He is looking down at the belay, staring into mein stricken augen blaue, then with a booming gutteral force of air his voice explodes with “ROOOOOCKKKK!!”; the call to arms of that universal activator which says, “fucking move now!” - to which one’s autonomic system - that complex network of neurons and axons governing every cell goes into overdrive, with norepinephrine and adrenaline blasting through dopamine’s enzymatic conversion to maximize the “Fight or Flight” instincts which must be concurrently acknowledged by higher-order consciousness while not succumbing to bullshit that will absolutely get a climber killed - reactive-only-action.

Reactive response exists in contrast to a specialized and challenging to acquire-adapt-improve skill set which allows higher-order consciousness to shunt autonomic signals via a process of sensory-aware sensory-fuckoffedness cognitive control mode - the name of which might not have a formal name at all. It’s simply what I learned while climbing mountains without ropes and not trying to die; so maybe it’s called the "Try Not To Die Method of Getting High"

Dopamine is converted into norepinephrine by the enzyme “Dopamine Beta-Hydroxylase” (DBH), which is located inside synaptic vesicles. Conversion occurs after dopamine is actively transported into the vesicle, distinguishing it from earlier synthesis steps which occur in the cytoplasm.

Norepinephrine is then converted into epinephrine (adrenaline) by the enzyme “Phenylethanolamine N-Methyl-Transferase” (PNMT).

This final step takes place in the cytoplasm of chromaffin cells in the adrenal medulla and requires S-adenosylmethionine (SAM) as a methyl donor; PNMT activity is induced by glucocorticoids.

It’s an electrifying sensation as the mind detaches from space-time to operate in a slow-motion rapid response. Every moment, every unit of time, concurrently experienced in its duality - rapid movement in slow motion; if you know, you know, otherwise words will do this no justice to describe. Everything is now, and that now is perfect, and that now never wants to let you leave or vice-versa. It is not reproducible in a lab, or a capsule, or ETOH bound liquid.

Try as I might over the years to reproduce it via neuropharmacology it remains mostly (though not entirely) elusive; bothering with this only by the time I was no longer able to climb, nor to ride, row, ski, or engage in any of the momentums which have tethered me so strongly to this thread of existence. That thread is slipping now, faster, with one trajectory ~ and I am no longer roped.

That state of now existed in moments hard fought, sometimes not won - but in retreat to safer conditions - a battle that exists in the mind, driven by the body, always coming back for more. Why else would two people rope up to climb a “wall of rock and ice that did not exactly need climbing”? It was not for food subsistence, nor tangible profit, but for health - not “have a whatever every day for cardiac health” - for health of the mind and body. To experience that leading edge from start to finish, in slow and then fast and then into the now of tunnel-vision focus; where nothing else mattered, the vertical calling.

Not Interested in Outpatient Care, the Treatments Don’t Work

This level of time-aware physical detachment, amplified cognition, boosted sensorial awareness, is perhaps the most beautiful psychologically addictive “in the good way” states of being to experience. Definitely better than the morphine drip in the ICU, the Dilaudid drip in some other ICU, better still than the Fentanyl patch during the months of long term outpatient recovery. I don’t want numbness; I don’t want death; I just want to be back on that wall.

ROCKFALL! MOVE! NOW! FASTER!
Brace the rope-holding shoulder to the wall, lock the rope-holding hand downward, set two foot-holds active, ensure three points of contact, and never let go of the belay rope - even if you’re using a GriGri style auto-locker. With a hard slap the rope’s little slack slams upward, grinding your rigging; tight quickly means the first piece held, snapping staccato means pieces are pulling out. Screaming upward after a moment, “FINISH THE FUCKING PITCH already, my ASS IS FUCKING FREEZING here!”

More rocks, more ice, keeps falling from above. His booming voice still echo’ing into the canyon in near-total darkness, the response in jest to my demands. With the sun still an hour away as we climb by headlamp, this is taking both more and less time in some sections than I had planned. The moon departs as the sun inches towards relevance. Tapping hammers at the final belay at twenty eight hundred feet, only one rope-length to go.

I lead calmly into the darkness, the “Great Unknown Yet Known”; we’ve been here before, a life of endless striving, yearning, never courting death, never to consider that it would come quickly. Then he died; not while his limp body slowly spun - still roped in the November breeze, and from those ropes he was retrieved, dying inside the Life-Flight rescue helicopter as it took his blood soaked viscera to wherever - no one survives a fall like that.

Neck Strained Skyward as Gravity Induced Andesite Impacts

Towards the rigging, towards exposed hands, rock and ice are falling at terminal velocity. Those rapid muscle-memory actions I’d practice in the dark with eyes closed as a teenager (first a figure eight, then a double, then a clove and prusiks, memorized actions hundreds of times over and over in the dark, and other knots with time).

Jolted back to the present, with immediacy I watch these hands move with trained-instinct, rapidly lashing axes to the wall. The “too large for now” chunks of October’s volcanic ash-stained ice smash into my helmet, shattering into the nothingness of the void below. Had I known the trajectory then, I would not have come home that day.

CyberKnife is a non-invasive, image-guided stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS) and stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT) system that uses a robotic arm to deliver high-dose radiation with sub-millimeter accuracy.

Key advantages include not being a “let’s shave part of your beautiful curls and cut a piece of the skull off, and then dig around till we find all the bad stuff!” type of treatment.

• Non-invasive radiation with no incisions, anesthesia, or recovery time.
• Fewer sessions, typically 1 to 5 visits, compared to 40+ for conventional radiation.
• Outpatient procedure allowing patients to resume normal activities immediately.
• Effective treatment for inoperable or complex tumors previously considered untreatable by surgery.

To Live and Die and Live Again

I am not a proponent of the concept of Free Will. I’m not exactly “against it”, as that lacks ontological accuracy and is slightly confusing, rather my experiences have defined limits which lead in fractals, concurrently, threads converging occasionally, splitting again.

Choose your failure mode and you will find it quickly.

Please Skip the Philosophy

A valid request. Perhaps you don’t care about this verbosity of thought, or considerations therein, or maybe you’re aware of the reprisals and follies and want to move on to the engineering discussion? If so, simply scroll down to the section titled, “How Does This Relate to Memory”. Note that in doing so you will miss a blurb from Office Space.

Endeavor to Endure the Philosophy

A fair degree of the human experience involves a process by which those of “early-phase cognition” attempt to self-obfuscate their “desire for desire”, attempting to live a life of nebulous and fleeting happiness, non-blissfully and unaware that it is this desire to feel and experience desire itself which has cornered their experience into a lifetime of endless searching, yearning, wanting, never satiated, eventually growing old and stale and losing their imaginative or creative or physical edge.

