dysthymia

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What should I headline this post? Oh, wait…

Well, it’s Monday again already, and it is the ninth.  By that I don’t mean that it’s Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, though “The Ninth” is how Alex referred to that piece of music in A Clockwork Orange.  It’s just the ninth of November, which really ought to be 9/9/2026 not 11/9/2026 as it is (in the US, anyway).  As far as I know, there is nothing auspicious or particularly interesting about this date.  It’s just the start of another “work week”, after the last one ended (for me) less than 48 hours ago.

Speaking of A Clockwork Orange, I remember that, for quite a long time, I thought the title referred to the gears and springs and dials of some actual clock, all of which mechanisms were painted orange.  I guess maybe if I had lived in Britain, I might have been aware of the phrase “as mad as a clockwork orange”, which refers to the fruit orange.

It would be a bit silly to have an orange with clockwork in it, since oranges have no moving parts (not counting seeds, which must move in some senses if and when they germinate).  Still, it doesn’t seem that crazy‒I can imagine works of art that represent an orange with clockwork inside, or music boxes…or even clocks that have been made to look like oranges.

You probably wouldn’t want to eat any of those, however.  Still, if you did try to eat one, I imagine it would simply be a case of mistaken identity.  You thought it was a real orange, and you thought it looked delicious.  Of course, why you would try to eat it without peeling it is a mystery.  Maybe the facsimile was made to look at least partly peeled.  Presumably, in any case, you would figure out your mistake rather quickly.

If you really did intend to eat a fake orange, I’m not sure what to say.  Thankfully, none of this has anything to do with the real world; it’s all just stuff that popped into my head as I wrote.  I don’t have any particular reason for writing about it, but (as always) there are surely causes.

Anyway, it’s the start of a new work week, and for the first three days of it, my coworker with whom I share some duties is going to be away visiting relatives.  So, it’s going to be a fairly high-stress week, and I am not anticipating it with joy.

Of course, it’s nothing like as stressful as a typical week during residency or medical practice, but those were stressful because they involved stuff that mattered, at least relatively.  Did it wear me down and sometimes out?  You bet it did.  But it was nevertheless a job where one could make a difference for many people in real and positive ways.

Even when someone could not be saved, it was possible to make their last hours as good as it was possible for them to be.  I cared about doing the job, and I also had a family I was helping support and who mentally supported me (even when they didn’t know it).

Now there’s basically nothing.  I work to get enough money to stay alive so that I can continue working, but I make no contribution to anything or anyone.  And I certainly have no one waiting for me at the house.  But the prospect of trying to change all that is more horrifying even than continuing it.  There have simply been too many disappointments and abject failures in the past.  The juice does not seem to be worth the squeeze (to return to orangey metaphors).

Okay, well, there’s nothing new in that region of idea space, is there?  I might as well drop the subject.  Of course, that raises* the question of what subject to pick up.  Perhaps I should not pick up any subject at all.  I’ve already written nearly 700 words of nonsense as it is.

I guess I’ll round this out with a thought that has occurred to me recently on more than one occasion (and may well have occurred to you):  at least some of the negative phenomena such as road rage and “karens” and online rudeness that we face in the modern world may be affected by how much caffeine (and other stimulants) people need to take into their bodies every day, just to be able to squeeze ourselves through the gauntlets we’ve created for ourselves.

The fact that so many of us also eat lots of refined carbs that play havoc with blood sugar probably doesn’t help, either.  I say this as someone who has been drinking coffee for as long as I can remember and presumably eating lots of carbs for even longer (I was told at a young age that I had a “sweet tooth”; I always wondered which one it was):  we should reexamine and rethink all this.

But I guess that we should always examine and reexamine and think and rethink things, even if we end up leaving things as they are.  A deliberate decision not to change is probably preferable to simply giving in to metaphorical inertia.

All right, well, that’ll do humans**.  That’ll do.  I hope you have a good day and a good week.

*It does not “beg” the question, by the way.  To beg a question means almost the opposite of raising a question.  It means to move forward past the question as if it had been addressed and answered satisfactorily or was known to be known, as it were‒as if everyone had already agreed upon it, though of course they have not.  This is one of those manipulative rhetorical tricks that avoids actual reasoned argument, and I despise it.

**Humans have sometimes been known‒in certain cannibalistic societies‒as “long pigs” or “long pork”.  Thus the Babe reference.

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Was anyone paging Doctor Nemo?

Okay, here I am, and here you all are.  It’s Saturday, and I’m getting ready to go to work, and I’m writing another blog post.  Isn’t it exciting?

Well, no.  No, it’s not exciting.  Nothing is exciting, at least not for me.  The wind is well and truly out of my sails.  The sea is becalmed, but not in a nice, pleasant way such as might bode well for a bit of snorkeling (or whatever else for which a calm sea in decent locales might be good).  No, it’s more like being in a sailboat (with no backup motor, nor even any oars) on a windless day (and week and month and year) at Point Nemo*.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with it, Point Nemo is a spot in the south Pacific that is the remotest location on Earth‒meaning it is the place that is farthest away from any and all human habitation and from other humans.  It’s not really in the major shipping lanes, either, as far as I know.  Why would it be?  Shipping happens from one human place to another human place, so it’s unlikely (though not impossible) that such routes will pass through the most remote place on Earth.  You don’t go from Spain to Morocco via the Sahara Desert.

