I want to begin with a minor caveat (added here after the first draft):  I don’t feel that I’m writing very well, today.  I apologize for this, and I will try not to make it a habit.

It’s now Tuesday morning, and today I am writing this on my mini laptop computer.  Even though I felt pretty crappy all day yesterday—recall that I was sore all over, and it was particularly bad in my “usual suspect” joints and such—I decided I still didn’t want to write anything on my smartphone today again, so I brought the computer back to the house with me.

The bases of my thumbs continued (and continue) to be sore, and the process of writing on the stupidphone doesn’t get any more pleasant as I go along.  Anyway, today I feel a little less achy all over than yesterday, probably thanks to fairly high doses of three different OTC analgesics/anti-inflammatories.

I still feel vaguely as if I am fighting some flu-like syndrome, except I have no fever that I can detect and no other localizing symptoms.  I just feel blah and bleagh, as though all sorts of cytokines are flowing through my body, all those interleukins and interferons and prostaglandins and the like, making me feel as though I am beset by some infection.

As for everything else—well, the world at large continues to be comically tragic and tragically comical, more so of both than usual, and that’s stressful as well.  And there is no more apparent point to participating in any of it, or indeed in anything at all, today than there was yesterday.

But, nevertheless* I am going to the office.  What would I do otherwise?  Lie about back at the house, in my little room, and just…I don’t know, try to pass my time somehow?  It’s not as though I can readily sleep when there; I slept quite a bit less than three hours total last night, and it was not all in a row.  So, if I’m grumpy, I hope you’ll forgive me.  If you won’t, well…I don’t really give too much of a shit.

As for what to write today, well, I guess you’re reading it, whatever it is.  I have no specific topic, or subject, other than the general notion that I’m writing and sharing my thoughts, such as they are, as they stream through my consciousness in response to my obsessive-compulsive urge to write this blog every workday, even though I have no overarching subject about which to write.

I would love to be able to discuss some interesting subject in physics or mathematics or biology—or even medicine, which technically is part of biology—but though there are surely many interesting things being explored and discovered and discussed, they all seem pointless to me.  My state of mind is definitely not good if even my favorite sciences (and science-adjacent subjects) are incapable of grabbing my interest.

So, all I have to discuss, if that’s the right term, is that my chronic pain continues, and my dysthymia/depression continues, and my social anxiety continues, as does my general free-floating hostility.  All these latter things are at least partly triggered and/or exacerbated by my ASD, which is something that is never going to stop for as long as I’m alive—which has already been too long.

I’ve done pretty much all the good I’m ever going to do in the world, probably.  And I did do some good here and there.  Of course, the best thing I ever did was to father my children, so that’s one thing.  But I also contributed to scientific advancement in my own tiny little way, and I did a pretty good job of relieving suffering in my patients, and saving people’s lives**.  And I wrote my books, which very few people will ever read, but which I nevertheless think are pretty decent, and I wrote and recorded some songs, which very few people will ever hear, but which I nevertheless think are also pretty decent.

It would be nice if I felt able to write fiction again, I guess, but even the process of trying seems terribly daunting.  There is little expected reward, since probably no one but my sister will end up reading anything I write in the future (fiction-wise, anyway), if there is such writing, which seems unlikely.  And it’s almost laughable to think that I might write and record any new songs.

Also, in the end, I have always failed at everything that really matters to me.

So, I’m pretty much just coasting along, waiting for my momentum to be used up.  It’s annoyingly persistent, but I guess I can only blame some metaphorical translational symmetry for that conservation of metaphorical momentum.  I’m probably pushing the metaphor too far (a process that is itself metaphorical), but that’s what I tend to do.

I’m sorry to be such a downer.  Even worse, I’m sorry to be so boring.  It’s not personal; though it’s also not strictly business, either.  I don’t know what it is.  I’m at a loss.  But that too seems just to be my usual state.  Perhaps I’ve never been otherwise.

I hope all of you feel better than I feel today, and every day.  I hope that, even on days when I feel good—if there ever are such days again in my life, which feels pretty unlikely—that you all still feel better than I do.  Why not?  The bar is set pretty low, but at least that means there’s plenty of room for you to be boosted up.

*Is it redundant to say “but, nevertheless”?  I suspect that it is.

**Though I dislike that expression somewhat; “saving lives” is always just saving them for later, since everyone dies eventually.