Video

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Nothing very interesting

It’s Friday.  I wish I could feel happy about that.  I can remember back in high school, especially, when I would look forward to Friday, because my friends and I would probably be getting together at one of our houses to play role playing games over the weekend.  Other kids might sometimes abuse certain drugs (usually nothing worse than marijuana) but we just abused coffee.  We were often up waaay into the night.

I was almost always the first one to wake up even after a long night of gaming.  I was also the first one in my house to wake up during the week.  I guess one could see the shadow of where the insomnia tree was growing already, but I didn’t know to recognize the signs.

In college, I would often go downtown on Saturday to the city center where there were some shops and stuff, just to wander around (though there was a pretty good comic book store there).  For a while, I would go to temple downtown on Friday evening and Saturday morning.

Anyway, enough reminiscing.  The good days of the past are not going to return, so whatever.

I’m on my way to the office as I write this, though editing and posting will take place after I get there.  It’s already way too humid down here, such that I sweat just while standing still outside.

We’ve been packing some things from the office and so on to bring over to the new place.  Yesterday, I gathered my science books and my black Strat (see below) at the office and put them in a big, industrial garbage bag.  I was planning to bring them to the dumpster, but my boss asked to take the guitar and stuff for either his brother or cousin, who apparently has only an acoustic.  So, he took that yesterday.

I still haven’t brought my science books to the garbage yet, partly because they are heavy, and I have been having particularly bad issues with my chronic pain this week, as you may know if you’ve read this.  Also, the dumpster was ridiculously full.  It seems we’re not the only people moving.

Actually, I would have thrown away much more of my stuff, but much of it is little things people gave me over time that I never would’ve gotten for myself, like Funcopop(?) figures or whatever you call those.  One doesn’t throw away things that were gifts‒that would be rude.  One of those figures is of Hannibal Lecter, and he would not approve of me being rude with him especially.

Anyway, that’s it.  No more delusions that I’m going to play guitar at the office anymore‒there isn’t even going to be a space for me to do so.  Also, no more deluding myself that I will actually read the various science books ever before the end of my life.  It would be cool, but I don’t see how it’s going to happen.  I don’t expect (or hope) to live much longer, honestly.

Oh, I got a box of syringes delivered yesterday, with needles, in case I want to try the idea from yesterday (nothing drug related, for those of you who don’t go back and check it out).

It’s all a bit frightening, these ideas of how to complete my personal arch of time.  I’ve said before how hard it is to override the idiot biological drive to avoid injury and pain and death.  That’s probably why so many suicides are associated with alcohol and other psychoactive substances.  Maybe I should take up heavy drinking.

That’s not likely to happen.  When I drink alcohol, it seems always to lead to my chronic pain worsening afterward.  Neurochemical stuff is probably involved, a reaction of my nervous system with a rebound after the alcohol.  Anyway, I’ve never been much of a drinker.

I can’t think of anything else about which to write.  Nor to sing, not to draw, nor to play, nor nothing else.  I know, that was technically a sentence fragment, just now.  Sue me*.

If I come to the office tomorrow, I’ll probably write a post.  I apologize again to all those dedicated readers who keep hoping for something interesting or good or amusing or whatever in these posts.  I’m out of fuel, out of ammo, out of pocket, out of this world, and out of my mind.

I hope you have a good day.

*That was not a sentence fragment.

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Detritus

Well, I’m getting ready to go to the office this morning.  It’s payroll day, which means I’ll be more stressed out than even I usually am.  It’s really gotten to be more complex over time, with different people being paid in different ways and rates and with different incentives, and people in our new, other office.  Oh, and now we’re getting yet a new “product” to sell which is going to require more differentiation and so on.  Huzzah!

I don’t know why I keep writing this blog.  I feel like I’m just continually rehashing the same things, saying the same things over and over again, not even really expecting different results.

Incidentally, there’s no actual (reliable) record anywhere of Einstein saying words to the effect of “the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”.  Frankly, it doesn’t even seem like anything he would have said.  It doesn’t make sense, either‒it flies completely in the face of the idea that someone can improve with practice at something, or that in some circumstances retrying something over and over again occasionally brings about different outcomes.

Einstein apparently did say that there are two things that are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and he wasn’t sure about the universe.  Of course, as a Jewish scientist, he left Germany in the 30s (I think) because he saw the products of the breed of human stupidity that arose there at around that time, so you can understand why he might take a dim view of human intelligence.  I wonder what he would think of us now.

Anyway, I’m still taking my “antidepressant” and also trying to adjust things better to control my chronic* pain.  I can feel the immediate effects of the St. John’s Wort, which I always do when I take it.  Dry mouth, slightly less reactive, and feeling a bit stiffer (metaphorically) and more socially withdrawn in the morning for a while after I take it.  It’s not making a difference for my sleep, that’s for sure.  But, again, maybe it will at least give me enough of a boost finally to act on my desire just to stop existing.

