Black Math: Intentional (but limited) Suffering; a take on the Kamea of Saturn
When things feel overwhelmingly terrible and oppressive, and you feel like a rat trapped in a maze with no way out – it could be time for some Black Math.
This is a clean, elegant and resourceful process for interrupting any mental shitstorm going, assessing and taking action, and get out of the way long enough to stop from being flattened under the weight of self-created catastrophes.
So, below are two versions: the original, paraphrasing the steps given the benevolent anti-guru and cage-rattler Christopher S. Hyatt, and a second, with my modifications, complications and occultations.
I have borrowed this process from Hyatt, though the title is one I gave it. He touches on this process in a couple of places; it is a direct suggestion during one of the inductions in Energized Hypnosis Volume 4 – Transcendence.
He also weaves extensive journalling activities through his patchy, impassioned, though ultimately useful romp The Psychopath’s Bible, which also has a related process of quantified self-assessment called Despair Math. I think I pinched the name of this from there, and from a White Stripes song.
Hyatt’s prescription is quite straightforward – think about all your worries, failings, unfinished business and tasks, all the open loops, and write them down. This is great as far as it goes, “to clear more brain space”, in his own sonorous, hypnotic words.
Variations and embellishments; drawing legs on a snake
Given my proclivities to overcomplicate things to see if they can be augmented or improved, I like to do this as an offering to Saturn.
So, in the appropriate hour, on the appropriate day; I prefer Saturn’s second hour, after I’ve had time to drink some coffee (black, unsweetened, strong) and catching up on the reliably-depressing old media news of the day. As the coffee stains the teeth, so does the reportage stains the mind.
Set the timer for 9 minutes. 3 x 3; a strict time limit draws a kamea of containment, measurement and commitment.
Then, write. Write down all the terrible things, all the injustices, terrors, angst and unfinished business you feel. In black ink is good, though whatever you have at hand is fine; necessity and immediacy dictate.
Write fast and hard with the barren logic of the inevitable cruelty of the world, the awareness of the symbolic violence being committed, and all the bleakness and despair you can summon.
Then, when your time is up, stop, and put it to one side. Let the feelings pass. Go and do something else. Stop the rumination. Just Stop. Eat or drink something.
Later, on that day or another, you may want to look over it; if you do so, approach with a constructive, solution-minded orientation – what can you actually fix? What is meaningfully within your locus of control?
If you don’t feel drawn to retain this document for your secret files, you will likely lose nothing by tearing it into small pieces, burning it, and crumbling the ash in your hands; this is the value of your concerns, your worries and your fears, in the face of utter, cosmic immensity. Heavy.
If further medicine is required, I like to give some change to beggars, as the children of Saturn, again in the appropriate hour and day if possible. Everyone is someone’s child, and alms given with the intent for amelioration is a time-honoured way of assuaging a heavy heart and dolorous mind.