This cycle of The Great Chase is one basis of Sisiphean frustration; one which - until it is surpassed - which requires being acknowledged, accepted, and integrated into their forward movement

Some understand that to exist with desire, that all-controlling force, seemingly inescapable force which presses down upon the rock, forever trapping your perspective into the wheel of the unknown yet forever traveled, repeating mistakes which others warned against, refusing awareness of one’s own misfortunate mentality and guiding-line towards an inevitable failure; experiences from which all lessons are never to be learned.

Go ahead. Do it. Don’t learn from others. Do everything yourself, do it with the veracity by which you have become convinced is correct - do everything as though this is the first time anyone has ever tried to achieve the new shiny thing. Surely, this must be the path towards truth, self-realization, self-actualization, self-assurance, and that desperation of desire for freedom from desire to desire everything… and then… surely success is ensured?

No, that modality of mentality would achieve its opposite effect, and it would be a waste of everyone’s time; because despite the ego-driven main-character syndrome which has become so performatively boring in the past two decades of social media, it’s not all about You, or Me, it’s about Everyone alive and even those who we have loved who died.

Mr. Gibbons

Peter Gibbons:
It’s not just about me and my dream of doing nothing. It’s about all of us… Michael, we don’t have a lot of time on this earth!

We weren’t meant to spend it this way. Human beings were not meant to sit in little cubicles staring at computer screens all day, filling out useless forms and listening to eight different bosses drone on about about mission statements.

Michael Bolton:
I told those fudge-packers I liked Michael Bolton’s music.

Peter Gibbons:
Oh, That is not right, Michael.

Purposeless self-serving inefficiency which is predicated on assured failure wastes time that humanity does not have - we do not have time for oppositional defiance induced mediocrity. Stop the gamification.

The Mindset of Being Simply Wrong

Instead of repeating the pattern described above, grow the fuck up and learn how to effectively learn from others, to learn from the past, to learn using a reinforcement framework of concept-action-processing. “Thems may be big words”, but this is not a complicated concept. One does not have to choose the path of stupidity; ignorance - we’re all ignorant in all manner of ways and that’s inescapable; however when one ignores the data, ignores the lesson, and chooses the path before them via oppositional defiance, that’s called “being stupid”. It’s stupid not to learn from others.

How Does This Relate to Memory

Memory is everything. The conscious experience, the neural network running inside our brains, the execution of “The Default Mode Network”, requires effective memory - short term a well as consolidation to long-term memory.

So, when the industry was informed of the untimely discontinuation of Intel’s Optane NVDIMMs… we were all screwed. Until Q2 2026. Now it’s Q2 and finally CXL non-volatile memory is available in sufficiently equivalent density, performance, and lifespan to exceed Optane’s role, and it is available in PCIe Gen-4 and Gen-5 and soon… Gen-6.

An Introduction to CXL

• It’s not HBM, it’s not 3D-Xpoint, it’s not SRAM, nor vRAM
• CXL is packaged in PCIe, U.3, and EDSFF formats
• CXL offers dense capacity, low-latency, and exceptional I/O
• CXL is made for Ai/HPC/OLTP memory acceleration
• CXL is the new hotness, it is the new standard, it is performance

HPC Cluster Storage Acceleration

CXL is being built into (not next-gen, now-gen) storage appliances and network protocol accelerator systems used in High Performance Computing, Ai/ML which leverages HPC tech, and Supercomputers.

CXL in Telco DSP as Protocol Caches

CXL is perfectly suited for digital signals processing on a range of network protocols and their intra-chassis and inter-chassis RDMA driven networks. There’s one person who I know that hates it when I bring up RDMA - truly an example of being willfully ignorant. Moving on…

CXL Memory in Telco ATAC Chassis

• 14 slots in 19-inch rack ≈→ ∆ {$N total trays per 42U ≈ μ19}
• 16 slots in 23-inch ETSI rack ≈→ ∆ {$N total trays per 42U ≈ μ23}
• Chassis heights from 4U to 15U ≈↑ ∆ [[ μ4, μ19, μ23 ]]
• Telco grade Power & Cooling Efficiency & Redundancy ++
• Mil-DoD Compliant Physical & Operational Security ++
• Industrial NEBS Environmental Operating Ranges ++
• Zero-Downtime Serviceability & Upgrade/Maint ++
• Intra+Inter-Chassis Redundancy (Modular Scale) ++
• Geo-Deploy Designed for regional XOR continental mesh ++

So, Why Should We Listen to Her?

Becausee I’ve been building and iterating these types of storage architectures for nearly twenty years of my career. If you want to do it all from scratch or buy this type of storage performance for 10x the cost, go ahead; the market exists and you can be the big winner.

However, if you don’t want to pay a premium for non-OpenSource storage clusters which are capable of serving and scaling from 10s to 100s of Petabytes, then this is the direction by which engineering solutions arrive at the datacenter. My storage designs range from Oracle’s Exadata & Exascale clusters which have been adapted to run non-standard protocols, to fully purpose-built data-acceleration clusters which use COTS building blocks to provide similar performance and scale at a fraction of the cost (not including consulting, engineering scope, and top-to-bottom fully-automated storage architecture deployments).

As networking has improved, NAND designs have advanced, and costs have reduced on $/TB and $/Watt… yet always… always the storage sizes grow in density and capabilities. This is natural and expected.

Project Coherent Storage, an Evolution

Six primary iterations, tracking the advancement of NAND acceleration, Network Acceleration, Protocol Offloading, Non-Volarile RAM, and now we see CXL capable of being deploying into reference architectures by which all others may be measured.

• Project Coherent Storage v1, (2010-2012)
• Project Coherent Storage v2, (2011-2015)
• Project Coherent NAND, (CMPLX.io) (2015-2017)
• Project Coherent IO-Max v1, w/ Optane PMem (2020-2024)
• Project Coherent IO-Max v2, w/ Optane PMem (2024-2025)
• Project Coherent Storage v3, w/ CXL AIC/U3 (2026)

Development Details - Concise Timeline

A little bit of engineering nerdery for those who care… and btw, the community myth that ZFS cannot fulfill a role as a multi-node clustered filesystem are wrong.

What About the “ZFS Can’t Cluster” Myth?

The “Clustered ZFS” operating modality for multi-controller interactions (not limited to A/B active/passive or even active/active with modified pool-async hooks) requires advanced network hardware and engineering experience which most are not aware of, and so the myth perpetuates; but it is wrong and it has been wrong for as long as SAS drives have had dual-heads and shelves have had 4+ SFF connectors ready for multi-multipath-chaining - and enterprise NVMe drives are also available in this arrangement for the same purpose.