It would be nice if it at least gave me more will or drive to exercise, which it has done in the past, though not every time I’ve taken it.  At least it doesn’t tend to give me the asthenia that I would get with SSRIs, and it doesn’t give me the rampant and intolerable tension and anxiety that Wellbutrin and Effexor gave me.  It’s closest in character to the old tricyclics‒amitriptyline and nortriptyline‒but not as groggifiying.  Anyway, hopefully it does something to help me make some changes.

I think of depression as being at least partly a disease of gumption, a disease of the will, where the sense of motivation is impaired.  Or perhaps it’s more of a psychological autoimmune disorder, where the mind turns upon itself.  That’s an oversimplification, and there are certainly more aspects to it than that, but that is at least part of it.

Of course, there may be other factors at play in my brain.  I’ve encountered a place online that does reasonably priced autism assessments (I found it through Threads) and I may avail myself of that.  It is slightly worrying, of course.  It sometimes feels nearly certain that, if assessed, I would be told, “No, you don’t have ASD or anything related to it.  You’re just fucking out there like Vega, you don’t even count as human.”  Which would come as no real surprise, but it would be somewhat disheartening.  How does one treat, or at least accommodate, someone who is an alien?

I don’t know what I will do with any knowledge I gain through that process, if I do it.  Maybe I won’t do anything.  Maybe I’ll just flush it all away with every other bit of information I’ve ever taken in.  I guess that’s what’s going to happen one way or another, anyway, right?

Whatever.  I hope you all have a good day, or have good days, if that should be plural to match the subject.  I suppose I’ll probably write another blog post tomorrow.  I’m sure you can hardly wait.

In the meantime, here’s a little “video” (really more of a slide show) that I threw together this morning, to the tune of Another Brick in the Wall Part 3.

*I originally made a typo there and wrote “chromic” pain, which sounds like something from which a synesthete might suffer‒a chronic discomfort that they experience with all the colors of the rainbow.

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Same as the oldphemism

It’s Tuesday, the 4th of February, in case you didn’t know or if you are reading this some time in the future.  I think it’s pretty unlikely that future generations will care what I’ve written, but who knows?

I am writing this on my smartphone today.  Yesterday I wrote using my small laptop computer, which is surely part of why it was a longer post than usual.  I just type so much more easily on a real keyboard.  Indeed, I can type faster than I can coherently speak in most cases, and almost as fast as I can think.  This is one of the reasons I am fated to reach out through my writing rather than by making videos or “reels”.

Of course, recently, since I started trying to use Instagram (which is relatively entertaining, at least) I’ve reshared there some videos of me playing music.  I don’t know if they really get heard by many people, but certainly more people seem to interact already with the videos than has happened on YouTube since I first put them up.  Almost all of my “views” on YouTube come from me, listening to my own stuff as part of playlists I’ve made.  I put my stuff among selections from various musicians I like, with the vague notion that it may increase their association in “the algorithm” with such famous musical acts.  This is a very vague notion; I don’t really know if the algorithm works that way at all.  In any case, the strategy hasn’t seemed to increase my exposure.

Sometimes I will also listen to my own music to help me get to sleep, which for some reason it seems to do.  Although, to be fair, getting to sleep is not my main problem.  Staying asleep is my problem, and last night was no better than usual.

I don’t have any serious, large-scale topic today, unlike yesterday, and that’s probably just as well.  I’m sure most people didn’t find it particularly fun to read that post, but I think it’s a serious matter to consider.

Today, probably the most momentous thing I have to report is that for roughly the last five days I’ve restarted taking my antidepressant (Saint John’s Wort, in this case).  I don’t really expect it to change anything significant for me, but I’m hoping it will give me a bit more energy.  Who knows, maybe I’ll become part of that cohort of people who start taking antidepressants* and gain just enough energy and proactivity finally to kill themselves.  I wouldn’t mind.

Oh, wait, sorry, I guess I should have said “unalive themselves”, not “kill themselves”.  That’s one of those stupid newphemisms that social media have led many “content creators” to use to avoid their videos being blocked.  I think this was mainly a Tik Tok based thing, though perhaps there has been some tendency for it on other social media.

In any case, it’s idiotic.  Replacing taboo words with new euphemisms just eventually leads to the newphemisms becoming taboo in turn, and newer, temporarily safe terms being chosen which will become taboo also, and then things shuffle back and forth going nowhere fast, like the linguistic undead**.  This all seems to arise because of the unwholesome tendency of humans to think that words can have magical powers.  They need to stop that.  Words have their own “magic” that is far more powerful and real than any imagined invocation of the devil that might lead to him appearing.

Anyway, that’s just about it.  I think, in closing, I’ll try to see if I can share one of those videos here as it appears on Instagram.  Maybe I’ll do more than one.  Anyway, I guess you guys will know if it worked.

*Not for the first time, of course.

**Would that be “ununalive” in Newspeak?

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My gruntlement is low today

It’s Tuesday morning.  I wasn’t actually planning to write anything when I got up today, but then I remembered that, more or less on a whim, I had brought my little laptop computer with me, so I figured I might as well write something.

