A full force gale

There was a guy who once stopped drinking his pills. He very soon discovered that he had quite a lot of energy. Phoning up all his buddies he invited everybody at a feast to be held at his house that afternoon.

Celebration of life

He said the feast was to celebrate life there was no meat nor ethanol and no cake, it was just lighting fires and spreading the news. His English teacher Mr Ozzman asked where this feast would be, to celebrate life. James said we start at home at which Mr Ozzman politely remarked, yes it sounds a good place to start.

Fortunately there was a lot of wood around his brother had been trimming trees and James had a bonfire going in two minutes flat. His composer friend Kris was first (and only) to answer the invitation he duly arrived at the party with no meat and no ethanol (by the way ethanol is poisonous). The musician friend was very distraught to hear James had dispensed with sleeping altogether and his brother also was very worried especially at the energy levels displayed.

He was quite busy on the phone too, and made some calls to the vicar and other clergy to share his discoveries and all his new insights into scripture, also for a chat the fire department the local newspaper etc.

“I think therefore I am”. To think is to be, to be is to think, to be is to do etc. He had rediscovered the most profound: “I am”. This one his English teacher found yes it was especially amusing.

He actually had now got very involved with the community the church and so. Cartwheels and singing all the way to church dancing down the street singing psalms and hymns all the way but where he found he was unable to see the minister. People also didn't like it the day he had a fight with the café owner.

Well that evening the action really started and Uncle James got out of hand in a big way.

Manic mathematics

In the meantime he claimed he'd discovered a simple proof for the famous “Fermat's Last Theorem” with a new method he had invented involving addition of exponential functions. This went missing or was destroyed. Some friends said it's a pity because we could have been one (wrong) proof richer.

Well I think in this case the proof was probably wrong from the second line on.

Also he says he had had an idea regarding evolution operators (on vector space). He wanted to decompose a general parametrised operator function (with certain restrictions such continuity and smoothness), so as to represent an arbitrary evolution as an (infinite) linear combination of semigroups.

All this work got lost during the ensuing action.

However he did manage to know the essential characterisation result that was crucial for an important academic research work. Five months later he stumbled on this by accident. Although not complete with proofs the ideas were in order and in effect he had known already then what the equations were.

Thus only afterwards having spent at least another three months and unknowingly repeating important parts of the research, did he find the work was actually already on his PC. In fact months of hard work had for the most part already been done in his manic state in a few nights.

The lion's roar

That fateful night he was singing with even more vigour and conviction and shouting now and then at people that were not there. He did a terrific amount of shouting the same following week he said he needed to clear his throat. The neighbourhood was entertained again with good solid rock music including a couple of “Listen to the lion”s which already doesn't go down well in public never mind full-blast.

Neighbours were upset about this guy carrying on like that fortunately he himself had already called the fire-brigade and the police station explaining that there was a problem here and the police duly arrived followed by the fire brigade. He had to climb over the gate to meet them he couldn't find the keys. They said he'd apparently hid his car keys from himself.

He was asked what this story was and he said no he had one terrific hell of a headache and couldn't find any Terblanch headache powder pills. At last and thank God, it is over.

The pain in his head was because Terblanch was so stupid. That James's head hurt like that and was the reason for all the noise. The underlying problem was Mr Terblanch. He explained Mr Terblanch had an IQ of Zero. He'd just guessed a few answers right. The monkey puzzle gave an IQ score of single digit but just blind luck, it is Zero.

They said they would gladly help and just dropped him off at the state general hospital to find his own way which he did.

Breaking and entering

So that apparently he was left at emergencies with a headache to find his way back home himself. However the pain in his head soon returned with renewed intensity and again he had the terrific Terblanch headache.

When the worst of the headache had abated he was ready for his mission: To free the inmates from the psychiatric ward. Breaking off the door he announced to the sister on duty “The Lord has sent me!” He had decided to attack so that instead of breaking out of mental hospital he broke his way in. From outside.

This doctor there it was explained also to him that they all of them were to be rounded up in a big circle on the rugby field all handcuffed together in a chain after which shock treatment would be administered simultaneously at AC 250 Volts rms.

He can't remember how he actually got there and not much of what happened, save there was a good deal of damage and malicious breakages it took a number of policemen in the end to overcome him and put in handcuffs and leg-irons and without ceremony chucked into his quarters of accommodation The holding cells of the North Central Police Station.

Hail Shaka!

Not injured just his hands were swollen thick like boxing gloves, it was winter the cell was very cold. He had no blanket only a concrete bench to sleep on so he resorted to further shouting. He considered rhino charging the door, a gate of solid steel bars. Head first, the gate's lock his point of impact. However the available distance for picking up speed was hopelessly inadequate so he abandoned the idea and we were spared one rhino with a broken neck.