Project Coherent Storage v1 (2010-2012)

1. Coherence Grid (DDR3 (Tier1)) + Custom Relational-Vector DBMS
2. Sunfire ZFS controllers w. Multi-Protocol-Net Interlinks (IB, IPoIB, mNFS+, FC, FCoE)
3. Geo-Dist-Nodes w. DDR3-PCIe SuperCap “Hot Cache Layer” (Tier2), w. Sunfire X4600/M2 @ 64 DIMMs Hotswap
4. Geo-Dist-Nodes w. SAS SSDs (Tier3) + SAS Spinner (Tier4)
5. Controller A/B+ nodes w. SAS-HBA to LTO-N (Tier5)

Project Coherent Storage v2 (2011-2015)

1. Coherence Grid (DDR3 (Tier1)) + Relational-Vector DBMS
2. Sunfire ZFS controllers w. Multi-Protocol-Net Interlinks (IB, IP Native L2/L3, mNFS+, FCoE)
3. Geo-Dist-Nodes w. FusionIO Stacked “Hot Cache Layer” (Tier2)
4. Geo-Dist-Nodes w. SAS SSDs (Tier3) + SAS Spinner (Tier4)
5. Optional A/B nodes w. SAS-HBA to LTO-N (Tier5)

Project Coherent NAND - CMPLX.io (2015-2017)

1. Coherence Grid DDR4 (Tier1) + Relational-Vector DBMS
2. Native ZFS controllers w. Multi-Protocol-Net Interlinks (IB, IP Native L2/L3, mNFS+, iSER)
3. Geo-Dist-Nodes w. NAND Stacked “Hot Cache Layer” (Tier2)
4. Geo-Dist-Nodes w. SAS3 SSDs (Tier3) + SAS3 Spinner (Tier4) [+ optional SAS3 HBA to LTO for Iron Mountain (Tier5)]
5. This architecture was a basis for one of my former startups, which was sold to private equity and built-upon for their HFT clusters under very tight NDA + Confidentiality Contract

Project Coherent IO-Max Storage Architectures v1, 2, 3

These storage architectures share core foundations, with iterations upward as Non-Volatile Memory was introduced on a wider scale into my designs. The initial design for v1 featured the first generation of Intel Optane 3D-XPoint (Series 100), v2 with Series-200, and now CXL taking the place of Optane PMem SKUs.

The details of each design from v1 and v2 may be expanded upon later, simply for historical purposes, and I have other things to do right now… but if you’ve made it this far into the post and want to see the specification ADRs and related research, which is RAG-pipelined and iteratively deployed on real hardware for revisions and regression testing to validate LLM Inference usage & advancements with the now-opensource Coherence-CE version… scroll down for a link to v3’s repo.

• Project Coherent IO-Max v1, (2020-2023)
• Project Coherent IO-Max v2, (2023-2025)
• Project Coherent IO-Max v3,CXL (2026)

Modern neuroscience and artificial intelligence converge on fundamental concepts and terminology. This post may serve as a primer, a method to explore key parallels between biological and artificial systems by examining shared principles, from basic units like neurons to complex processes involved with learning and memory consolidation.

Initially, we have to cover a high-level overview of dopaminergic pathways and memory processes in the brain, then shift to deep learning architectures (including convolutional neural networks and large language models). By understanding how these concepts map onto each other, we can better appreciate both the similarities and distinctions between biological cognition and artificial intelligence. Yay. ❤️

Neurotransmitters and Reward-Based Learning

Dopamine plays a central role in the brain’s reward system, helping to reinforce behaviors that lead to positive outcomes such as food, social interaction, or achievement. This neurotransmitter is essential for both motivation, driving us to pursue rewarding experiences, obsessions, punding, learning, and a hundred other areas of cognition which is dead-set on enabling us to adapt our behavior based on past outcomes. We cannot learn right from wrong, good from bad, etc without dopamine.

Where is this magical compound? It’s all over the brain and central nervous system, but generally speaking dopamine pathways originate in the midbrain, particularly in the ventral tegmental region and substantia nigra. From there it gets very exciting…

Dopamine neurons send widespread projections to various brain regions, including the striatum, prefrontal cortex (PFC), and other areas involved in decision-making and memory.

These neural circuits signal when outcomes differ from expectations, whether positively (unexpected rewards) or negatively (unexpected punishments), helping the brain update its predictions and guide future behavior. It’s not a perfect system but there is a heavily corpus of existing research with new studies occurring every year - particularly with modern fMRI and DAT scanning techniques.

Dopaminergic Pathways

Dopaminergic pathways are fundamental neural circuits that influence nearly every aspect of human experience and behavior. These pathways play essential roles in processing sensory information, accessing and forming memories, regulating emotional states, controlling movement, and enabling conscious awareness.

Without properly functioning dopaminergic systems, our ability to perceive, learn, and engage with the world would be severely compromised.

The brain contains four major dopaminergic pathways, each connecting specific regions and serving distinct functions:

• Mesocortical pathway: Projects from the midbrain’s ventral tegmental area (VTA) to the frontal cortex, supporting executive functions and decision-making
• Mesolimbic pathway: Connects the VTA to the nucleus accumbens, central to reward processing and motivation
• Nigrostriatal pathway: Links the substantia nigra to the striatum, primarily governing motor control and movement coordination
• Tuberoinfundibular pathway: Extends from the hypothalamus to the pituitary gland, regulating hormonal balance and homeostasis

Dopamine release along these pathways modulates movement, motivation, reward processing, and hormonal regulation.

These neural networks consist of specialized neurons that synthesize and release dopamine as their primary neurotransmitter.

A significant breakthrough in understanding these pathways came with the discovery that specific dopamine neurons encode reward prediction errors; essentially the brain’s teaching signal for adaptive learning. When outcomes exceed or fall short of expectations, these neurons adjust their firing rates accordingly, providing critical feedback that helps the brain refine its predictions and modify future behaviors.

This mechanism represents one of neuroscience’s most robust quantitative theories: the concept that the brain employs a form of temporal difference (TD) learning, using dopamine-driven reward prediction errors to guide neural adaptation and behavioral change.

Reinforcement Learning

The relationship between neuroscience and Ai becomes particularly evident in reinforcement learning, where both biological and artificial systems adapt behavior through reward-based feedback. Ai algorithms compute prediction errors, much like the brain’s dopamine system does when processing unexpected outcomes.

Temporal Difference (TD) learning exemplifies this parallel. In Ai systems, TD algorithms update value estimates by comparing expected versus actual rewards, a process that remarkably mirrors how dopamine neurons signal discrepancies between predicted and received rewards.

This dopamine-driven reward prediction error mechanism appears to be a fundamental principle underlying both biological and artificial adaptive systems.

The mesolimbic pathway demonstrates this alignment well. When the brain receives unexpected rewards, dopamine neurons strengthen connections associated with successful actions—similar to how Ai agents increase the likelihood of high-reward behaviors.

This bidirectional influence has proven valuable: dopamine research has shaped reinforcement learning algorithms, while advances have provided new frameworks for understanding neural computation.