For one thing, I’ll embed the “video” of my last audio blog—the one about Morgoth and whatnot—below, so if anyone prefers to do their listening via YouTube, they can do so.  Evidently, the Google podcast app is going to be phased out, and one is going to have to listen to podcasts via YouTube Music at some point in the future (or use some other service/app).  That’s a bit frustrating, because there’s at least one podcast that I get via subscription that one cannot get in its entirety on YouTube, but can get through the app.  I guess they’ll figure out a way to deliver that, but it’s irritating to have to change my settings once again.

I guess it shouldn’t matter.  I should just cancel all my subscriptions and services and platforms and even cable and internet.  They’re not really doing me any good, and they cost money, and honestly, I really would expect not to be alive starting sometime soon.  I’ve been expecting that for a long time, now, though, and I haven’t really been able to work up the gumption to bring it about.

I have at least been creeping my way in that direction.  I have flammable liquids for potential immolation—useful for other, more traditional things as well, of course.  I have scalpels and utility knives, useful for cutting various things, including oneself, but of course, they’re also generally useful for many things.  And recently I bought a nice length of rope—too long, really—and learned how to tie a hangman’s knot.  That last bit is rather surprisingly easy, and it’s a pleasant and useful knot, it turns out, especially to someone who used to be in the Boy Scouts a lifetime ago.  Ironically, it has many similarities to an informal necktie knot.

But, I’m still alive for the moment, though I’m very uncomfortable and unhappy in general, and I still haven’t gotten health insurance.  I get a near-panic feeling when I even think seriously about getting insurance.  I’m not entirely sure why that is.

Yesterday morning I felt really horrible, and I think it’s because I was trying to reintroduce some things I like into my diet to see if I can tolerate them.  I guess I can’t, at least not in the state I’m in (Florida).  It seems I can’t even enjoy the things I like to eat, but then again, I can’t expect nature to be there for my convenience.

I could try to work against nature’s convenience, in return, I guess.  At the very least, I could do my best to add to global warming and disrupt the biosphere and cause toxins and pollutants to accumulate, as a silly sort of revenge.  It might be fun.

I did feel less bad as the afternoon wore on and I avoided any indulgences, to the point where, near the end of the day, in idle moments, I got out Spacetime and Geometry, Gravitation, Euclidean Quantum Gravity, and even the old Thomas and Finney calculus text—the latter because sometimes I feel like I want to re-hone and improve my skills with mathematics, and Brilliant, for all that it’s a wonderful site, just doesn’t seem to work for me for some things.

I did find the two physics texts (which I opened in the middle, since I was looking for rather specific information relating to Λ, the cosmological constant) much more accessible and relatively easy to follow compared to what I was expecting.  Gravitation, in particular, is an intimidatingly large tome, but is nevertheless a bit of a “my first reader” in overall impression when compared to Harrison’s Principles of Internal Medicine.  I didn’t get very far in any of them in the time I had yesterday, but it was nice to realize that—though some mathematical formalisms are beyond my current expertise (thus the Thomas and Finney)—all of it made sense to me.  Credit the writers as much as my own cleverness, but I do give myself some credit.

Maybe I should get a biology textbook, just to reinvigorate my interest in that general subject as well.  I’m more of a literal expert in that subject than I am in GR or quantum mechanics or mathematics, though, so maybe a basic college text would be too repetitive?  I don’t know.

I’m having a bit of trouble with my laptop today; Word has frozen up on me twice this morning, which is a bit frustrating.  I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised.  I’m not sure how long I’ve had this laptop, but it’s been a few years, at least.  Ordinarily, I would think of getting a new one to replace it, but that seems like entirely too much work, and is rather pointless.  I don’t expect to write any more fiction.

The thing that led me to bring the laptop computer back with me last night was the thought of maybe at least rereading what I have so far of Outlaw’s Mind and maybe even DFandD.  I talked to my sister on Sunday and gave her a bit of a (probably rather tedious) rundown of how those stories, especially the former, interconnect with the larger universe of my books, including particularly The Chasm and the Collision, and the potential novel Changeling in a Shadow World, and other stories, all going back to the first novel I ever “finished”, back in high school—Ends of the Maelstrom—which I could probably recreate* if I had the gumption.  I certainly still know all the main characters’ names and stories and arcs and all.  I even remember my opening line:  “Horraban was happy now.”  I also remember my rather ominous ending, though not the precise words.

Many of the universes of my stories are connected to each other.  In effect, I suppose, they’re all connected via what the wizard in DFandD refers to as the “omniverse”.  I had long thought of it as the metaverse, but then Mark Fuckerberg arrogated that term to his pathetic attempt at virtual reality, and so I had to find another term.  I guess “omniverse” is actually more accurate and descriptive, but I thought the other sounded cooler.  Now it doesn’t.