Then to warm up, stomping around in a circle he saluted the great King Shaka in that cell, stamping his feet in a Zulu war dance and a, “hai zika zimba zimba zimba, hai zika zimba zimba zei! Mow 'em down you Zulu warriors! Mow 'em down you Zulu chief!” and “Impi!” “Nkosi! Bayete!” “Hail the King! Hail Shaka!” A man outside shouted at him: Remember Treurnich, remember the blood river! At which shouted back: If Shaka was at blood river it would be blood puddle!

Later on he discovered he had a slip of paper on him from the police it said “Uncle James. Arrested for stealing one black shoestring” at which he promptly washed the note as well as both his shoelaces down the toilet- destroying the evidence as such.

For a few days he made a terrific noise right through day and night and throwing around tin food plates the whole time bang bong bong bang and shouting at Bason and Bota and all that and a few of his best friends as well.

Eventually after a few odd days a young police officer locked the gate open and, “Let's see if we can help this guy”. “Who are you Sir? What is your name?” “Jock pit-bull of the bushveld. Man of steel.” “Is it Ok if I call you Jock?”

“Where are we going? The Union Buildings?”

Well the district surgeon needed no convincing and off again to admissions at the state psychiatric hospital. There he was asked where he was, and if he'd ever been there. He said yes, it is the Union Buildings and he came to have tea with the President, and asked if there would be taking photos. After two hours searching they found his file and sent him off to a closed (locked) ward.

Jumbo Jumbo Uncle James!

So that Uncle James now found himself in a kind of restricted space closed environment with lots of new friends. There were more than thirty patients in the ward mostly by far black guys.

The first night he could still not sleep in any-case The patients locked in the rooms were shouting the whole night, gwai gwai gwai! stuff stuff! light light light! rasta rasta rasta! check check! This was a busy busy wild wild wild ward.

Uncle James wondered what this was all about it sounded to him like they wanted money it was some kind of business perhaps, trading and bartering maybe and even smuggling. It turns out that check is newspaper and gwai is tobacco, and ward staff was called stuff .

Twice for an hour every day they were allowed in the walled-off yard to stretch and exercise and relax a bit in the sun. Sometimes a row of guys were waiting to be baptised under the tap. A stout sturdy short strong young mine worker once picked him up on is shoulders jogging up and down the yard. Jumbo Jumbo Uncle James! Jumbo Jumbo Uncle James!

Uncle James savagely devoured all his fruits whole, core peels and all of whole bananas apples oranges and anything and everything. The skin the pips everything he claimed it was very healthy all the so much roughage. He certainly wasn't acting very civilized.

Sundays there was a soccer ball and the guys kicked it around a bit in the yard, some of them were quite good. A friend of church came to visit and as he was waiting Uncle James came arm around the neck with a friend of his which he introduced as Dr Kumado. Greeting his church friend he bragged of Dr Kumado's accomplishments, his necklace and his soccer boots, telling the friend that the President had awarded the medal for soccer, and bragged about the new soccer boots that he himself gave Dr Kumado as a gift. Well the medal was a cooldrink cap on a shoelace and the boots were old warn-out hand-me-downs. Amazing that this friend from church actually didn't realize Uncle James was just joking.

One of the patients loved fire, if he had half a chance he'd make a fire. That ward was later burned to the ground one night. I heard it was arson. Fortunately there were no casualties and not even was one injured the ward personnel acted immediately and correctly, they had everybody out in time. It is harder than one might think, with the patients all so well locked in and sleeping.

This James guy didn't like America either neither Coca-cola nor cigarettes. The sister once offered him cough syrup because it was starting to look as if he might die. Uncle James declined politely with a no thank-you I don't drink ethanol it's poisonous you know. It's jet-fuel. It was a very cold winter but he pulled through none the less.

Putting the cart before the horse

As for the actual cause and origin of these types of mental illness, James realised that it is not inherent and it does not start inside the brain, the physical mind itself.

He claimed that in fact (as chemistry) emotion and reason always are a reaction to experience, a result of the influence on the mind from outside, of the surroundings. External factors are at the real root of chemical imbalance.

So to say and very simplistically, a person has an imbalance because he is sick. The person is not sick because of an imbalance. Of course there has to be inter-actions, but disturbances of reason and extreme emotion are really the cause of chemical imbalance and not the other way round. Certainly many would disagree also including psychiatrists. Even the same, medical intervention is necessary and medication is usually very effective.

The keys

When Uncle James's granny phoned he exclaimed to her very excited “I have found the keys!” which really puzzled her and greatly amused him because granny was always looking for her keys.

And when some work friends came to visit driving a big old but spotless Mercedes-Benz, James listened to the engine with his ear pressed to the bonnet. Slapping on the hood. Jip. The horses are in front of the wagon he announced.

I actually knew this guy believe it or not.