Memory Consolidation and Retrieval

Memory formation and recall illustrate key parallels between cognitive neuroscience and Ai/ML systems.

• Memory consolidation: The brain stabilizes fragile new memories into long-term storage, initially processing in the hippocampus then transferring to cortex during sleep. Ai training similarly encodes patterns into network weights for permanent storage.

• Memory retrieval: Both biological and artificial systems access stored information when needed—humans recalling facts and concepts, LLMs retrieving knowledge from their encoded parameters.

• Replay mechanisms: The brain’s hippocampal cells reactivate experiences during sleep to strengthen memories. Ai algorithms use similar replay techniques during training to prevent forgetting and consolidate learning.

• Attention and sleep: Neuroscience shows these processes are crucial for memory retention, while Ai research develops computational equivalents through training schedules and fine-tuning procedures.

This convergence helps us understand memory storage and retrieval in both natural and the (often superior) computational intelligence systems.

Convolutional Neural Networks and Visual Hierarchies

Convolutional neural networks (CNNs) are a class of deep learning models inspired by the brain’s visual system. A CNN is essentially a large network of artificial neurons structured in layers, and it learns to recognize patterns through a series of convolutional filters that detect features (like edges, shapes, textures) in data such as images. CNNs have achieved human-like performance in computer vision tasks by learning from experience, for example, by training on large image datasets.

Notably, CNNs were designed with biological vision in mind. Early neuroscientists discovered that neurons in the visual cortex (like area V1 in the brain - but don’t tell V10!) act as edge detectors – each neuron responding to specific visual features. CNNs build on this principle: the first layer of a CNN will typically detect basic features (edges, colors), the next layer composes those into slightly more complex features (corners, textures), and so on, forming a hierarchical processing very reminiscent of the progressive feature extraction in human/animal vision.

CNNs have “striking similarities to the structural and functional principles of the primate visual system,” which allows researchers to compare artificial networks with their biological counterparts.

This means neuroscientists can use CNNs as models to hypothesize how our own visual cortex might represent and transform images.

Cognitive neuroscience and CNNs share terminology like “receptive fields”, the portion of the visual field a neuron or filter responds to, and “layers” (eg, retinal input to V1 to V2 in the brain mirrors the layered structure of a CNN). Experiments have shown that higher layers of a CNN can correspond to higher-level visual areas in the brain; for example, a late CNN layer that detects faces or objects might be analogous to the human inferior temporal cortex where complex object recognition occurs.

This parallel isn’t perfect, but it’s a powerful analogy: both systems learn a hierarchy of representations, from simple to complex. Such overlap has practical benefit: by studying where CNNs succeed or fail in ways similar to humans, scientists gain insight into vision, and conversely, ideas from neuroscience (like specialized neural pathways or attention mechanisms in vision) can inspire improved CNN architectures.

In essence, convolutional networks are a meeting point of neuroscience and computational intelligence systems, demonstrating how a brain-inspired design can yield machines that “see” in a way comparable to biological vision.

Large Language Models & Predictive Processing

Large language models (yeah, the ones with transformers), are called the frontier because they’re precisely where concepts from cognitive neuroscience resonate with computational intelligences.

LLMs are deep neural networks trained on enormous amounts of data, (typically text) and are capable of generating human-like language. In practice, an LLM learns to predict the next word in a sentence by having been trained on countless sentences. Over time it captures the statistical patterns of language, similarly to our childhood periods of learning new languages. This next-word prediction framework has an interesting mirror in how neuroscientists think the brain processes language and other inputs.

According to the predictive coding theory, the brain is constantly making predictions about incoming information. For language, your brain anticipates the next word someone will say based on context, just as an LLM does.

Recent research suggests that the human brain “continuously anticipates upcoming words to optimize language processing”. When the brain’s prediction is wrong (an unexpected word appears), it generates a prediction error; much like an LLM adjusting its internal state when its prediction is off.

This alignment between LLMs and brain function is so striking that brain-imaging studies have found that the activation patterns of certain language-model layers can predict neural responses in the human language cortex as people listen to sentences.

Attention, Episodic, and Semantic Memory

LLMs share several key concepts with cognitive neuroscience beyond predictive processing. These are crucial elements in the ongoing advancement of machine learning and with understanding the human condition.

• Semantic memory: LLMs store factual knowledge and linguistic patterns distributed across their network weights, similar to how humans maintain language skills and world knowledge in long-term memory.

• Episodic memory: Unlike humans, early LLMs lacked personal experiential memories, relying solely on statistical patterns from training text. We’re past that now and all up into flexing what was once emerging research on Mixture-of-Experts (MoE) architectures and stateful processing is beginning to address this limitation.

• Attention mechanisms: Human attention focuses cognitive resources on relevant stimuli, like concentrating on a single conversation in a crowded room. Transformer-based LLMs implement computational attention mechanisms that dynamically weight input importance, creating a functional parallel to biological attention processes.

These parallels reveal shared principles of prediction, context integration, and selective focus that operate in both biological and artificial systems. The brain’s continuous prediction of words and meanings during language comprehension mirrors LLMs’ next-word prediction approach.

This convergence enhances our understanding of human cognition while suggesting cognitive-inspired improvements for LLM development. Yes, really.

Shared Concepts and Analogies

To more easily view the substantial overlaps between dopaminergic brain pathways, cognitive neuroscience concepts, and deep neural networks, the table below summarizes some shared terminology and concepts and how they correspond in brains vs Ai systems.

Neuronal Activation

Synapse & Weight

Learning, Rules and Optimization

Hierarchy

Memory Storage

Memory Recall

The Convergence of Two Worlds

Both biological and artificial systems demonstrate remarkable parallels in how they process information, adapt to experience, and store knowledge. The brain’s dopaminergic pathways mirror similarly designed computational intelligence based reward prediction/error systems, while cognitive memory mechanisms find counterparts in neural network training and retrieval processes.

This convergence enables bidirectional inspiration: neuroscience borrows computational modeling techniques from Ai to explain brain function, while Ai incorporates biological principles to enhance efficiency and human-like performance. Humanity is now locked into a self-reinforcing pattern of mutual benefit, an often beautiful experience to observe from the realms of industry research and personal real-world experience.

Critically, these foundational concepts set the stage for deeper technical exploration in subsequent articles, examining dopamine’s role in learning algorithms and the detailed workings of CNNs and transformers. Stay tuned for more… unless I get distracted by another broken Juniper switch or deeply-felt emotions which require ice cream and berries to overcome.💗

This process combines a form of silent meditation with neuropharmacology — reprocessing memories via old photos while blasting the prefrontal cortex with supra-physiological dopamine levels. The Blood-Brain-Barrier must be crossed, and it must be strictly timed and controlled, while ensuring sufficient “ripcord medication” is available to halt the process.