Anyway, I have scads of potential stories I could write, some interconnected and some stand-alone, but I doubt that I will ever write any of them.  I just don’t have the energy nor do I have the motivation.  Merely going to work and getting back to the house uses up all the mental energy I have, and then some; much of my mental energy I need is sucked from my future, shortening my potential span of mental life as I go.

I suppose if some wealthy benefactor were to show up and offer to pay my expenses in return for getting me to write full time, I might do so.  Perhaps that could happen, but I won’t hold my breath, and I don’t encourage you to do so either.

In the meantime, though, here is the “video” from my last audio blog.  If you watch it on YouTube, please give a thumbs up, and subscribe, and share, and all that, if you’re at all willing to do so.  Thanks.

*It was 574 pages (and roughly 250,000 words, I think), handwritten on thin-ruled notebook paper, with many additions that ran into the margins, though some of these were tattered because I habitually ate paper from the edges of notebook sheets back then.  Anyway, I lost that original book when I lost all my belongings thanks to the depredations of the counties and state of Florida.  For that, I hold at least something of a grudge.

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Another pointless blog post on another pointless day

I’m writing a blog post today—a “formal” one, not merely sharing audio and embedding video, which is what I’ve done in the previous few—not because I have anything in particular to say*, but because I decided to bring my little laptop computer along with me yesterday.  I felt that I was neglecting it, and it was probably getting lonely and sad and rather depressed, like its owner.  Then again, if I were your owner, you probably would be depressed, no matter what type of mechanism you might be, and no matter whether or how often I used you.

Of course, I know that the computer does not experience such emotions; it doesn’t experience any true emotions, though I suppose one could make the argument that its automatic functions, the ones that it does all the time—such as recommending that you install updates and its tendency to go into sleep mode when left idle—might be in some ways analogous to the basic emotions and drives of so-called higher life forms.

Anyway, I’ve done a lot of things on this computer and especially on its nearly-identical predecessors, including writing quite a few stories and some books and the like.  It’s a shame to leave it completely fallow while I’m alive (Once I’m not alive, there won’t be much I can do for it or to it, one way or the other—that’s the way that whole “not being alive” thing works).

I’m weird that way; I tend to feel a serious loyalty not merely to people, but to inanimate objects that I know don’t have any actual reciprocal loyalty inherent in them**.  People are, to be honest, less reliable than things like computers, and they have their own agendas, anyway, so it’s not as though they need (or want) my loyalty, unless they’re people who want to use me for their own benefit, in which case, screw them.

That reminds me a bit of the old “riddle of steel” that ran through the movie Conan the Barbarian, and which I think was reasonably profound for such a movie.  In the beginning of the film, we see very young Conan with his father, who is telling him what turns out to be the first part of the riddle of steel, which is that in this life, there is no living being—men, gods, what have you—that you can trust.  But that you can trust steel.  I suppose you can also rust steel, but even though it can rust, that’s a slow, predictable process, and it can be staved off if you care for the steel appropriately.

Then, of course, near the end of the movie, Thulsa Doom reveals to Conan the other half of the riddle of steel, telling him that steel is not strong, flesh is stronger.  Only living beings have drive and will and the capacity to achieve things like revenge or religion or things like that.  It’s an interesting contrast, and like I said, it’s surprisingly deep for a sword and sorcery movie.

The sequel was nothing like as good.

Anyway, that’s part of the thinking process, or something like it, that leads me to feel literal loyalty and sorrow for inanimate objects that are mine—though it seems a bit unreasonable to call a computer an inanimate object, considering that it can do many extremely sophisticated and complex things, some of them without direct human intervention.

I remember when I was little that I felt something like a real, personal, almost familial attachment to some of my toys and stuffed animals—particularly Kermit the Frog*** now that I think about it—and if I dropped them or played with them roughly, I felt bad and would even apologize.  Again, I never actually thought they had feelings or thoughts or anything, but then again, I often can’t grasp other people’s feelings or thoughts, so it makes as much intuitive sense to assume them in stuffed animals as it does with humans.

I certainly don’t have any good, intuitive sense of what goes on in the heads of humans, though I often cannot help feeling their emotions and so on, when they are nearby.  And I try to discern their patterns and their meanings through various informal algorithms, and of course by paying attention to their literal words and actions.  I find this often gives me as good a result as those of the more “normal” people around me.

People don’t seem to do a very good job of reading or understanding each other, frankly, regardless of their supposed intuitive ability to understand social cues and mores and to be able to express and receive affection.  Well, okay, that latter one is something other people are definitely much better at than I am.  I have almost no comfort level with showing or receiving affection, even with people I know well, even with people I truly, deeply love.  It makes me feel very tense, which doesn’t help, and it certainly goes a long way toward explaining why I’m alone.

By the way, I still haven’t set up any health insurance.  I haven’t been able to bring myself to call either of the two brokers for whom I have contact information.  It’s quite troubling, at some level—it’s weird not to be able to get oneself to do something so mundane.  Then again, it was never my idea to get insurance, and I don’t particularly feel that I deserve to receive health care or that I want to take care of my own health.  But that strong, uncomfortable, unpleasant resistance is nevertheless rather strange.