It’s said that, at the right time, if you are at point Nemo, you are closer to the astronauts in the ISS than you are to any humans on the surface of the Earth.

I’ll admit that, at times, being so isolated sounds enticing.  But it’s one thing to be isolated by choice, because one needs a break, or one wishes to do some meditation, some soul-searching, some introspection.  That can be healthy, beneficial, ego syntonic in the right circumstances.

It’s another thing to be stranded in Point Nemo by oneself, having formerly had traveling companions.  Perhaps you had been part of a flotilla or even an armada, but gradually, everyone else had to go to other destinations, along other routes, because that was just what they had to do.  But you got turned around, your Sat-Nav failed, as did the LORAN, and the skies were cloudy so you couldn’t see the stars to navigate, until it was too late.

Then, the skies cleared and the wind calmed and all rain stopped, and now you can see where you are:  the remotest spot on the planet.  And you’re running out of supplies, including fresh water, you have no fishing gear, and it’s more likely that you’ll encounter a deorbiting satellite than another ship or boat (many space agencies deliberately deorbit retired satellites so that they fall on Point Nemo since that’s where it’s least likely that they will cause any trouble).

I’m sure Point Nemo has its charms.  On a clear night, the stars must appear more beautiful and vivid there than nearly anywhere else on Earth, with no interference from the lights of human habitations.

In an analogous sense, I’ve probably read and thought about various things on my own that I would not have read and thought about if I had human interactions (outside work), and that’s…nice, I guess?  But one can only survive so long without supplies.

The question then can become, does one simply wait until one succumbs to thirst or hunger, perhaps hoping that one might win the metaphorical lottery and have some vessel happen nearby enough that one is noticed and rescued?  Or does one, perhaps, decide to go for a long, one-way swim?

Oy, what a strained metaphor.  Sorry about that.

Anyway, today I’ll work, and some other people will come to the office, but not everyone.  And then I’ll go back to the house, and I’ll take some OTC stuff to help me sleep longer, if not better, and then tomorrow I’ll do my laundry and then walk to the bank and then just…kill time until Monday morning, when it will be time to go back to the office.  And then the same will happen Tuesday and Wednesday and so on and on, until something or someone** kills me.

Maybe I should just knock a hole in the hull of my boat.

Anyway, I hope you all have a good weekend.

*Nemo means “no one” in Latin (“not man”, or “not human”).  This was the source of the name for Jules Verne’s Captain Nemo, from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.

**Technically, every someone is a something, but we usually tend to keep the ideas separate, presumably because of some sense of agency in the someones.  Also, for some reason (or at least by some cause) a lot of people seem to feel insulted if they are referred to as things, though there is nothing inherently insulting in that fact.  People are stupid, sometimes; or as Marullus referred to them in Julius Caesar, “You blocks, you stones, you worse than senseless things!”  See?  Things.

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Who knows what evil lurks in the ears of men?

Well, it’s Friday again at last, and of course, I’m writing another edition of my daily blog post.  I will also be writing one tomorrow, since I will work tomorrow, exclusis improvisis.  I’m writing this on the desktop computer in the office, because I slept in the office last night‒I was on the phone with my sister until it was…well, not impossible to go back to the house, but pointless.

I feel I might have slept better here in the office than I would have back at the house.  Admittedly, that’s not a very high bar, and we’re doing hurdles, not the limbo, so a non-high bar makes things easy.  The air conditioning is not only somewhat better at the office, it’s not noisy, since it’s a rooftop unit.  The one at the house is definitely just a room unit, and it makes significant noise, as does the floor fan with which I supplement its effects.

Of course, during the day, the office is noisy with the stupid background music that’s constantly playing, nominally so the salespeople don’t get distracted by other salespeople’s conversations, but I think that’s dubious.  Possibly, it makes it harder to hear exactly what they’re saying, but I’m not always even sure of that.

I’ve worked in many places, from golf courses to laboratories to factory floors to big ships and, of course, doctors’ offices and hospitals.  I’ve never been in any previous job where people thought that they needed to have noise in the background to be able to work.

Almost anyone, I suspect, would find significantly loud music actually distracting from any job that requires mental effort.  I certainly do.  It’s so much easier for me to accomplish tasks here in the office when no one else is here and there’s no frikking overhead noise.

Although, it is sometimes harder to ignore my tinnitus‒in both ears, but much worse in my right ear‒when I’m in a quiet room, but for the most part I can at least not pay attention to it.  When other things are quieter and there is less chaos and irritation around me, chronic pains like tinnitus (yes, I think it qualifies as a kind of pain, though it’s nothing at all compared to my back and joint pains) are easier to keep in perspective.

It’s interesting that my right ear‒the dexter one, if you will‒is quite a bit worse than my left, or sinister one.  If I were inclined to find meaning in such things, which I am not‒I merely find them interesting and amusing‒I might think it said something about the progression of my moral nature, with the right or good side of me diminished and in constant pain and noise, while the left, sinister, dark side of me has remained acute, and indeed has become relatively dominant.