This is achieved via prescribed medication, nothing particularly fun unfortunately, applying a timed combination of precursor + releasing agent + receptor agonist + potentiators CYP450-3A4 and CYP450-2D6. Regardless of the prescribing aspect, the combination is finely tailored to my neuro-chemistry and has been adjusted over the course of years - it is not for broad consideration or recommendation. In varying ways over the past three years, these dopaminergic alterations have been extremely challenging to manage, process, adapt, adjust, and come to terms with in their entirety.

Neural reprogramming via dopamine therapy is exceedingly dangerous territory when not managed correctly, and is not to be considered any kind of fun or pleasurable. The risk-profile is extensive: deconstruction of self-identity, parasympathetic + autonomic nervous system malfunctions, chronic sleep deprivation, tremors, hallucinations, time-slippage, and the stripping away of sanity. The potential benefits are life changing, bordering on a form of salvation from neurological trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder.

During this time the purpose is to reprogram the brain’s altered response-pathways, repairing damage from trauma and its hold on sensory processing and associative recall. Secondary improvements exist, which include taking an α1-adrenergic blocker after treatment (in this case a “non-selective inverse agonist”, named Prazosin), which settles down the autonomic system.

The Evolving Science of Memory Extinction

Prior to completing my seemingly never-ending research paper, here’s a synopsis on the technical aspects regarding “why this works” as a treatment for scenarios involving a Post-Traumatized Brain. That term is not as common as it should be; there are a lot of people who have experienced various forms of TBI - from mild to severe. The affliction is an often desperate condition which benefits fromPolytrauma Systems of Care.

Let me count the ways in which Traumatic Brain Injury is both caused by or by which manifests its existence to the external world of the unawares.

1. blunt-force impact trauma (me)
2. forms of cerebral ischemia (me)
3. environmental exposure leading to neurogenetic disorders
4. neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinsons and Alzheimers
5. severe emotional trauma causing irreparable alteration to neurotransmitter homeostasis (me)
6. cerebral aneurysm, stroke, grand-mal seizures, cerebral edema, cerebral anoxia

How about some raw data analysis? Everyone loves the facts, hopefully?

The following screenshot is from a wonderful study about Sequential fear generalization and network connectivity in trauma exposed humans with and without psychopathology, which was discussed in a recent post from the Institute for Neuroscience at the University of Rochester.

The full paper is fascinating, highly recommended reading. Moving on…

Dopamine Modulates Episodic-Memory Mapping

Why do we care so much about dopamine’s role in the brain? First, consider the neurological potential which arises as a result of boosting its metabolic precursor l-3,4-dihydroxyphenylalanine, aka L-DOPA. This is an amino acid derived from L-phenylalanine and L-tyrosine, which are effectively at the top of the brain’s food-chain, and when that is increased the brain has more fuel to synthesize dopamine for the therapeutic process. From the research links referenced below we have a list of essential findings and results.

Administration of L-DOPA - Key Findings

1. L-DOPA after extinction consolidates context-independent extinction memory and reduces fear relapse in healthy participants.
2. In women with assault-related PTSD, post-extinction L-DOPA reduced fear responding
3. Mis-timed dopaminergic enhancement can strengthen reconsolidation of the original memory; careful windowing is required.
4. PTSD shows broad impairments in learning and extinction; dopaminergic augmentation is a plausible lever but not standard of care.

Post-Administration Evaluation of Care and Metrics

Indeed. It’s important to keep track of the results and involved metrics for the medications, doses, timing, and end-stage emotional + physical impact assessment. Considerations are given to the following list as well.

1. Dose and windowing are critical to success and repeatability
2. Target the post-extinction consolidation window for Cmax/Tmax levels
3. Avoid dosing on “strong reactivation without extinction” to mitigate reconsolidation
4. Post-care medication tracking, timing values for adrenergic and sympathomimetic reduction curves, potential fear/threat response mitigators, CNS suppressant options

Research on PTSD Dopaminergic Therapy

Before engaging in any of this mad-scientist approach to problem solving, I read a lot of research on the topic. It’s an ongoing area of scientific inquiry.

While I do love science and all of its potential, I should clarify one thing: I am so goddamn tired of dealing with PTSD on an daily basis. The years of damage from sustained episodes of trauma have broken the programming structure for endogenous dopamine management, among other concerns. Not enough dopamine, you’ve got some big problems, as it is responsible for keeping us alive and healthy and happy and successful.

That endogenous situation is a crucial component for this form of therapy to be effective. It’s not just reprogramming memories, it’s concurrently back-filling the malformed neural network etchings, those disordered flows of catecholamine firing-flags (Fight or Flight Response programming: adrenaline, norepinephrine, as well as dopamine). It is a process of setting the roads straight, detangling, erasing, replacing.

• The precursor is the fuel which provides the base metabolic requirements
• The releasing agent boosts conversion of the precursor into the hormone
• The agonist tells the hormone’s receptors to hang on tight and for longer

At coordinated-curves, the result is substantially higher circulating dopamine in the brain — namely the PFC (prefrontal cortex) where memory consolidation and processing occurs. Peak reprogramming requires substantially higher circulating dopamine — plus an awareness for proper management of the effects and inevitable side effects. Caution must be exercised.

This is the kind of situation where the patient has a debilitating injury for over two decades — has tried effectively everything — and are now fully into the realm of experimental approaches to “just get it fixed, somehow, please”.

🧠 PTSD & Intrusive Memory Studies

Tap to expand. Search below.

1. Neuromodulation of Visual Cortex ▼

Hypothesis: Inhibiting early visual cortex during reconsolidation will blunt the affective “gain” on intrusive images.

Cause: Brief memory reactivation → 1 Hz rTMS over early visual cortex (human analogue-trauma paradigm).

Effect: Reduce visual-cortical contribution to intrusive image salience.

Observation: Emotional intensity of intrusions ↓; frequency & explicit memory unchanged.

rTMS Visual Cortex Reconsolidation

🔗 PMC8754386

2. Traumatic Stress Alters Visual Reactivity ▼

Hypothesis: Acute trauma perturbs basic visual-cortex impulse responses that track intrusion symptoms.

Cause: Recent trauma exposure; checkerboard visual stimulation during fMRI.

Effect: Visual sensory reactivity/connectivity shifts underpin later intrusive symptoms.

Observation: Visual-cortex reactivity associates with PTSD (especially intrusion) symptoms; altered visuo-sensorimotor connectivity.

fMRI Visual Reactivity

🔗 Nature (2025)

3. Intrusive Memories: fMRI Study ▼

Hypothesis: Encoding in amygdala & ventral occipital cortex predicts which moments become intrusive.

Cause: Trauma-film encoding during fMRI.

Effect: Stronger amygdala–visual encoding → more intrusions.