Oh, well.  Who knows what I’ll do?  I don’t.  I don’t know if I’ll live long enough to need health insurance, anyway.  I don’t find any joy or happiness in being alive, and I haven’t done so for quite a long time.  It’s merely the automatic functions that keep me in motion; there’s no anima, no joy, no goal of any kind.  There is certainly no meaning.

Well, my train should be coming soon.  I’ll embed the “video” of yesterday’s audio here below, for those of you who want to experience it.  I don’t really remember what I talked about, so if anyone listens, do please feel free to let me know.  And try to have a good day, if you can.

*The things I do have to say I feel that I’ve said ad nauseam nearly every day, and they haven’t appeared to do anything at all other than to make other people feel depressed along with me, rather than to garner for me any help or relief or anything like that.

**Though there are other things, such as vehicles and other practical items, toward which I feel less loyalty and affection than other people seem to feel.  For instance, I couldn’t care less about the cosmetic appearance of any vehicle I own (not that I currently own any), or whether it’s any kind of status symbol or anything.  I can admire some kinds of vehicles, such as sports cars and so on, but if I owned one, anything but basic maintenance would be entirely neglected, and it wouldn’t really bother me.  Likewise for musical instruments:  as long as they perform their basic functions, I cannot care about their appearance or any special bells and whistles—not that I am any good at playing bells or whistles.

***But come on, who wouldn’t feel loyalty to Kermit?  He’s a righteous dude.

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Some morning thoughts on Tri-rail, etc., and embedded “video” from Friday

Here’s some new audio in which I discuss–well, audio, and also health and my lack of desire for it, and then some relatively minor complaints I have with the Tri-rail system/stations/train.

And here is an embedded “video” version of my last audio blog from 1-5-2024.  Apparently I discussed Clipchamp and something about astrophysics or some such, I don’t recall.  Let me know, please.

Thank you.

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Not all new things from Microsoft et al are annoying

I did a little talking into the microphone this morning about a few things, including the above–relating specifically to the “Clipchamp” video editing software from Microsoft, which actually seems pretty darn good, all things considered, and my futile dreams of more deeply studying subjects in Physics that I like, and some about walking, but finally about how I’m not up to anything.

I may not make this into a video on YouTube.  I did make yesterday’s audio into a “video”.  If anyone wants me to do that with THIS audio, let me know.

Anyway, for all you gluttons for punishment, here is yesterday’s audio turned into video:

And here is the audio from today:

If such a thing is possible, enjoy.

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A bland post but with some good music shared along the way

I’ll start by saying, Happy Cinco de Mayo!

cinco dance

I forgot yesterday was Star Wars day, and I don’t want to miss two such things in a row.

I guess, given that it’s Friday, it might be a nice night to have a margarita, or some other tequila-based beverage, if you indulge in alcohol.  But don’t drink and drive, of course.  That’s just playing Russian Roulette with the gun pointed at other people as well as yourself and your loved ones.  If you do drink and drive, certainly if you do it very often, it might be ethical (but not legal, and for good reasons) for someone else to kill you in self-defense, or in the general defense of innocents.  I don’t recommend it, but it would be understandable.

I’m not writing this at the train station today, nor am I writing on the laptop computer.  I am writing this‒to start, anyway‒on my phone, from the house, because I’m taking the bus to the train today.

Yesterday, after only 2 days of riding the bike to and from the train station (one and a half, really), my back and legs and entire left side up to my shoulder were in severe pain all throughout the day, which didn’t help my baseline grumpiness at work.  Well, it helped the grumpiness, I guess you could say; at least, it enhanced or increased it.  But I felt like crap overall.

So, given that, I’m not going to ride my bike today, and I don’t think I’ll ride it tomorrow, which means I doubt that I’ll be going to the movies, since the distance to the nearest theater is longer than the distance to the train station, albeit not by much.  But if the latter causes me so much pain, I’d rather avoid the former.

I don’t think I want to walk to the theater, either.  I haven’t been walking long distances for several weeks, what with weather and trying to use the bike and so on, so I worry that I might exacerbate things, like blisters and joint pain and so on.  Anyway, an eight mile walk is likely to take more than two hours each way.  That’s chewing up a big chunk of a day to see a movie by myself.  Not that I tend to do anything more useful or entertaining otherwise.

I suppose I could activate either the Uber or Lyft app, both of which I downloaded the other day after the bus was 35 minutes late.  But I’ve never used either one before, and I’m leery of getting in a car with a stranger who doesn’t have an official “chauffeur’s” license and a local (also licensed and regulated) company behind them.  That may be silly of me, but it is what it is.  Maybe I’ll work out the public transportation route to the best movie theater.

