Brendenn Bremmer

      On March 18th, 2005, Brendenn Bremmer put a gun to his head and ended his life. He was 14 years old. He showed no signs of depression, he had remarkable musical talent and intelligence, he graduated high school at age ten. His life was perfect, he was already accomplished, and he was on his way to start a career in anesthesiology. Despite his learning things quickly, he wasn't pushed by his parents, he simply wanted to learn to read among a slew of other things at age three. Brendenn had experience and interest in firearms, so death by accident was ruled out. 

    His mother was a novelist, very Christian, who noted her son's interest in the spiritual world and always doing the right thing; she speculated his suicide was enacted in order to give his organs to those in need; "he came, he taught, he left." His father said, “He’s become a teacher. He says right now he’s actually being taught how to help these people who experience suicides for much messier reasons. Before Brandenn was born, this was planned."

    This event 15 years ago had the nation asking... Why? Why would such a gifted person in a loving family with scant signs of social anxiety or depression end his life with absolutely no warning? I have a theory.

    I am 27 years old, with scant signs of social anxiety or depression, from a loving family, with a successful career as an Air Force pilot. I almost tried to end my life one day with absolutely no warning. Brendenn's story and mine should terrify America. 

    I have musical talent and intelligence. I knew how to fly a plane before I learned to drive a car. My life is perfect, I'm already accomplished, and I have started my career as a pilot. Despite learning things quickly, I wasn't pushed by my parents, I simply wanted to learn electrical engineering among a slew of other things. I am experienced and interested in firearms and any accident in that regard would be unlikely.

    My mother was a novelist, very Christian, and I hope she recognizes my interest in the spiritual world and always doing the right thing. I would never end my life to donate my organs. I don't believe any rational person would do that. I hope my father thinks of me as a teacher to help people and would do anything to end America's mental health crisis that takes 50,000 lives each year.

    I deployed in December. In Germany I took an Ambien and while asleep called my wife and rambled about someone I didn't know named "Janet". The next day while telling me about it, that reminded her to recommend The Good Place. I watched it. That sparked my interest in Ethics, while deployed to a warzone in which we probably don't belong. I also watched Messiah, which sparked my interest in theology. I also read, a lot. In April I went home, and I read more. 

    In July, I decided to follow the example of Eleanor Shellstrop and better myself; so I quit drinking, I started working out, and I started paying more attention to everything I watched and read as a result. At some point in August, I realized all the media I was consuming had something in common. I realized this could be used for good instead of evil or futility, and I may very well have been the first person to have that realization other than people like Brendenn Bremmer.

    The more I paid attention to what I watched and read the less I slept, and my mental health quickly deteriorated to think either I could predict the future, Seth Meyers was talking about me, or God was communicating via coincidences. This happened in a matter of days; while Brendenn Bremmer probably would've kept to himself and carried on, I was extroverted enough to talk to my entire family about my conspiracy theories. And they told me I was crazy but it would all be fixed if I just went to sleep. They were wrong.

    How many other people start to confuse one coincidence after another in rapid succession for God or Seth Meyers talking to them? How many people are told they need to be locked in a mental institution if weird things starts happening to them? Why can't people who are confused about life just go to a psychiatrist, have an honest conversation, and get the medication they need BEFORE they need to be restrained and injected with Lorazepam? 

    As absurdity approaches infinity, the probability of it being real approaches zero. But that does not mean it's impossible for a rational person to flip a coin ten times in a row and predict it every single time. If you watch an hour long standup special from three years ago, and every single joke has some application in something you've thought that day, the chances that time travel is real is still zero, but that does not mean it's impossible to happen. Even though the chances are astronomically low, a rational person would turn to God or science or something bound to their life, instead of admitting the impossible. 

    I believe that is why we have a mental health crisis in this country. Depression and burnout rates are through the roof and luckily COVID may have lead to positive changes in that regard. But for rational healthy people, they may eventually realize that this world is absolutely absurd and God is talking to them even though he would want us all to survive. They just think they can get to something better.

“You see, we don’t know how to explain these kids — not scientifically.”

The Feedback Loop

On 29 July 2020, my life changed. I stopped drinking, bought a kayak, and went fishing. My wife and I had purchased a trailer and straps and all the necessary accoutrements so loading should've been a breeze. It wasn't. The kayak would get crooked, the straps twisted, and it took half an hour. "This system needs to be better", I thought. 

There is one system in particular that has always fascinated me: the positive feedback loop. That is when the output is increased by a factor, and fed back into the same system as an input. With it, scales near infinity can be reached fairly quickly. Drinking is a positive feedback loop. You drink, you become hungover, and you drink to overcome it. It's a dirty hack of our own minds. And as I said, drinking at scales near infinity can be reached fairly quickly with this particular feedback model. But what if you applied a positive feedback loop, well, positively? What would happen?

I thought of that while spending another thirty minutes trying to tie down a kayak. If I could just incrementally make it easier, the efficiency would skyrocket, and quickly too. The first trip I discovered it's far easier if you remember which direction the clip needs to to be facing. The second trip I discovered the straps won't twist if you lay them out before wrapping. The third trip I found you only need two straps, not three. Those incremental improvements, while insignificant in their own right, become part of a system to tie down a kayak as quickly as possible.

The best part is no one had to teach me. There are hundreds of YouTube videos about tying down kayaks; I know, I've seen them. I could've asked my in-laws how they do it. But I didn't have to. All it took were small inputs, multiplied over time. It no longer takes me 30 minutes to tie down my kayak, but I thought to myself, "okay, that worked, but it was too easy. A feedback loop can't possibly be the secret to menial chores." With that I started experimenting. 

Sobriety, nobody wants it but some people need it. I'm not one of those people, but I was drinking a lot, and I did want to cut back. So how can we reduce something with feedback? Introducing the negative feedback loop, the deranged twin of positive feedback. How can we take every input to a system, and reduce it over time?

Well, step one: remove alcohol from the house. That's easy enough. Step two: don't go places where there is alcohol. Step three: do something else. Kayak fishing was perfect. All I had to do was go fishing and not drink at the same time, and I would not drink. When I got home, if I had to mow the lawn, I would mow the lawn and not drink. Starting at day one, this seems impossible. However, every single task or miniature adventure led to some dopamine being released with a lack of alcohol, and that was important to me. This is the negative feedback loop; every input goes through the system, the output is lower than it started, and it goes through again. You can reach zero, or approach an asymptote to zero, fairly quickly with these as well.   

That's two points for feedback loops. Then I started getting cocky, what if we tried layering feedback loops onto each other. I'm just gonna apply some negative feedback to combat my urge to sleep in, throw in something positive to take better care of my house, I'll figure out how to best structure my weekend by developing a feedback loop for planning the day. Oh, it went well. I was tackling three or four house projects per weekend, working out everyday, reading, still had time for fishing and screwing around; the implication was clear. This system works. And it works a lot better than the previous system I had.

There were THREE WEEKS of this bliss in life. Things worked, I worked, the system worked. Sometimes the line was blurred with trial and error, that's how much I can trivialize efficiency. Can't back a trailer on the first try at your favorite fishing spot? Well pick a tree, try aiming for that. Didn't work? Pick a new tree. It's still positive feedback as long as you get closer to the goal with each stroke. After a handful of tries, if you have a good memory for which tree worked, you're gonna back that trailer in dead center every time from then on.

So, where did it all go wrong? Things got weird after that. Really weird. MacDill found a guided missile at the Lakeland Airport and the US Postal Service was being sabatoged by the president and there's this website called Imgur. and I had the bright idea of applying a positive feedback loop to gain fake points on the internet.