Observation: Higher amygdala & ventral occipital activity at encoding predicted later intrusive memories.

fMRI Amygdala Encoding

🔗 PLOS ONE

4. Neural Basis of Involuntary Recall ▼

Hypothesis: Specific encoding patterns in visual–limbic circuits determine involuntary trauma imagery.

Cause: Trauma-film task with later intrusion tracking.

Effect: Identify visual–limbic signatures that drive involuntary recall.

Observation: Encoding activity patterns in occipito-limbic circuits predicted later intrusions/recall.

fMRI Encoding Limbic

🔗 Psych Med

5. Propranolol & PTSD Symptoms (RCT) ▼

Hypothesis: β-adrenergic blockade during reactivation disrupts reconsolidation, weakening trauma memory affect.

Cause: Oral propranolol before weekly trauma-memory reactivation sessions.

Effect: Noradrenergic dampening of restabilization → symptom reduction.

Observation: Greater PTSD symptom reductions vs placebo; supports reconsolidation-blockade approach.

Propranolol Reconsolidation

🔗 PubMed

6. Propranolol in Chronic PTSD (DB-RCT) ▼

Hypothesis: Same as above; test efficacy in chronic PTSD.

Cause: Reactivation + propranolol vs placebo (6 sessions).

Effect: Attenuate emotional weight of memory.

Observation: Both improved; no overall drug–placebo difference; signal in most-severe subgroup.

Propranolol Chronic PTSD

🔗 Nature

7. NEJM Prazosin Trial in Veterans ▼

Hypothesis: α1-blockade during sleep reduces adrenergic drive → fewer nightmares & symptoms.

Cause: Nightly prazosin vs placebo (26 weeks).

Effect: Lower central NE tone during REM/sleep.

Observation: No benefit vs placebo on nightmares, sleep, or global PTSD.

Prazosin Veterans

🔗 NEJM

8. Single IV Ketamine (JAMA Psychiatry) ▼

Hypothesis: NMDA antagonism acutely boosts plasticity to downshift pathological memory traces.

Cause: Single sub-anesthetic ketamine infusion vs midazolam.

Effect: Rapid plasticity → fast symptom relief.

Observation: Rapid PTSD symptom reduction (24h–1wk) vs control.

Ketamine NMDA

🔗 JAMA Psychiatry

9. Repeated Ketamine Infusions (AJP) ▼

Hypothesis: Repeated NMDA modulation yields more durable remapping of threat circuits.

Cause: 6 ketamine infusions (2 wks) vs midazolam.

Effect: Strengthen extinction/modify memory networks.

Observation: Significant PTSD severity reduction; first RCT showing efficacy in chronic PTSD.

Ketamine Repeated Chronic PTSD

🔗 PubMed

10. l-DOPA After Extinction (Women with PTSD) ▼

Hypothesis: Dopamine boost post-extinction strengthens safety memory to prevent return of fear.

Cause: l-DOPA/carbidopa immediately after extinction (fMRI).

Effect: Enhance consolidation of extinction (“remap” threat→safety).

Observation: Reduced reinstatement/return of fear; amygdala patterns support extinction memory.

l-DOPA Dopamine Extinction

🔗 PMC

11. MDMA Therapy & Brain Activity (fMRI) ▼

Hypothesis: MDMA-AT retunes brain networks during trauma recall, lowering visual-imagery contrast.

Cause: Active MDMA sessions within a Phase-2 protocol (pre/post fMRI).

Effect: Increase adaptive FC; dampen amygdala–insula coupling; modulate visual areas.

Observation: ↓ amygdala–insula FC; reduced cuneus contrast; trend ↑ amygdala–hippocampus RSFC.

MDMA fMRI Therapy

🔗 PMC

12. Phase-3 MDMA-AT RCTs (Nature Medicine) ▼

Hypothesis: MDMA fosters fear extinction & reconsolidation updating via neurochemical surge.

Cause: MDMA vs inactive placebo alongside fixed therapy protocol.

Effect: Reopen plasticity; enable trauma-memory “remapping”.

Observation: Large symptom reductions; many no longer met PTSD criteria.

MDMA Therapy Phase-3 RCT

🔗 PubMed 33972795 / 37709999

This is an ongoing research indulgence, a topic very close to my heart. ❤️

Remembering the Past - Photographic Neuro-Therapy

How about some examples from this past week. Generally these are simple captures of points in time, however these are linked to specific time periods of my life when PTSD events occurred. When I see them there is a flood of emotion and physical response: elevated heart rate, deep intake followed by shallow rapid breathing, the echoing surge of norepinephrine from fight or flight response, and inevitable accompanying psychological aversion. These are the effects to be remapped, the process of meditation and cognition-alteration with which to be engaged.

Considerations of Creative-Emotive Outlets

I used to love painting, and perhaps if there were more space for all of my many projects then I would try to get back into the process. Creativity and artistic expression are relaxing and healing; it’s true. Looking back, my last one was a 6’x4’ canvas in acrylics, which I had finished for a contract-design.

After the “assault by gunpoint incident” I simply could not hold a brush, could no longer see the future of the paints upon the canvas, no longer imagine beautiful images finding their way from mind-to-hands. Creativity in that manner simply ceased, and I’ve not been able to resume. Having to stop was like losing part of my identity, connection to passion, vibrancy.

Coming to Terms with Physical Scars

Circa a few years after the coma, we see those two scars which never heal. Sometimes I put concealer on them, sometimes I lose interest in covering them for the sake of the visual public. I’ve written so much about this already, there nothing much new to say right now. I returned, and I live with that fact — feeling every moment.

Early Life and Times in a San Francisco Career

The innocent early years in SF, commonly engaged in expressions of “overly formal” attire for the west coast tech industry. Those occurred at the same time as the gun violence, domestic violence, and desperation-inducing medical trauma. So, how does one already trauma-laden young woman cope with more, while attempting to climb the corporate ladder? Any way she can, an escape artist, international travel, constantly moving, preferring to replace the pain with newness and knowledge.

Coping with a Returning To American Life

There is only so much to say about my most recent return to the USA, moving back to take a mostly-dream job running a hardware research lab. This photo was taken during the initial months when my PRL level began to skyrocket off the reference range; that growing trendline on the many successive blood tests proving tumor growth on the Anterior Pituitary Gland; the Suprasellar-Fossa Meningioma and its migraine inducing Optic Chiasm concerns would arise some years later.

The anterior pituitary secretes a number of peptide and glycoprotein hormones that regulate various cellular processes including growth, metabolism, reproduction, and response to stress or trauma. The hypothalamus regulates the anterior pituitary via secreting “releasing hormones”, somatostatin and dopamine.