Or maybe I should just nix the idea of going to the theater at all and just watch the movie on Disney+ when it gets there, assuming I am still alive by then.  As far as I know, it’s hard to watch movies when one is not alive, but there are counterbalancing compensations, the most prominent one being the lack of pain and another being a lack of sadness/loneliness/depression.  These things are not to be taken lightly.  Escaping from them can be strongly appealing, especially when there are few counterbalancing consolations.

Speaking of not being alive, it was quite sad (though not tragic, since he was 84) when, earlier this week, Gordon Lightfoot died.  I may have mentioned this here before, but his song, If You Could Read My Mind is among my favorites; it came out when I was young, and I’ve always thought it was beautiful.

In fact, I did a rhythm guitar “cover” of it, with me singing.  I’ll embed the video for that here, just in case you’re interested, and then‒to get the taste of my playing and singing out of your mouth‒I’ll embed a video of the real, original song by the man himself.

I only ask, out of kindness, for you not to listen to my version too soon after his, if you do it in that order.  You wouldn’t have Phoebe Buffay try to follow Yo Yo Ma on stage at Carnegie Hall, right?

So, here’s my version:

And here’s the way it’s supposed to sound:

He did a lot of other good stuff, too, of course.  No less an artist than Bob Dylan said that, whenever he heard a Gordon Lightfoot song, he wished it would go on forever.  I wouldn’t go quite that all-out, myself; I don’t think there are even any Radiohead, Pink Floyd*, or Beatles songs I wish would go on forever.

Now, Rachmaninoff’s 2nd piano concerto…that could be the background music for the world and I wouldn’t quickly get tired of it.  Or Dvorak’s “New World” symphony would be good, too.

And of course, on the flip side, my own songs, like Breaking Me Down and Like and Share at about six minutes, go on longer than anyone probably wants them to go.  I guess my song writing is a bit like my novel writing‒once I get going, I tend to go on and on, because momentum, or inertia, or whatever, makes it so that I have little capacity or urge to stop.

Ironically, though, I don’t really have much more to say right now.  My leg and back and side and hip hurt a bit less than yesterday, but they do hurt quite a bit, still, and I need to leave soon to go to the bus stop, because I don’t think I’ll be walking as fast as usual.

It’s been a relatively bland blog post, but there are various songs to which I will have linked, to which you can listen if you like.  Most of them are by real, excellent, professional musicians, and have stood the test of decades or longer.  Those ones, at least, are worth a listen.

I won’t be doing a post tomorrow, because I don’t work tomorrow, and hopefully I’ll have rested enough that my pain goes back to baseline.  Have a good weekend if you’re at all able.  And if you see the new Marvel movie, feel free to let me know what you think of it.

*Though Echoes, which is the entire B-side of their album Meddle, goes on for a long time, and it’s not unpleasant.  And then there’s Shine On You Crazy Diamond, the opening and closing parts of the album Wish You Were Here.  

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Brief thoughts on candy, carbon, communication, and a shared “video”

Well, it’s Wednesday, the day after Valentine’s Day.  I know it’s not technically the Ides of February or anything—at least I think I know that—but there ought to be an official day for the day after Valentine’s Day, some equivalent of Boxing Day after Christmas.  Maybe we could call it Barfing Day; that might be both fun and appropriate.

I was thinking that yesterday would have been an excellent day for me to have a heart attack.  It seems an appropriate potentially fatal healthcare crisis to have on a day when everyone is sharing “heart-shaped”* treats, many if not all of which are not great for the coronary arteries.  However, though I did in fact find myself once sprinting to beat a light and then later sprinting to catch a bus—one can’t get much more cliché than that when it comes to myocardial infarctions—I felt not a hint of chest pain, shortness of breath, palpitations, or what have you.  Disappointing.  And the only nausea I felt was that sort of subjective nausea that isn’t a true physical feeling, but which is a projection of disgust over the very silly and stupid things people say and do.

This queasiness was not in response to Valentine’s Day activities!  Don’t get me wrong.  I thought Barfing Day was a good follow-up day because eating too many sweets in one day can lead to GI upset.  For the most part, I think it’s nice that people express love, romantic and/or otherwise, to those important to them.  It may be frustrating that it’s such a ritualized, scheduled expression of love, but unfortunately, if it were not for such rituals, it’s probable that many people would never make or think of any such expression at all.

Sometimes, it seems, humans need rituals to make them realize their own feelings, and perhaps even to confront their own feelings.  This can apply to bad feelings as well as to good, as when, on the approach to a holiday such as Valentine’s Day, someone realizes that the person with whom they are currently linked is someone with whom they don’t really feel that strong a bond.  Hopefully such a realization occurs before too much has been invested in a relationship.

I suppose the need to act in recognition of such a fact can sometimes lead to a stereotypical Valentine’s Day breakup, which is harsh, but perhaps better than the alternative of a long, unpleasant relationship with increasing acrimony and emotional (if not physical) abuse.  Maybe I’m wrong.  I don’t know; I’m making this up as I go.