Maybe that would be a fun idea for a short story:  A guy loses the hearing in his right ear and suddenly finds that, with his left ear, he can hear all sorts of things with dark and evil implications.  Maybe he even starts hearing some of the dark thoughts people have around him.  Maybe he starts gathering and taking advantage of these secrets and other evil facts for his own ends, and so becomes more and more sinister himself.

It being a short story, one could just end it there, with evil ascendant and the protagonist looking forward to a life of malign but profitable activity that takes advantage of his ability.  Or perhaps we could do an O. Henry, Twilight Zone kind of entry and have the man suddenly start to lose the hearing in his left ear as well, all sound now subsumed by tinnitus that he cannot ignore, until finally he breaks and screams and…I don’t know, throws himself out of a high window to his death.

The story could be called simply Auris Sinistra, which is Latin for “left ear”, a fact which is probably obvious.  Or maybe it could even be Auris Mea Sinistra, or “My Left Ear”, though that might sound (ha ha) like it’s trying to be a parody of My Left Foot, which is definitely a different kind of story.

I considered Auris Mea Sinistra Mala, “My Evil Left Ear”, but that feels clunky and is a bit redundant.  It also rather ruins the play on the word sinister, which has come to mean evil or malign, thanks to the idiotic historical bigotry against left handed people, but which originally just meant “left” as opposed to “right”.  And of course, “right” became somewhat synonymous with “good” for related reasons.

These are all fossilized remnants of the magical thinking and foolishness of humans over time.  I wish I could say we had left all such things behind, but I cannot.  Well, I could say it, of course; in a sense, I just did.  But I would not be telling the truth, even though I know what the truth is.  Doing that would be wrong.  It would be dishonest.  It would be unkind.  It would be malevolent.  You might even say that it would be…

…nefarious.

Anyway, Spero vobis omnibus diem bonum fore.  I don’t know for sure that the grammar there is correct, but it’s what Google Translate gave me.  It certainly seems okay based on my Latin knowledge, such as it is.  That’s no quod erat demonstrandum, of course, but it works for me.  At least, it does so when there isn’t too much noise.

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My fiction writing, from up the road to down the tubes

I’m writing on the lapcom yet again, which entails a pretty long streak for me lately:  three times in a row, if I’m not mistaken.  Though, it looks like it’s been a particularly long time since I used the lapcom on the 28th of October—the most recent lapcom-saved blog post on the 28th goes back to 2022 (AD or CE).

It’s hard for me to credit that it’s been that long that I’ve written blog posts using my smartphone, but I suppose the state of my thumbs should convince me.  The MCP (metacarpal-phalangeal) joint and the CMC (carpo-metacarpal joint) are still quite angry on both thumbs.

Anyway, I hope my posts on the lapcom haven’t been too unwieldy for everyone who reads my blog.  I know that I tend to get carried away with myself.  Also, perhaps ironically, I tend to use up more time each morning writing this blog than I ever did on those hundreds of mornings when I was writing fiction, even though I wrote about 1400 words every day.

Part of the reason for that is that, unlike with blog posts, editing was completely separate from initial writing.  In other words, I did not try to edit/fix anything as I was going along in the first drafts, even when I reread the previous day’s stuff to get me rolling on the new day’s writing.  It was very much a process of “get the words out there ‘on paper’, and accept that they will be imperfect and improve them in the editing process”.

I think it worked well.  It was a practice I started while I was “up the road”, though at that time I definitely used real paper, obtained from commissary through the generosity of my parents.  I got up at lights on every morning—I’m usually awake then anyway, although it was around three or so—and started writing until I had completed three or more pages.  I generally wrote in cursive*, but sometimes I printed when I wanted a break.

It’s interesting to me that, with those handwritten stories—Mark Red, The Chasm and the Collision, and Paradox City—a significant part of the editing process was the inevitable act of typing them into the computer.  It’s more or less impossible for me to do that without editing as I go, and that’s generally a good thing.  But it is cumbersome and time consuming.  And I don’t know that it produces better (or worse) material than when I write directly on the computer.

I cannot judge it objectively.  I like the above mentioned three stories, but I also like Son of Man, which was partly written on smartphone in work release and partly written directly onto a lapcom.  And I like the stories I’ve written since.

I even like my uncompleted stories, though they have fallen foul of a bad habit or tendency that has always caused me trouble:  I would start something new before finishing the previous thing.  I had blocked this habit starting while up the road by being ruthless and committing myself to finishing one book or story before starting any part of another.  If I had an idea for a story, I would simply jot it down for later.  And, of course, some of the jottings did produce stories, though such stories often take off and fly in unexpected directions (and for unexpected lengths) like Outlaw’s Mind.

I don’t know why I’m dwelling on this subject.  It’s not as though I am writing fiction now, anyway, any more than I am drawing or playing music (let alone composing it) or studying and practicing mathematics or physics.  I cannot seem to summon the energy to do any of these things, and even reading continues to be almost a chore.

