The first edition of this book hardly scratched the surface of the topic that it is titled with. With this new found opportunity to write a second edition I seek to dig deeper into the actual topic of Mania - the manic depressive, emotionally dysregulated condition - from a philosophical and contemporary societal lens by discussing concepts like the adversary, the false self, the inner child, trials, being at sea in the world, consciousness and the fifth dimension of reality, grace and the always freely given opportunity for recovery. Some of the original poetry is rewritten and rearranged with additional context and commentary added. Poems written during the period of mass vaccination following the COVID pandemic and my life in Boston after administrative withdrawal from law school, along with some of my artwork from the period of recovery that followed have also been included. The universe is a great and loving teacher, yet we all have an adversary. The adversary lives within us; it cuts us off from the understanding that we are a part of something greater than ourselves. The sooner we are able to conquer that part of ourselves that desires absolute perfection in the arrangement of our lives, the more time we will have to live in the joy and gratitude that comes with self-forgetting and appreciation for what is. The adversary works through the manifestation of a false self. When we transition from childhood to adolescence and begin to model learned behaviors, the things we think will keep us alive through difficult situations as teenagers and young adults, we can develop attributes of this false self, and these have the capacity of becoming entrenched throughout our lives unless something is done. George Artem
