By the time I got into the PhD program, which was finally a safe environment for a person with my character structure and background, I had already sustained some significant injury to the brain: PTSD. I dealt with this as best I could, although I have no doubt it affected my writing.
One of the best ways I found to treat my own mind was through kindness to others. To give to others, even if one can afford very little, is to give to oneself, since one's brain is a mirror and the deeper levels of the mind do not distinguish between oneself and others. It only knows that happiness is universal. Sensing this I gave portions of my newly found income to a few people in Africa. In one instance this was because I could find no other means to express my gratitude to Dambudzo Marechera, who had become a kind of Christ figure to me, restoring as he did my access to my African self and removing the stigma from it.
Despite such intensive efforts to strap my own wounds I only just managed to write sufficiently coherently to scrape my way through with a pass.
I still believe that the bush remedy treatment I gave myself -- this giving to others -- was the narrow cause of my success.
One of the best ways I found to treat my own mind was through kindness to others. To give to others, even if one can afford very little, is to give to oneself, since one's brain is a mirror and the deeper levels of the mind do not distinguish between oneself and others. It only knows that happiness is universal. Sensing this I gave portions of my newly found income to a few people in Africa. In one instance this was because I could find no other means to express my gratitude to Dambudzo Marechera, who had become a kind of Christ figure to me, restoring as he did my access to my African self and removing the stigma from it.
Despite such intensive efforts to strap my own wounds I only just managed to write sufficiently coherently to scrape my way through with a pass.
I still believe that the bush remedy treatment I gave myself -- this giving to others -- was the narrow cause of my success.
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