Very few—and possibly none—of the things that made life enjoyable are working for me anymore.  And it’s not as though the outside world is very conducive to good thoughts.  Although, maybe I’m a poor judge of such things.

It would be nice, I often think, to go back to writing fiction (nearly) every day.  But, of course, given the constraints on my time, and the irritating need to work to keep myself alive, I would only be able to do that if I gave up on writing this blog.

It’s hard for me to imagine setting up a Patreon—or even just one of those Ko-fi accounts or whatever they are—and making enough income to be able to live and write full time.  I mean, even if everyone who reads my post every day gave me a dollar every day, I don’t think I could live on it.

I suppose, if I tried to do it full time, maybe I would do more interesting and gripping things, and maybe I would do a better job at marketing myself.  I don’t know; I’m not good at talking myself up, except in flagrant jest, where I’m pretending to be an egotistical megalomaniac.

And though I can admit that I have the capacity to do many things and do them pretty well, that is often something of a hinderance.  Whenever I’m doing mainly one thing, all the other things end up trying to draw me away.  And they often succeed.

It’s a longstanding frustration of mine that I know that if I were able to concentrate on one thing among my interests, I could probably have done something worth doing, something of significance—maybe even something great, if I were very, very lucky.  I think about how Feynman used to say that he wasn’t especially bright, he was just a guy who had very narrow interests, and so he was able to dedicate himself entirely to that pursuit.  I think it worked out pretty well for him.

I guess it all doesn’t matter much, if at all.  Given the state of my overall health, and my chronic pain, I doubt that I have time to make any major new contributions to much of anything, even if I were able to focus entirely on one pursuit, which I am not, at least not so far.

Whadaya gonna do?  Well, hopefully, what you’re going to do is have a good day.  I should be back tomorrow…exclusis improvisis.

*I like to joke that they only started calling script “cursive” after they tried to read mine and spent a lot of their time cursing.

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“You’d say I’m putting you on”

Well, I forgot to bring the lapcom again last night, so again, this is being written (by me) on my smartphone.  Hey, how was that for turning a bit of passive construction into a slightly comedic moment?  By which I mean the whole “being written” thing, not the fact that I forgot the effing lapcom again yesterday.

I suppose that could be comic in the right circumstances, but as it is, it’s just rather pathetic.  It certainly doesn’t rise to the level of tragedy.  It’s just very mildly pitiable, but not really in any dramatic way.

Enough of that.  In case you can’t tell, I really have no idea what to write today, even for me.  I’m also particularly tired (even for me).  If it were not Wednesday, I might not even go to the office today, but it is Wednesday, of course.  It’s Wednesday the 21st of October in 2026.  Perhaps it, or yesterday, will be a remarkable or auspicious day in the future*.  I won’t talk about why I might imagine it could be, though.  It’s a mystery, Charlie Brown.

So, yeah, I’m really tired today, even for me.  And I’m already running out of steam for this blog post.  Mind you, the footnote took a good bit of my energy, and probably has more substance than much of the rest of the stuff in the post.

You can’t see it (of course), but I’m making an absurd number of typos and so on today.  Some of that is just a function of using the smartphone, but it’s usually not nearly this bad.

I think I’m going to call it good with this for now.  I’m really tired (I originally wrote “rited” there, see what I mean?) and I’m not thinking or typing very clearly.  I feel as though I didn’t sleep, though I did sleep a bit, if only for me.  Maybe I slept too much (I doubt it).  Anyway, let’s call this done for today, and hopefully tomorrow I’ll be in better form.

I hope you are all well and continue to be well in this best (and worst) of all the possible worlds we can experience.

*By which I mean that in the future they may look back on the day(s) as having been auspicious.  Neither today nor yesterday can actually do anything in the future, for they are in the past (or present).  Some things can exist both in the past and the future, of course‒you and I for instance, at least in some sense‒but one cannot claim that a particular measure of time, specific to one time, can exist in the future.  It would be like saying the first centimeter in a meter stick is still present at the 47th centimeter.  It doesn’t make sense.  Centimeters and days are fungible in some senses, but not in this way.

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I had a headline in mind, but it would have been gross

Well, today I am writing on my smartphone because I simply, and stupidly, forgot to bring my lapcom yesterday.  I don’t always know where my mind is, to tip a hat to the Pixies, but it often seems not to be with me.

Of course, that’s a figure of speech.  I know that my mind is me, whatever that ultimately means, so I am never anywhere without my mind, anymore than a square can be said to exist even if all its sides are removed‒really, even if one side is removed (though in that case, it can be implied, somewhat like the famous square illusion made of four incomplete circles).

Anyway, I’m going to keep it short today, partly because I’m feeling somewhat queasy, and that takes away a lot of one’s energy‒at least, it takes away a lot of this one’s energy.  I don’t feel like I’m going to throw up or anything; it’s not that bad currently.  I just feel a little like my upper GI tract is not happy with me.  Perhaps it’s a bit like a frowning parent:  not angry, just disappointed.

It’s not a great way to start a day, but there are many worse ones, so I suppose I shouldn’t complain.  I will complain‒I am complaining‒but I shouldn’t.

