july

Memes

mania is to excitement

               as

   anxiety is to fear


(ie, they both are characterized by not being fully specific and detailed about some future thing that may bring you great pleasure or great pain. And this is why mania is not really pleasant even though it is about something good.)

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Mania is definitely a real biological state, similar to a cocaine high except much longer lasting.  I bet we'll solve the mechanism soon. I suspect it will turn out to be caused by a significant increase in the mitochondrial population in cells. Cells have an average of 1K mc normally, perhaps mania is 1.3k.

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I agree there there is a clinical sort of mania that profound and out of our control. (Hope for physical understanding of it, like you say.)

There's also experiences that are not quite clinical in this way that come directly from letting ourselves get carried away with a fantasy. I'm talking more about these here.