The physicians in America ignored my concerns, ignored the labs, ignored everything about this brain tumor for FIVE YEARS until an eventual MRI was ordered. Memories from those five years are extraordinarily difficult to remap, part of an ongoing source of simmering rage underscoring every medical encounter with that health organization. The pituitary tumor was only one marker in a complex set of endocrine system dysfunctions. Regulating its effects in the early stages would have prevented a chain of events from which my body will never return to baseline.

So much physical pain, emotional suffering, and secondary orders of impact could have been prevented if only they had listened (if only anyone had listened) to this one woman’s reproductive system concerns. The medical industry doesn’t care about women - we’re not often profitable enough. Now eight years later, symptom remission requires a forever-expensive and stressful managed condition, but at least thus far I’ve avoided invasive brain surgery.

Parting Thoughts for Project Restoration

The past is not so easily escaped, nor resolved, or often acknowledged — and so it may never heal. However, with sufficient care perhaps these memories may be laid to rest, if not remapped by way of modern self-administered neuroscience miracles. ❤️

Carrying around my father’s old Pentax ME Super 35mm film camera (digital did not yet exist), I would learn the ways and means of translating one’s vibrant sensory world of tangible, visible, and audible queues into a reflexive snapshot of a single ellipses of time.

Film photography platform of my youth, the glorious Pentax ME Super

The science of film, its correctness of inter-related momentary ordinals, exists as a knowable object in its own right; defined by functions which can be modeled, simulated, and counter-adjusted according to objectively determined interlocked sliding scales of equilibrium equations… the science of light was logical, beautiful.

The spatial-dimensional complex of neurons and axons within my young mind was growing rapidly, desperate for knowledge, experience, adventure. So much of that mindset was searching for answers, finding beauty along the way, often in spite of the many stumbles and tragedies intertwined.

On Genetic Inheritance and Endocrine Disrupters

Looking back on those years, I see patterns arise, ones which describe the ensuing years in predictable ways, in their benefits and concerns equally mixed. I was not a canonically ’troubled youth’, rather my troubles were genetic in origin — now identified as ‘Generational DES Syndrome’.

[*] DES = Diethylstilbestrol is a carcinogenic, xenoestrogen, ATPase inhibitor, endocrine disruptor. Linked to a variety of long-term adverse effects in women who were treated with it during pregnancy, and in their offspring, and further affecting the F2 generation of grandchildren.

In simple terms, this causes DNA mutations which are carried forth into systemic neuro-endocrine development, cellular expressions both causative and compounding, as the body develops into adulthood. Whether these cellular mutations result in cancer, neoplasms, meningiomas, metabolic dysregulation, sex and growth hormone disruption, reproductive sterility, chromosomal defects, or combinations of those and other grievous maladies, the possible impacts are vast in quantity and scale — and still being studied.

Some patients lead generally normal lives, ignorant of the cause for their condition, while others experience an unnecessarily early death. In-between these extremes my life has coalesced, wavering between periods of intensely healthy highly-competitive endurance athleticism to months of debilitation from chronic nervous system collapse. Some of my most memorable resting moments were the cumulative hours knocked-out from exhaustion and asleep inside the cold, dark, rhythmic magnetic thumping of a MRI tube, or the pulsing energy waves inside occasionally very warm CT scanners.

DES has disruptive effects which exert negative feedback on the hypothalamic–pituitary–gonadal axis (HPG axis), suppresses the secretion of the gonadotropins, luteinizing hormone (LH) and follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH), and suppresses sex hormone production as well as gamete production and maturation.

Looking back on DES and its impacts within my genetic programming, I can see where it derailed an otherwise normal childhood, where it imparted physical and existential questions for which no adult or physicians ever had answers, and how those early years drove me further into an adulthood focused on amassing knowledge of systems theory, neurology, endocrinology, genetics, biochemistry, and decades of exploration into modulating the steroidogenesis process occurring within these veins.

Coincidentally, I would later learn that endocrine specific cancers were rampant in my mother’s side of the family - likely also from intergenerational DES effects. Over the many years, my endocrine’s HPG-axis would crash in more than one dimension via multi-glandular failures, a pituitary hypophysis neoplasia diagnosis would arise, diagnostic concerns into suprasellar meningioma, and eventually the cumulative effects would lead to the conditions which resulted in my near-death and coma.

Youthful Adventures, Expansive Landscapes

Scaping together enough for a second-hand Manfrotto tripod and lenses for a near-mint Nikon FE2 - the camera I received from my father for one birthday so long ago, that period was when my heart fell in love with the beauty of capturing moments in time. Youthful innocence was at a peak, everywhere held introspective beauty in some manner - if it was framed subjectively well and maintained The Rules.

rain arrives along the Western Slope of the Rockies

Then there was the glorious selection of film: the richness of Velvia 50 - perfect for landscapes but too rich for portraits, the ever-so-accurate Provia 100, the old classic Kodachrome 64, occasionally the normality of Ektar 100, and on occasion spending time without color at all - but oh let me show you Agfa’s superpanchromatic Scala 200, the most uncommon of them all.

I loved this era of film for its uniqueness, it’s vivid ability to capture reality in a way that was lacking in prior decades - eras of advancements in technology which defined the ability for people to capture the present tense and carry it into the future, with accuracy, realness, and tangibility that we will never have with today’s digital options.

the slide films of my youth, vivid colors, rich contrast, a life before the digital world

I loved this era of film for its uniqueness, it’s vivid ability to capture reality in a way that was lacking in prior decades - eras of advancements in technology which defined the ability for people to capture the present tense and carry it into the future, with accuracy, realness, and tangibility that we will never have with today’s digital options.

As with everything immersion worthy, I studied photography via encyclopaedias, library books, documentaries, and by asking a thousand questions. Who best to answer but Elke, the co-owner and an early role model at my local professional photography shop; one which housed an amazing collection of vintage cameras and lenses - many that I would imagine forever out of reach: Leica, Hasselblad, Rolleiflex, Zeiss.

My perspective in those times demanded that the best memories surely must be captured, regardless that slide film was expensive. Each shot was a cherished and planned capture, yet still one were lucky to have 2-3 usable results per roll of 24-36. Fantastisch. I loved every minute of the process.

Of Landscapes and Studio Lights

These slides became a timeline, closely selected and optimized photos of my adventures, my travels: the tragedy of storms and the silent motions of rain, landscapes and sunrises and sunsets, mountains especially loved and well traveled. Of peaks climbed, valleys explored, off-trail backcountry wanderings alone in the autumn, and cold snowshoeing adventures with Vati too.

Then the studio. Learning about black and white film, darkroom techniques, rear-projection lights, soft-bounce filters, shade-booms, and multi-flash timers connected to a remote shutter that I could hold in one hand - the original selfie method, before the term was ever coined. These self portraitures were mostly a private occurrence, an experiment to record an ever-changing existence which often felt unknowable and painfully everlasting, other times its opposite.

long adrift in lostness, many found in my eyes precisely who they wanted to see

Conceptualization of Self

In some ways it was photography which helped me work through the DES-affected hormonal years of explosive emotions: the Conceptualization of Self as an evolving modality. How could one build a schema involving periodic memory without tracking the memories? And what better way to have reference to those than with film?