Here’s a peculiar question that occurred to me after writing that last sentence:  are there cases where one shouldn’t do something, but one ought to do it (or vice versa)?  Or are those two words such nearly complete synonyms that such a thing would be contradictory?  One can speak a contradiction, or write it, etc., but one cannot actually bring one into being.  “Talk is cheap, mother fucker,” DMX said.  Reality, on the other hand, has a huge cover charge at the door and you have to pay à la carte for what you get.

This reminds me (I’m not sure why) of a brief, mainly inconsequential writing error I found yesterday in an article related to the new Spider-Man movie.  They used “i.e.” when they were providing an example and should have used “e.g.”.  I know it’s a minor error, but come on, they went through this difference in Get Shorty, for crying out loud (the movie, at least; I don’t remember if it was in the book).

Anyway, it’s not a very auspicious day, for me or for the world, so I’m going to try not to drag this on.  I don’t feel very well, physically or mentally, and what’s more, I don’t expect to feel well, physically or mentally, in the future.

That doesn’t quite reach the level at which I expect not to feel well, physically or mentally.  It’s a subtle difference in wording, but conceptually the states are quite distinct.  One can vaguely not expect that things will necessarily be good, perhaps based on past experience, but not really be inclined one way or the other, or one can frankly expect that things will be bad.

Of course, in the end, no one here gets out alive, but even that isn’t necessarily a bad thing (nor is it necessarily a good thing).  It’s just the way reality appears to be, as best we can tell right now, no matter what anyone claims based on “belief” and “faith” and centuries old to millennia old hearsay (also known as religious writings).

A delusion embraced by millions or billions or even quadrillions of people is still a delusion.  You don’t make dog shit into fillet mignon just by telling yourself and others repeatedly that it is, and if you eat it, that’s on you.  Don’t try to feed it to me, especially not by force.

Of course, you can sort of turn excrement into steak, such as by using it to fertilize grassland on which cattle will graze before eventually being eaten.  But the fact that nature allows this particular remarkable transformation does not mean (for example) that a cracker becomes the body of an ancient rabbi, or that some wine becomes his blood, just because someone said something in Latin near it.

All the pseudo magical crap distracts from the actual good messages that can be found (occasionally, here and there) in religions and ideologies.  People don’t want to have to do the work of really turning crap into burgers, though, because that involves actual farming, which is hard and the results are not guaranteed.

Of course, one can consider or imagine oneself more or less guaranteed to get certain outcomes from religious practices, but the actual outcomes are almost certainly going to be largely the opposite of what people want and tell themselves they will get.

Humans can be very stupid a lot of the time.  But they can also be brilliant, even the most unassuming and humble of them.  Like Ultron said, they’re grotesque and yet lovely.  Like him, I’m often torn between reveling in the human works of art and science and engineering and exploration and so on, and doing my best to wipe every last one of them from the face of the universe.

Unfortunately, right now my tummy is too icky for me to put much energy into either one.

I hope you have a good day.

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“…would you like to see me try?”

Here we go again.  It’s the start of another “work week”, and unfortunately, I am writing this on my smartphone.  I just didn’t feel like bringing the lapcom back with me on Friday, because I had some other items in my backpack that already made it a bit heavy.  It shouldn’t have daunted me‒it wasn’t really very heavy‒but it did.

Anyway, I’m hoping to keep this post brief, since there’s really not much to say and not much going on and my thumb bases have by no means recovered to a normal baseline.  I am also sweating a strangely large amount this morning considering that I am currently sitting still.  It’s not even really that hot in here.

It’s too much to hope, probably, that this sweatiness presages some acute, life-ending illness, but I guess some day that will happen.  When it does, I’ll likely end up as one of those dead bodies that’s only found because of the smell of rot that develops.  It’s not as though anyone would be seriously affected if I just stopped being around, so no one would miss me very quickly.

I mean, okay, the people at the office would probably wonder, because it’s not like me even to be late (at all) to work, let alone not to show up without some kind of notice.  In addition, my absence would make things at least temporarily inconvenient.

Mind you, I live in a house that has another family living in the other section, and they would probably notice pretty quickly if I died.  Their dogs would, anyway, though I don’t know if they would “say” anything about it.

I’d rather die out on the road, walking as if I were intending to reach some destination.  But we only get limited input into how we end up dying.  Even if you take the matter fully into your own hands, you’re not guaranteed that it will work out the way you’d prefer‒this fact has stayed my own hand on more than one occasion.  Life is complicated, and even the process of leaving it can be hard to predict.

Speaking of walking, I did a decent amount of it this weekend.  On Saturday, I walked just shy of eight miles, and yesterday I walked about five miles.  That’s not too bad.  And thanks to some precautions I took, it hasn’t so far led to any serious pain exacerbations, nor to any knee or ankle issues (of significance).  That’s something, at least.

I did not get anything else significant done this weekend, of course.  I did not write any fiction, and I did not play any music or do any singing, nor did I draw or paint or study physics or mathematics or any other science.  I basically just vegged out.  Probably that was part of what allowed me to have the energy to do my walking, but it is a bit disappointing to me, though probably not to anyone else.