In distant parallel to the above, I sometimes think that maybe we should lace all Valentine’s Day candies with hormone blockers or something along those lines to diminish the sex drive of those who eat them.  Surely, anything that can be done to decrease the breeding of new humans is probably going to be a benefit for the rest of the planet, and evolution just isn’t likely to get to that solution on its own.

On second thought, that may actually be a foolish notion.  Honestly, I’d worry more about people if they didn’t have any children, because the nurturing of children is one of the most potent triggers and encouragers of love—not to mention forethought—in humans.  As I think Fagin said in the musical Oliver, I think I’d better think it out again.

Anyway, that’s all for you guys to worry about.  I’m giving up on it, and with any luck, none of what humans do will have any impact on me, other than perhaps to alter slightly the rate of decay of my corpse.  Though it would be useful, I think—and as I’ve written before—to enact a policy, or even a tradition, of storing the bodies of the deceased in deep ocean subduction zones, to get them out of the carbon cycle.

Cremation seems like a terrible idea; it just gives everyone one last lunge to increase their individual carbon footprint!

It probably doesn’t make much difference, though, honestly.  Such minor sequestering and the like on local, individual level is unlikely to accumulate into anything of significance to the global atmosphere.  I think it will only be the development of new science, technologies, and processes that will engineer out the excess carbon from the atmosphere, perhaps using some adjusted and enhanced equivalent of photosynthesis on an industrial scale (among other thing).  After all, photosynthesis takes carbon dioxide and water—potent greenhouse gases—from the atmosphere and ultimately converts them into carbohydrates and fats and such.  These can then be sequestered, if necessary, or converted to bioplastics, and biofuels, to use for things we currently do with fossil fuels.

The local energy for those processes can be derived from the products of the photosynthesis (ultimately from the sun) and so on, so that even when not truly “carbon-negative” it will be at worst “carbon-neutral”.

Of course, it’s stupid to be carbon neutral as a matter of personal, aesthetic judgment.  Carbon is the backbone of life as we know it, and probably will be for most if not all other life in the universe, if there is any.

I know, in these matters, “carbon” is just a shorthand for greenhouse gas reduction and whatnot, but I wonder how many people really think about that when they use the term, especially when one considers that water vapor, which is more potent than CO2  as a greenhouse gas, has no carbon in it at all, and methane, which is also more potent a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, has only one carbon atom for every four hydrogen atoms.  And a molecule of methane burns to make one molecule of CO2 and two molecules of water.

If more people were more scientifically literate and careful in their thought, a great many of our problems would probably be diminished, so my biggest local lament here is that many of the more vocal activists on all sides may refer to things like carbon and economics and communication and the like without even really thinking about the words they are saying.  Such words in such cases aren’t tools of communication, but are, as Eliezer Yudkowsky notes, just soldiers going into battle.  What a horrible bastardization of the greatest invention of the human species.

In closing, I just want to let you know that I recorded myself reading aloud the last blog post I made on my alternate blog Iterations of Zero, and I’ve turned it into a video to put on YouTube.  I’ve embed it here, below.  It’s only three minutes long, and some of that is a lead-in moment of silence.

You can read it or listen, whatever you like, but I hope if you “watch” it you’ll give it a “thumbs up” on YouTube.

It’s a brief discussion of a thought experiment or story of a person trapped in a peculiar prison and trying to send messages for help without alerting the jailer, but it’s not as simple as it seems, and it’s not actually fiction.

Enjoy.

*And they are truly sort of heart-shaped, especially if you look at the interior shape of a heart.

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Just say “No” to vember

Well, it’s Tuesday morning, and against all my considered advice, a new month has started. That month is November, in case either you’re reading this at some later date or you’re really not paying attention. It’s the year 2022. That’s AD or CE depending on your preferred terminology, though those things, like the number of the year or the month or the day are all arbitrary. For all I know, by the time you’re reading this, you may be using something like stardates from Star Trek or summat.

I’m writing this on my phone again, because I didn’t feel like bothering to bring my laptop home. Yesterday was just about the least enjoyable Halloween I’ve had since I got back from being “up the road”. It was a disappointing October in general. I had an almost unnoticeable birthday, then a pathetic Halloween, which was a particularly rotten day for business, also. I put together a pretty cool costume, in case we did something at the office as usual, but we didn’t. I wish I had that money and effort back.

It’s not a big tragedy to have a disappointing Halloween, obviously, but it is one of the only things to which I look forward, so it hits harder on top of my general deterioration than it might for other people. I also had more trouble with the WIFI last night, and my rest was worse than usual even for me. I didn’t get a single hour of uninterrupted sleep. My back/hips/leg/ankle are really bothering me this morning, but that’s partly from worse-than-usual sleep and probably partly from wearing boots to go with my stupid costume yesterday. That was an ill-considered idea in retrospect, but it’s no one’s fault but my own. I always make a mistake when I approach something optimistically.

I did upload that video about perception not being reality yesterday. The content is literally the same as the audio I posted with my blog yesterday, other than the screen picture, but here’s that video, anyway.

