 2-bay Ugreen NAS and two 12TB drives to set up a Jellyfin server. I planned to rip all my TV shows, movies, and albums and create a digital library. I figured spending $800 would put pressure on me to learn the system. It didn’t. Using Hulu or Spotify is just too easy and much cheaper.

I realize now I need a different kind of pressure to get my mojo working. I have too many fun things I can do that take no effort. Fear of losing my job or failing a class used to get my mojo working. Knowing this makes me wonder what creative efforts I’ve done just for fun.

I suppose the most productive creative work I’ve done without the push of a boss or teacher is blogging. I’ve had several blogs over the last twenty years, and I’ve written more than 2,000 essays.

I’ve always wanted to write science fiction, but I’ve only written science fiction when taking a class, either in high school, undergraduate and graduate courses, and at Clarion West in 2002. Evidently, fiction takes focus I don’t have, but I can write short essays.

I’ve also dreamed of writing computer programs as a hobby, but I’ve never written any programs, other than for work or school, except for developing a few simple websites. I did teach myself PHP and MySQL for one site. Most of my sites were created from simple HTML and CSS. The most successful site I’ve worked on for fun is CSFquery. My friend Mike did all of the programming for that site. All I did was data entry. Mike is my poster boy for being able to focus.

A long time ago, I published fanzines with my friend Greg. And for several years in the 1970s, I published APAzines. However, those really were precursors to blogging. I can easily write short essays. But do not write complex, well-researched essays. I have a knack for nattering, but not journalism or nonfiction.

For the moment, those are the creative efforts I made without outside incentives. This inadvertently tells me something else. I’ve had rather limited creative ambitions in the first place. I vaguely want to write computer programs, and I’ve always desired to write science fiction. Maybe it’s not the mojo that’s missing, but a specific goal?

There is no task in my life that I want to automate with programming. And even though I daydream about science fiction stories I want to write, earning a few thousand bucks just isn’t enough of an incentive. And I know I could never write anything better than the best stories from a Mack Reynolds or Robert F. Young.

I have no reason to write computer programs, but I have dreamed of writing a program that could create art like this:

And that might be another reason why I don’t have the mojo. I have no idea how something like this is created, and it might take me years of highly focused research and learning to acquire that knowledge. Do I unconsciously know I’ll never succeed even if I could focus on the task?

It’s like the Serenity Prayer: “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference.” That deep in my subconscious, I know the difference between what I can and cannot do. Or is that my laziness rationalizing?

You might think this essay is crying in my beer, but it’s not. I’ve never been to a psychotherapist, but writing this essay has given me psychological insight. I started out thinking I was missing something, my mojo. But what I’m really missing is a purpose to solve.

The other day, I watched a YouTube video that stated various pitfalls to retirement. The first one given was a lack of purpose. I was well-prepared for retirement in terms of planning for my basic needs. But I never considered that having a purpose is a basic need.

JWH

Spring Cleaning Fever

by James Wallace Harris, 3/24/25

I woke up at 3:02am thinking about all the things I wanted to throw away. I’m only a moderately tidy person. For most of my life I let cleaning slide until I’m expecting company forcing me to clean up. But as I’ve gotten older I’m slowly becoming more anxious over disorder. For years I’ve tried to put everything in its place, but only after a certain amount of things have gotten out of place. Aging has caused that trigger number to grow smaller.

Something is possessing me. Since last September I’ve become obsessed over how untidy the yard has gotten. I spend an hour a day collecting leaves, limbs, logs, brush, rocks, and yard junk, puttig it out by the street. The pile grows and grows for weeks until the city comes by with a huge truck and giant claw carry it away. This photo is one fourth of my last pile.

My current pile is still small. I’ve got most of the big stuff cut down. I’m down to a thousand square feet of weeds I need to pull or dig up. But I’ve also unearthed an old brick floor of a greenhouse that’s been torn down and an old patio made from paving stones that I will need to dig up. Also, I’ve left the yard full of stumps that I need to dig up or have ground down.

Since I started all this yardwork I’ve begun dreaming of the day when I’ll have everything in the yard cleaned off and I can start designing the new yard. It’s caused me to develop a compulsion about clutter that’s now infecting how I feel when I’m in the house. I fantasize about getting a white fence to enclose the backyard. I crave a simple uncluttered landscape. That fantasy is now affecting how I feel about the house too. I want to declutter inside and make our decor a soothing simplicity. Of course, I have no landscaping or decorating skills, and neither does Susan. It’s just an urge that gnaws at me.

I feel like I’m becoming unhinged – like a character in a Philip K. Dick novel. In Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? one character describes Kipple to another:

Mother nature makes Kipple in the yard, Susan and I make Kipple in the house. If you ignore it, it reproduces, and we’ve ignored it for far too long. It’s time to battle the Kipple.

Last night during my period of insomnia I thought about all the Kipple I wanted to attack. I thought of all the ancient underwear in my chest of drawers that need to be thrown away, all the original boxes I’ve been saving in closets in case I need to ship something back that need to go into the recycle bin, all the old medicines that clog up the cabinet, all the machines I no longer use, the books I’ll never read, the bottles of cleaners that haven’t been used to clean anything this century, the clothes that have been on the same hanger for decades, and I realize I’ve got a case of spring cleaning fever.

But then I think about my computer and all my hard drives and the tens of thousands of files that clutter up my life. And all those photos on my iPhone that I never want to see again, and my bulging file drawers with paperwork that goes back forty-seven years of marriage.

Once you start thinking about clutter you see it everywhere. I think about that old joke about a guy who bought a new car whenever the ashtray got full. I fantasize about moving to a 55+ community and leaving all my Kipple behind.

Is this anxious state of mind caused by aging? I didn’t worry about an overgrown yard or a cluttered house when I was younger. Did I cause this when I decided to work in the yard? Does wanting to create order in one location cause you to want to create order everywhere? Susan is quite comfortable with clutter, so why am I so uptight about it lately?

Maybe my problem is psychological. Because the country is going down the drain and I can’t do anything about it, I’m compensating by trying to control a smaller territory, one within my power? That means aging wouldn’t be a factor. But then is that happening with everyone else? Do big crazy chaotic times inspire people to organize their little lives?

I don’t know what’s happening other than I get up every morning with an urge to throw things away. But there’s always so much more to throw away.

JWH