So, along with landscapes I captured my visage; an evolving physical form of perpetual wonderment and wandering cognition, deeply felt emotions, all wrapped up into a warm body with occasionally ice-cold blue eyes - constantly changing and growing through the years.

a single spoken “please”, but no one was truly listening

From the Outside Life Was Wonderful

Unfortunately along the way there were events of intense and prolonged trauma which led to a deeply felt hatred for nearly the entire era of youthful memories - not for what the photos were, not for who I was, but for the memory’s visual associations with the events of the era in which the traumas occurred.

I had no ability to heal from the events at that time, and so to my young mind those events simply could not exist, lest it were to be that I did not exist. It was one or the other: acknowledge the trauma for what it was, how it had shaped me, and chose to suffer the wrath of my own willing hands. Or instead, I would rather to erase all of it. Erase the moments from my mind and never think of them or refer to them or believe that they were real; to erase part of my experience with life. Years later that wish would be granted, an outcome in ways impossibly unexpected.

Existentially, it was a challenging duality. So the slide portfolio was put aside, boxed up, never taken out to review or inspect or share, and only occasionally forcefully ignored whenever asked about the subjects. The memories did not exist. The cognitive methods I learned became a hardened, steadfast technique, an emotional control unrelenting, and it lasted decades. No one knew anything, and no one needed to. Those memories were only pain (but they were not, my youth held so many beautiful moments, ones which I would only connect with decades later).

Outward Success Surely Heals Old Wounds

Years passed and milestones occurred, much as the loved ones around me had long expected. A standard life evolved. Marriage, a home, thoughts on pregnancy, depression, elation, stress, travel, and promotions, and everything being pretty good on the surface.

A blink of the eyes and there I am again: Bare. Lost. Alone. In the pure Darkness.

Yet family was there, friends were there, all of the markers of success and happiness were there. Regardless, trauma events from years ago were invalidating the potential for happiness in ways unknowable to the loved ones around me. No one could ever know. The memories could not exist, or I would carry them to my grave.

years so often idyllic, if not for the unspoken undercurrent

Concurrently, an undercurrent of escapism, a subtext to the patterns of wants and needs, this was all despite the abundance, and it was that undercurrent which became a rushing and inescapably deep tide. The memories become an unwanted passenger, a little non-angel perched on the shoulder - whispering reminders in the most inopportune times. A foil to the good times, intertwining themselves deeper, demanding either solace and release or self-destruction.

Trauma at the clinical level, the kind which arises from unspeakable events in youth, or wartime combat, or being assaulted at gunpoint and left stripped and alone in the pure darkness of 18th & Florida St at 3am; those somatosensory memories become etched in the mind. Maybe more than one event is etched, maybe there’s too many to describe.

Bleeding out in a sodium-halide bright white tile-floored bathroom, a stainless steel drain on the floor in the middle where the redness of life circles and downward flows. You slip in the blood, bare-footed, abdomen held in one hand, reaching-grasping with the other, screaming voicelessly in full-system shock.

One cannot escape the loop. Is it truly Sisyphean if the endless hill is worn flat, the endured evolved into appreciation for its challenge? The illusion then shows its edge, beautiful, glinting reflections from facets ever-changing, never-ending.

Another World, Another Time, in the Age of Wonder..

The mind loves to travel through time these days; reflecting upon the trajectory, occasionally in weariness of wonder that life has become its inevitability - the duality from which I could never grasp in so many years passed. The sunsets in those days felt brighter, more luminous, unfiltered by the long-evolving tumor’s stranglehold on the Optic Chiasm - our eye’s connection to the brain.

a waning dusk arrives somewhere near Lake Berryessa, Napa County CA

When single shines the triple sun, What was sundered and undone, Shall be whole, the two made one..

Where then, in the latter half of 2022 at the start of treatment? Seemingly perpetually resting in bed, dealing with first and second order side effects from a barrage of eight medications, either targeting the tumor or attempting to shore-up defenses from those side effects. Rapidly, one loses patience and interest in rest.

endless recovery in 2022, photo from my former Twitter account

How about in 2017? Fiji island hopping, searching for demise or salvation, whichever may come first.

another round of “Escape to Fiji”, impromptu rejections of corporate life requirements

Months later? Where else but Nicoya, Costa Rica seeking refuge from those internal storms. I still have that pseudo-military ripstop hat, or rather am on iteration four or five of the same design - very good for napping at airport terminals, or knocking out at the beach.

Playa Langosta Sur, accessibly only during low tide, don’t overstay the waves!

Or decades ago, seasons ago, seeking solace among the silence of snowy peaks alone. When prompted for “where do you want to go to college?”, nowhere, I wanted to go to Talkeetna, Alaska and be in the mountains. My best friend died that November, and everything changed.

what all is there to say about one’s University years, it was a complex time

All of those years, the endless dreams, and seemingly endless sunrises… the recording of those events into neural maps, shuffled off from primary storage over the decades until some periodic recall request.. affected then by environmental factors, by potential cerebral injury, perhaps menopausal hormone shifts.

Is our memory illusory? Are the vector maps of neurotransmitter mixtures changing over time? Yes they are. Still yet, we have no magnetic tapes at Iron Mountain which could store them all, and we have no set method to statically write them to anything other than occasional video or foto medium - film or digital - even the method may shift the impression and the recall.

Perhaps that malleability of memory, its neural alterations inevitable, is the most beautiful quality which growing older finally affords. ❤️

Footnotes and References

[1] ‘The Valley’, in reference to Silicon Valley, the standard California epicenter of the tech-sector.

In personable social terms, an immediate realization dawned upon landing, that so many people seem to love tall western women, to be quite vocal in appreciation and awareness, and what little Japanese I had memorized repeatedly informed to whom they were certainly referring. I’ve never felt tall until someone brings it up, but that all goes back to teenage years when plasma levels of recombinant-hGH were too low, then boosted too high. Short torso, long legs, and that’s just fine.

Those months that summer were memories of a pure, simple existence, the joy of living in a beautiful foreign land with a wonderfully kind culture; one where I could not read a single sign, nor understand more than several helpful conversational phrases. A stranger in a strange land. A summer of intense philosophical reassessment, of isolationist meditation, with the majority of months spent traveling alone through four countries across two hemispheres. Circa 2017 feels so far away.

circa 2017, during a global foray into personal unknowns, just as the tumor began to grow.

Perhaps more travel photos will follow. I’m in a reflective mood today. 🩷

#travel #photography #memories