The Daily Spot/The Art of Psychopathology: Glitterbugs and Flounders

     While psychopathology does benefit from scientific research of all stripes and sociological data banks in particular, it is not a science.  It is a technique which is grounded in the sort of observational methodologies that inform constructive criticism.  It is an art form, and since no one in those wrong minds of the psych-industrial complex admits it is, the art of psychopathology is an orphan subculture.

     The interdisciplinary revolution that brought psychoanalysis to modern civilization has devolved into a loose but entrenched confederation of nonconsensual control freaks, soft-spoken scamsters as corrupted by the pharmaceutical industry as a bunch of Texas wardheelers gladhanding petty oil industry cash in unmarked envelopes.  Nuance, beauty and cultural awareness have been hammered out of the art of psychopathological diagnosis.  We feed addictive pills to schoolchildren to improve their job evaluations (report cards), inventing imaginary maladies to rationalize the pusherman's guilt.  The genuine maladies of socially induced maladjustment, what Al Gore and/or his ghostwriters termed in a more limited, political sense the "assault on reason", go undiagnosed because the onus of collective psychopathology must only apply to losers of wars and subcultural demons.  I'll explore the stultifying effects of magical thinking in later posts; I bring it up to consider that there is no way to medicate an entire populace in a marginally liberal republic and there is no way to make eye contact with hundreds of millions of individuals to see if many or most of them are psychotic.  Psychosis is fully as contagious as influenza, but most psychotics wear it between the lids.

     See,...see.  See.  Yes, that's it.  You don't need a sheepskin to look into a person's eyes and read them.  Moderate to severe psychosis can be observed by lay people who look without the aid of dsm-gazillion or any other mentor-approved canon.  Look into the eyes and read them.

     There are two basic psycho gazes and I call the afflicted unfortunates who bear them glitterbugs and flounders.  Glitterbugs have eyes that glitter as if twinkling with starlight, darting about like bugs racing for shadows after a light switches on when stress worsens the condition.  These eyes tend to be quite lovely, touching and sad.  Calm, rational eyes make for bland visuals in comparison.  Flounders on the other hand bear eyes utterly devoid of warmth, compassion, or any discernible human emotion beyond obscurely etched anger and resentment, which flares under stress and simmers in other times but never dissipates entirely.  Their eye contact will be as kinetic as a dead fish on grey ice.  

     Glitterbugs express not joy but unspeakable ecstasy when they're happy.  Flounders may throw back their hands and bark mirthless laughter when they're happy, squinting away the possibility of deep joy.  You can have a damn good time with a glitterbug to-nite but they may set a fire in your foyer to-morrow.  Life is a zero sum game to a flounder and unhealthy cynicism becomes as encrusted in their eyes as a century of sleep dirt.

     Charles Bukowski's old girlfriend, the one portrayed by Faye Dunaway in "Barfly" who looked more like a movie star than she does, was a glitterbug.  Donald Rumsfeld is a flounder.

     If you meet either glitterbug or flounder in an alley bright enough to read their eyes, greet them cordially to stay on their good side, then bid them a polite but firm adieu and keep your distance.  Don't trip over the eggshells on your way to the nearest choo choo train.