You are certainly encouraged to “give a thumbs up, subscribe, hit the bell, comment, and share” if you are so inclined. It doesn’t really matter, of course. I’m sure my YouTube channel has no future of any note.

Speaking of the future, and also about the past, I didn’t even begin to edit the audio that I recorded with my nocturnal thoughts about time from Sunday night/Monday morning. I anticipated there being…I don’t know, something happening at the office. There was nothing. But I still didn’t get any editing or anything else useful done there. I don’t honestly know if I’ve ever done anything useful. I guess it would depend on one’s definitions of usefulness.

I’ve been trying to find books that are intriguing to me, but no fiction or even non-fiction seems interesting. My favorite blog (or should I say “website”) that I follow is on a near-hiatus, with only minimal posting for the moment. That site is the closest thing I come to socializing, so I’m disappointed. Anyway, I’ve curtailed my commenting on it of late, because most comments I make end up coming across as weird or stupid or irritating to me or to other readers or to the writer of the site, and I don’t want to bother people who are some of the only people, and some of the most rational people, with whom I interact in any way. That would really be mortifying*.

***

We’re currently stopped in the train at the station two up from mine, apparently waiting for clearance from the dispatcher. I have no idea why. They haven’t mentioned anything about any accidents or whatnot. It’s a bit frustrating, because I seriously considered not going in to the office today, since I had such a rotten night’s sleep, and I feel so utterly depressed, and in more pain than usual. But I said to myself that since I wasn’t literally sick**, and especially since it’s the first of the month, when rent is due and all that, it feels irresponsible not to go in. Considering yesterday was such a lame day for business, it seems only right to do my part to be “all hands on deck” today.

I’m so tired of always feeling responsible, though, of always feeling like I have to try, to do my best, to do my part (or more), to try to act cheerful and to be a person who can help other people when they come to him for help, as they always do. Honestly, the times I’ve been in the hospital for surgery or relatively severe illness were such a relief in a weird way. Everything was out of my hands, and I could rest.

***

They just announced that there has apparently been a “trespasser strike” north of Fort Lauderdale station; that’s the cause of our delay. I believe this is a euphemism. A trespasser is someone who wanders into the vicinity of the railroad tracks, which is technically the property of the state of whoever runs the railroad system, and by “strike” I don’t think they mean someone is marching on a picket line holding a sign.

This is why I said it would be rude if I were to throw myself in front of the train or in between cars of a freight train. It leaves everyone on the trains delayed and inconvenienced. Of course, it’s very sad that someone was apparently hurt or possibly killed, but little stressors and inefficiencies and backups accumulate in any society, costing money, time, energy, stress…and these effects do wreak costs upon the health and the lives of numerous people, with consequences that are real and tragic, but are not seen so clearly because they happen via the accumulation of disparate forces and events. What looks like a traffic accident due to driver error is really an externality produced by the increased stressors that accumulated to wear that driver down, until the wrong thing happened at a bad time, with tragic outcomes. It’s happening all the time, it’s as real as the cumulative effects of sun exposure that lead to skin cancer over time, or accumulating atherosclerosis leading to heart attacks and strokes when the system finally fails at some weak point, and it’s even harder to pin down. It’s probably utterly hopeless and pointless for me to even try to do my part not to make things worse by not destroying myself in a disruptive way, but I don’t want to make things worse if I can help it. I probably can’t help it, given my nature.

Oh, well. My foundations and load-bearing walls are creaking and cracking and crumbling day by day, and they will eventually give out somewhere, and the whole edifice will collapse. I can hear the creaking; it’s getting louder and louder, growing slowly but with an exponential trend as time goes on. I don’t know what to do about it. I have no personal resources to apply to it, and I have no right to ask anyone else for help.

Anyway, that’s enough of all that. I’m sure you all wish I would finish off sooner rather than later, and just get it over with. Probably a good idea.

In the meantime, I hope you have a good day and a good month, and a good remainder of the year, and a good next year after that. If you’re patient enough to have read this far, then I’m sure you deserve the best.

***

P.S. We had started to go forward, but halfway between one stop and the next we approached what must have been the scene of the “strike” and now they say we’re going back to the previous station, though currently we’re sitting still. I don’t know what they’re going to do from there. Sometimes they arrange bus services or whatnot, to go around the spot. I don’t know if I can handle that. I may just walk to the nearest regular bus.

P.P.S.  I have gone back to the house.  I cannot wait for the shuttle because it’s not there and I’m in increasing pain and stress and am so very tired.  I went back to the station and back to the house.  I have no reliable means to drive to work and back, and I do not have the wit or will to deal with taking the bus.  I just want to go to sleep and stay asleep.  That would be so nice.

*Unfortunately, not literally so.

**In any infectious, contagious sense, anyway. I am sick in the head, and I’m not being facetious about that. I am very, very ill right now, and I don’t have any good idea what to do about it. I think it’s going to kill me.