I’m rereading Stephen King’s book On Writing, hoping that maybe I’ll get some inspiration to write some more fiction, because it has worked to help my enthusiasm for writing in the past.  And, admittedly, it does make me feel a little wistful dreaminess about, say, Outlaw’s Mind, or my planned Changeling in a Shadow World, or even HELIOS.  But it’s not enough to get me to work on any of them.  More’s the pity.

I think I might take a break from reading soon, too.  Every time I finish one book, I have a terrible time mustering interest in another one.  I can read even without such interest, of course‒it’s a powerfully ingrained habit that I have had effectively all my life‒but it feels very dreary to have to force myself to read, and to go through Amazon trying to find books that grab my interest, only to find that they all seem dreadfully boring.

Remind you of anything?  Maybe the blog you’re reading now?  It’s hard for me to avoid dreariness here.  To paraphrase The Wall, disc 1, side B, 4th song from the end:  Day after day, life turns grey, like the skin of a dying man.

I’m really tired, and it’s only just now the very beginning of the week.  Maybe by tomorrow I’ll feel better.  I doubt it.  There’s no good reason to suspect or expect that I will, other than perhaps the natural cyclicity of things.  Thank goodness for the complex numbers, which make dealing rigorously with rotations and cycles much easier than they would be otherwise, and in which to multiply by i is to apply a rotation of 90 degrees (or pi over 2 radians) counterclockwise.

On that circular note (ha ha) I will draw today’s post to a close.  I hope you all have a good day, and hopefully a good week, even if I do succumb to something and am never heard from again.  No sane person would make their happiness dependent upon, or even merely linked to, me or my happiness, as experience has demonstrated.

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Reflecting on indirect, unconscious drawbacks and their impacts, and other weird thoughts

Well, there’s no lapcom here today, alas.  I just didn’t feel enough drive or urge or energy‒or perhaps impetus‒to bring it with me when I left the office.  Maybe I should say that the magnitude of the vector for taking the lapcom with me was overbalanced by the net vectors that summed up to pushing in the other direction in this (very) high dimensional phase space that is the description of the state of my nervous system and its effects on my activity.

You’ve heard of Hilbert Space*?  Well, you can call this “Robert Space” if you wish.

Anyway, so, yeah, I’m writing this on my smartphone today, and I’m already regretting it a bit.  The arthropathy in my thumbs is complaining rather vociferously (and quite metaphorically) just from the little writing I have so far undertaken.  So, hopefully, I will be able to keep this relatively short today.

That doesn’t always happen.  Like a lot of people, I suspect, sometimes when I get rolling in habitual behavior, I keep barreling through even when I can feel the negative effects already as I do it.

Conversely (or whatever the proper term is), it has occurred to me just in the last day or so**, that my thumb pain may be part of why I haven’t been playing guitar.  It’s not that, when I think of playing it, it occurs to me that my thumbs hurt and so I consciously choose not to do it after weighing the fun versus the pain.  If it were that conscious, I would (clearly) know it already.

But the thumb pain can make the process of playing less pleasant, and that can decrease the emotional reward and reinforcement I get from doing it, and so, in the fullness of time, make me less likely to do it in the future.  It’s sort of a very low-level application of the aversion training from A Clockwork Orange.

If so‒it’s strongly possible, but I cannot swear that it’s really, definitely the case‒that may mean that what I really ought to do to increase my playing is to try to increase the magnitude of that “take the lapcom home” vector.

But, of course, it’s not some axial vector, aligned along only one unit vector, with a cross-product (or outer product, I think, if memory serves) of zero.  And it’s not a fundamental vector, with only itself as its input, either.  It’s a vector that is, itself, the sum of many vector inputs (and heck, maybe some scalars, I don’t know, but I don’t think tensors would apply to this situation), some of which would probably surprise me.

Still, it might be worth a try.  It’s not as though the thumb arthropathy is something I like and want to keep.  So, if I can find ways to counter it, maybe I can see what effect that has on my tendency to play guitar, and thus, finally, on my tendency to sing.

I used to sing a lot, especially when I commuted by car and could play various CDs (but not treasury bonds, ba-dump-bump) and sing along but no one could hear me.

Even when driving my scooter*** to and from work, I had a Bluetooth enabled helmet, linked to my playlist on my phone.  When you sing inside a motorcycle helmet, in traffic, you don’t need to worry about being overheard.

Now I don’t commute that way, and since I have housemates, I don’t often feel comfortable just singing when I’m in my room.  But early morning in the office, when playing guitar, it can be good.  That is, as long as playing guitar is good, which is apparently not the case for now.

Oh, well, I guess I shouldn’t dwell on it.  Everything is futile, everything is imperfect, everything is chaotic, everything is entropic.  And to paraphrase the Stones, I’m neither waiting on a lady nor am I waiting on a friend.  I’m just waiting on the end.

Speaking of the end…

*Maybe you haven’t.  Let me know.

