I don’t think I’ll probably write very much today‒though I’ve been wrong about that many times before, so I guess I’ll have to wait and see. I feel particularly tired already this morning, but that didn’t let me sleep uninterrupted for more than a few hours. So far today I’m not in as much pain as I was the previous two days, but then again, on neither of those two days was my pain as prominent in the morning as it became during the day, so I cannot be too optimistic.
I am, of course, trying all my various adjustments and interventions and so on to try to improve things, and they have limited and temporary success in general. But I will keep trying, until the day that I finally give up and/or die. I suppose, of course, that I might even get better. It’s physically possible. But I’m not going to hold my breath, because I’ve tried many, many things to improve my pain, and they have not had much success.
With that in mind, unless you have something truly esoteric that you think I, a physician with a broadly curious mind and with chronic pain, will not have encountered or considered, I don’t encourage recommending or suggesting pain treatments to me. You can of course, and I truly appreciate the sentiments involved in such offers, but they are often frustrating. Also, when people recommend things that I know are just woo, it’s additionally frustrating to have to remind myself not to respond impolitely. Good intentions aren’t enough to make good things actually happen, but they are worth taking into consideration and appreciating. You shouldn’t be rude to people who are trying to help, even if they aren’t succeeding.
Anyway, my new thing that I mentioned yesterday did not arrive; it’s supposed to arrive today, now, having been delayed. I won’t get into it yet, but I maintain my stupid pseudo-optimism, which I cannot explain nor justify, except to say that I’m stubborn. But I have my limits.
It’s been a string of rather frustrating days, lately, and though none of the frustrations are catastrophic, in some ways that makes them more pernicious. With major setbacks, one is allowed and expected to need a real recovery process, a bit of time, a bit of rest, or maybe just some sympathy. One gets a break. With more minor setbacks, one gets no respite, but they can nonetheless pile up, especially if one has chronic issues already. But one will gain little ease from others with respect to them.
For instance, when I mentioned to a coworker that I was having a lot of frustrating things happen over the past several days, I got a reply that everyone was having a rough time‒based on what data, I don’t know. His rough times apparently have to do with taking his daughter to the doctor for a thankfully not too severe issue and his wife being sick and so on. I would give almost anything possible to have such “problems” again, or just to be able to be with my children in a significant way again.
Anyway, I was not terribly pleased, and in response to his statement about the claimed recent local preponderance of irritations, I said, “Well, that makes everything all right, then, doesn’t it?”
It wasn’t the cleverest of replies, but at least I was channeling the Toymaker a bit.
Anyway, I’m sure few or none of you readers are particularly sympathetic, either. Why would you be? I’m no one and nothing, just a weird little “voice” on the internet/web. I’m a wisp of marsh gas, a flicker of movement in the corner of your vision, an occasionally annoying afterthought, like the water that gets on your shirt at the waist from doing the dishes, but that you don’t notice until you’re done. I’m a tiny little grain of rock that gets on the bottom of your foot inside your shoe; it’s not quite bad enough to force you to stop, take off your shoe, and clear it out, but it’s there all the while, and you end up with a blister and other aches at the end of the day, from changing the way you walk.
So, yeah, that’s me. That’s how I feel today. I know, it doesn’t matter to anyone, but there it is. Maybe today will be better than yesterday.
I wish I could say it couldn’t be worse, but that’s never true. Reality has no lowest level. Things can always deteriorate.
Robert Elessar 
As with some of the other posts here, I hesitate to “like” it because I wonder, if I do that am I encouraging the author’s bleak mindset? Anyway, the fact that other people are suffering (and we all do) doesn’t diminish your own suffering, and vice versa. Also I notice a distinct lack of self-compassion here. This may or may not have been said by the Buddha but it’s a really great quote anyway: “You, yourself, just as much as anyone in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.” I think that’s true whether you are Buddhist, Christian, atheist, or whatnot.
And anyway, that thing you are waiting for will arrive eventually. 🙂
The Buddha didn’t know me. Also, I’m inclined to the view that no one in the universe DESERVES love and affection, per se. I don’t really even know what “deserves” means in most cases. In the end, though, I more or less agree with Will Munny: “Deserve’s got nothing to do with it.”
Well, Buddha might have known you in a previous lifetime, who knows. Anyway he perceived the true nature of things, and he saw that every being has the potential to become fully awakened, even if it takes some longer than others to realize this. It’s like the story of the homeless poor person who had, unbeknownst to him, a priceless jewel sewed into the lining of his ragged garments. At any time he could have taken it out and been liberated from his poverty and suffering, if he had only known about it. Everyone has that jewel hidden inside.
Mine was probably the kidney stone I recently had. I know, I know, it’s a metaphor.
Oh, and I totally get what you mean when you say you’re hesitant to “like” a post because you fear you’re encouraging negativity or seeming to approve of ill-fortune. I feel that way a lot. But, when it’s the only way to show quick approval, I often (but not always) just bite the bullet and “like” it.