Hello and good morning.

It’s the first day of October, but I have very little to say about that other than what I’ve already said recently:  It’s my “official” favorite month, but right now that’s about as impressive as saying it’s…I don’t know, my least disliked form of terminal cancer or something along those lines.

Anyway, it’s a new month, and I guess those of you who have survived to see it can feel good about that, if that’s something you think is good (by whatever criteria you use to mean “good” regarding such things).  For my part, I’m not so sure, but if you’ve been reading this nonsense for any length of time, you probably don’t find that admission surprising.

I really feel wiped out, honestly, almost as if I’m out of breath while just sitting here and writing.  It’s not necessarily purely subjective‒my pulse ox is only about 94 to 95 percent right now, which is a tiny bit low, but it is early in the day.

What, you’re surprised that I have a personal pulse oximeter?  Don’t be.  It’s entirely predictable, given my background and how inexpensive such things have become.  Actually, I have two of them:  one at the house, one at work.

I’m somewhat weirdly hopeful, or perhaps wishful, that this slightly low oxygen saturation is the harbinger of a steady, progressive, terminal illness‒a slow-moving pneumonia or tuberculosis or lung cancer or something, even COPD.  I’m just exhausted with this living crap, and there are only a very few things that make it in any way worthwhile to me.

I’m so tired.  I just woke up‒or at least, I just got up‒about an hour ago, and I’m as tired as if it were already the end of a long, labor-intensive day.  Of course, I’ve been awake on and off for hours already, but that’s unfortunately nothing new.

I really want to be able to rest.  Of course, the famous saying is that there shall be no rest for the wicked, and perhaps I am just wicked.  But perhaps if the wicked were able to rest‒truly to rest‒they would be less prone to be wicked.  I don’t know.  I’m just spouting a bit of nonsense right now, don’t take the specifics too seriously.  I haven’t really given any thought prior to this moment about the possibility that “wickedness” can be at least partially a product of fatigue.

Of course, it does make some sense.  We know what impulse control, mainly through the actions of parts of the frontal lobes, is subject to fatigue.  We know that people are more prone to, say, break their diets or pick up cigarettes again at the end of a long, hard day.  Conscience may make cowards of us all, but conscience itself has only so much charge in its batteries.

Fortunately, the frontal lobes don’t get fatigued in isolation, so by the time one’s impulse control is lagging, one’s impulse creation is also a bit on the slow side.  The brain, like the body, is at least prone to getting tired all at roughly the same time.

I’m sorry.  Everything that crosses my mind right now is just turning into meditations on being tired.  I am tired.  I am sleepy.  I am exhausted.  I am fatigued.  I am run down.  I am worn out.

[Help!  I’m being attacked by that most dreadful, ferocious, frightening, and intimidating of dinosaurs:  Thesaurus rex.]

Ugh, I’m already running out of gas, today.  If I had a cocoon, I’d wrap up in it.  If I had a sensory deprivation chamber, I’d go lie down in it.

Actually, that last possibility sounds lovely.  I wish I had one of those.  I’ve looked around the area, but though apparently there used to be services that offered sensory deprivation chambers near where I live, none remain that are close enough to be useful to me.  It would be good, though, I think.

Some people are bothered by enclosed spaces, but it’s never been much of an issue for me.  I was quite happy to sleep in the little coffin beds in the Navy‒in fact, the night I slept in the pitch black silence in a submarine was one of the most pleasant sleeps I’ve had.  I tend to find MRIs relaxing, and when the noises come on, I pretend I’m watching a gangster movie.

Of course, context is crucial here.  I do not like being restrained or constrained by other people, and if someone tries to do such a thing to me, I am prone to do everything I can to hurt and/or kill them, and I will be very hard pressed to restrain myself.  In these cases, my frontal lobes don’t inhibit the impulses, they egg them on.

My frontal lobes don’t like being pushed around by other, entirely finite and fallible and flesh-and-blood mortals any more than the rest of me does.  Even lawful “authorities” are merely a matter of necessity, and they are certainly prone to error, like everyone else.  No one has true, inherent authority over someone else, though of necessity we can give some people power over others, because the alternatives are worse.

Anarchy is rarely an improvement over having a working government, for instance, but that doesn’t mean we should ever take our eyes off said government; it must always be held to task and kept from becoming too self-important and/or self-serving.

I will close with a quote from a Beatles song, and embed that song below, as a reminder to those who would arrogate authority to themselves:  “Can’t you see, you’re really only very small, and life goes on within you and without you.”

TTFN