**You wouldn’t think it would take so long for this possibility to occur to me.  I mean, I’m reasonably bright, and the connection is not a distant or particularly occult one.  Unfortunately, you cannot choose to think of something before you have thought of it.  Likewise, you cannot choose not to think of something once you’re thinking it, but you can let such thoughts go and do your best not to identify with them.  Oh, and also, by the way, no one has ever been able to “unsee” anything, ever.  The expression is idiotic.  Also, there’s no hour (or other period of time) in your life that you’re going to get back.  Noting that fact about some specific, unpleasant hour just makes you sound semimoronic.

***I say “scooter” because I guess that’s the official term, but it was a 650 cc Honda Silverwing, so really it was a full-on motorcycle that just had continuously variable transmission.  I’ve always been clumsy with manual transmission vehicles.

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A belated first post of the work week

I hope nobody was worried about me yesterday when I didn’t write a post.  I was out sick.  I had some kind of gastrointestinal bug, or perhaps some type of bad reaction to something I ate.  I’m not sure.  Anyway, it was unpleasant, as such things tend to be.

I often find myself wishing, in such situations and even less severe ones, that I didn’t ever have to eat at all.  Of course, if you see me, you’d know that I’ve tended to err in the other direction, but I would very much like to lose my sense of hunger, or perhaps more my sense of pleasure in food.  My current life is almost completely devoid of any real, reliable joy of any kind, and I am chronically depressed, so I unfortunately tend to go for biologically reliable sources of “feeling good”, however minor and evanescent, such as eating.

I suppose it’s a good thing that I don’t have any kind of drug problem, since I’d probably be stuck going to that for my diminishing returns of transient joy.  I suspect many people with drug problems do just that.  Actually, I often kind of wish that I did have a drug problem, because then I would be (a) more likely to be thinner than I am, and (b) might die of a drug overdose, which is comparatively faster and less painful than dying of a food “overdose” over time.  It’s a moot point, though.  I’m not the sort of person who could really manage an illicit drug habit; I would find the whole process stressful and irritating.  I didn’t even like taking opioids legally when I was given them for my chronic pain.

Alcohol, which is legal, has many drawbacks, not the least being that beyond a certain point, it doesn’t really do anything for me and exacerbates my chronic pain.  It can be useful as a social lubricant, and in that it can be very useful, considering how socially awkward I am.

But alcohol doesn’t make me feel much euphoria past the initial relaxation stage, which is definitely pretty good for short times.  However, one trouble with alcohol is that it impairs one’s judgement—it certainly impairs mine—and so when one feels a little relief from anxiety and a consequent bit of euphoria because of it, one falls into the cliché, “if some is good, more must be better, and a lot more must be great”.  Most of you probably have direct or indirect experience with how that line of “thinking” turns out.

Now, I will say that I took one medication a few times, in medical circumstances, that could probably become a problem for me, and that was diazepam (brand name Valium®).  I’ve written before about how, when I was given diazepam, even though the circumstances were far from pleasant ones—wisdom teeth extraction in one case, and a heart catheterization in the other—I felt tremendous.  I felt normal, if you understand the sense of what I mean by that—and even if you don’t.

Anyway, that’s a prescription med, and I’m not really interested in taking it.  I know too much about how rapidly diminishing are its returns, and about its long-term effects on cognition, and worst, about how tolerance to it tends to lead to increased anxiety between doses, so it pretty quickly becomes counter-productive.

This leads me to wonder if it might be somewhat useful to people with chronic anxiety to take medications or similar that increase their anxiety, and to stay on them for a while, then to stop.  It wouldn’t address any underlying issues, of course, but not all such chronic states are due to Freudian-ish causes in experience and upbringing.  Some of them are genetic or at least congenital.  Sometimes, a person’s biology can just give them an anxiety set-point that is significantly higher than average.  Some other people, of course, will have the opposite.  And most people will be somewhere in between.

This is the nature of traits in populations of sexually reproducing species (e.g., humans):  there is variability in nearly every attribute, as genes get shuffled and reshuffled, paired up with different alleles and other genes in the genome, reacting in highly complex ways, and providing the broad variation on which natural selection does its ruthless work.

This is what is largely behind the famous phenomenon of the moths that changed coloration in industrial age England compared to their pre-industrial age colors, matching the new soot-encrusted bark of trees.  They did not develop the trait or attribute de novo; there was always a variability in that physical aspect (color).  But in different circumstances, different colors were more likely to survive to reproductive age, and so they began to predominate when a persistent change in circumstances happened.

The same sort of thing surely has happened with humans many times, over and over, as civilization changes, and our own effects feed back on our natures and alter their own causes.  If people could step out of their little, provincial world-views, this would likely be obvious to all but the most benighted of souls.

How did I get to this subject/topic*?  I don’t know, though maybe it will become obvious while I’m editing.  Anyway, I’m going to draw this to a close just with the revelation that I’m writing this post on the lapcom.  Was there any difference between its style and that of one written on the smartphone, now that I reveal the fact to you only at the end?  Inquiring minds want to know.

I truly hope you have a good day.  And I really wish I could actually hang out with some of you or with someone today with whom I could have a comfortable interaction.  But I am not good company anymore, if I ever was.  So I will probably, and appropriately, continue to be alone, and will die alone, and hopefully fairly soon.

*I never really have been able to discern a consistent and sensible difference between these two terms, but people often use them as if they are two different things, rather than simply synonyms.  Possibly that’s just a function of pretentiousness.  But maybe I’m just ignorant.

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Monday morning meandering moaning

Well, it’s the start of a new work week, which means it’s the end of a weekend off, at least for me.  I’m sure many people are on various different schedules, but this one (Monday through Friday working and Saturday and Sunday off) is still probably the modal one, if I had to guess.  Though, I wouldn’t be surprised if the situation has more than one mode, or perhaps one mode but a very broadly tapering and irregular slope for the rest of the schedules.

Anyway, it was just now the weekend, and I did not work during that time‒not in the sense of “employment for compensation”, anyway.  I did do some walking, though.  On Saturday, when it was overcast (and looked like it was going to rain, but never did), I walked a bit over 6 miles, umbrella in hand but forlornly unused the whole time.  On Sunday, when it was appropriately (not ironically) sunny, I walked just about 4 miles.  That’s still not too bad, but it was a bit more unpleasant because of the heat.

I guess I like walking in cloudy, gloomy weather (and at night) more than when it’s bright and sunny.  Of course, bright and sunny days in autumn‒real autumn, not this Florida bullshit‒can be delightful things in which to walk around, when the sky looks like a giant, freshly and expertly painted watercolor.  Even bright winter days (again, do not count south Florida, there is no winter here) can be truly uplifting and enjoyable.  At least, they are if you’re wrapped up warm.

Other than the walking, though, my weekend was completely without substance.  I did not read anything new (and precious little old), I did not watch any sports/games or regular TV of any kind‒no, not even any football.  I think the only person with whom I spoke, other than a delivery person, was an older guy whose phone had died and asked me the time while I was walking on Saturday.

Oh, and on my Sunday walk, I passed by a guy who might have been homeless‒perhaps he was just odd‒who held his arms out wide as I came nearer, as if looking for a hug.  I don’t think he was actually looking for a hug, though.  It was probably a gesture intended to intimidate, perhaps so I wouldn’t try to steal his stuff or something.

Anyway, I don’t give a shit about those kinds of things, so I just nodded, said, “What’s up?” and walked on.  He said nothing.  I suppose he could even have been a figment of my imagination, but that seems unlikely.

I didn’t speak at all otherwise.  Well, no, that’s probably not quite accurate.  I probably spoke “to” some of the reactors on some YouTube videos.  These are pretty much the closest thing I have to friends with whom I do things.  It’s rather pathetic.

I didn’t even watch many new videos, and I certainly didn’t watch any that were informative or useful or even interesting in any deep, novel sense.  Of course, if something catches one’s attention, it is “interesting” per se*.  But it’s not necessarily a durable kind of interest.  If you see movement out of the corner of your eye, you turn to look, but if it’s just a rustling of a curtain (purple or otherwise) or if when you turn to look it’s gone, as happened in Comfortably Numb, then that interest is basically spent.

I did notice, just this morning‒while I was pretending to try to be able to go back to sleep right up until it was time for me just to get up‒a video titled “There is no hard problem of consciousness”.  Now that seems at least somewhat interesting, and it’s a statement with which I’m inclined to agree, but I am curious to hear what this person’s arguments are, though I have not yet watched it.

Usually‒almost always‒such videos are rather disappointing; they just rehash basic ideas that I’ve dealt with long ago.  But sometimes someone says something actually thought-provoking.  Anyway, it’s nice to know that people are at least thinking about such questions (I think, again, that our culture’s mental health might be better if instead of going to therapists so often we sometimes went to philosophers instead).

I, on the other hand, have been having more and more difficulty finding any depth or interest.  I must have watched dozens (literally) of reactions to the Avengers: Doomsday “special look” trailer, because that actually got me excited.  Doom is my favorite villain, after all, and it looks as though the MCU might actually be doing him justice.  Unfortunately, the movie doesn’t come out until December, and I’m losing interest already.

Like the Pink Floyd song says**, “Nothing is very much fun anymore”.  I haven’t played any music on any instrument in weeks now, and I sang for all of two minutes or so while watching somebody react to Baker Street.

I think I might try to do a personal “try not to laugh” challenge today.  I think I tend to joke too much and make light of things to much, probably as a defense mechanism, but it’s a bit of a distraction.  Maybe I would be able to do more if I took things more seriously.

I don’t know.  Maybe I won’t even make it through the first work conversation without joking.  I certainly can’t seem to write a blog post without some kind of joke in it.  But it would be nice not to feel anything much at all:  No fear, no regret, no pain, and no joy or hope or optimism.  What’s that Vulcan practice on Star Trek?  Kolinahr?  Something like that.

I suppose it doesn’t matter.  It’s all fiction, anyway.  Meanwhile, I hope you all have very good, real-world days*** today.

*Is that the correct usage of “per se”?  Somehow it looks not-quite-right to me, but I am far from sure why that’s the case.

**One of My Turns, this time.

***I’m conflicted about whether that should be singular or plural.  There are arguments for both choices, or should I say, for each choice.