mental health

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No songs or pictures, just pathetic words of despite and destruction and despair

Well, it’s Tuesday.  I think my stunt (or whatever you might call it) yesterday has failed miserably.  I don’t know why I’m surprised, let alone disappointed.  I’m either just not good at that sort of thing, or I’m just not worthy of that sort of thing.

I don’t know if that quite made sense just now.  I’m apparently very bad at getting my feelings across, on top of the fact that, a lot of the time, I’m not quite sure specifically what I’m feeling.  They’re just a bunch of swirling, overpowering sensations that don’t ever seem to show on my face or in my voice.

Anyway, I have no subject on which to speak (so to speak) today, and it doesn’t really matter, because I seem incapable of conveying anything important to anyone for whom it could possibly matter.  It’s fine.  As Thomas Covenant said (before he ever went to the Land) this is what people are like:  futile.  He would change his point of view on that after many grueling and heartbreaking yet inspiring experiences, but I think he was onto something.

I’ve always had a bit of sympathy for Lord Foul in those books.  Part of this was just because he was so eloquent‒I’m a bit of a sucker for a good speaker‒but especially after I learned that he was trapped inside the arch of time, inside the Land, and he literally cannot possibly die or be permanently defeated while trapped there.  He hates everything in the Land and its world not just because it’s his nature to hate, but because he is trapped by and with everything there, potentially forever.  So if he is ever to be free to go anywhere else‒even to die‒he has to destroy the arch of time and thus that world.  It is personal to him, of course‒he’s not called the Despiser for nothing‒but it needn’t be.

Anyway, I am not trapped in the arch of time, or at least I’m not constrained from ever dying within it.  Or maybe my own arch of time is just that span of moments that began at birth (or conception) and will reach its other end at my death.  If that’s the case, I wouldn’t need to destroy the arch, just…complete it.

This is all metaphorical bullshit, I know.  Don’t misunderstand me.  I don’t have any misgiving that any of that could be real.  But the stories were good, at least the first two trilogies; I’ve never finished the last 4 books.  There is no denying that The Lord of the Rings is better, and much more inspiring and uplifting.  But the Thomas Covenant books do a better job of capturing the horror and despair and terror of not just fighting evil, but of being evil.

That’s probably why it appealed to me.  My innate tendency is to be, well, perhaps not evil, but destructive.  I feel terribly angry so much, so often, and I just want to break and burn this world, this life, that is so bloody uncomfortable.  But I know that I don’t have any business hurting other people, almost none of whom are ever deliberately hurting me.  So I bottle it up and try to calm it, and I don’t act on it.

But like I said in my reversal of Nebula’s last line to Drax in Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3, I wasn’t born to be a dad, I was born to be a destroyer.  I’ve just always tried to fight against that, and I have in some small ways succeeded.  I even swung things in the other direction at times, becoming a doctor and a dad.  Of course, I eventually failed miserably at both of those things, as usual, but I did some good in the meantime.

And there is one being I have a proprietary right to destroy.  I just need to quit the foreplay.

Anyway, this has been weird, I suspect, but what else is new?  I hope you all have a good day.

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Six songs to try to express a little bit of how I am doing

I don’t have the energy or will or “spoons” to write much today.  I’m just about ready to tap out.  My “executive function” is so low that I think the only thing I’m capable of executing is myself, and even that is difficult.  I certainly don’t have the capacity to act to save myself.  I keep trying to express just how fucking horrible I am doing, but I don’t think it’s coming across.  I guess it doesn’t matter much.

Anyway, today I figure I’ll embed some songs I’ve recorded myself performing that do something to convey my difficulties.  Some are originals, some are covers.  I don’t know if they will work, either.

It doesn’t really matter.  I don’t have the will to take any action about anything.  I can only do what I do every day, automatically, and I am getting closer and closer to being unable to do even that.  I think I’m pretty nearly completely out of gas, and I am basically only a burden to the world.  It doesn’t help that we’re moving offices this month, which I hate, but that’s just a little insult to add to the injuries that are leading to the end of things.

Anyway, here are the songs.

It’s not a perfect expression or set of expressions, but it’s about all I’m capable of, even after a weekend “off”.  It doesn’t matter.  I’ve basically given up.  I’m so tired already and it’s just Monday morning.

I hope you each have a great day, individually, and that you all have a great day, collectively.

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It’s the end of the month as we know it

It’s the last day of April in 2025, which means tomorrow is the beginning of May.  This is also the last day of the official Autism Awareness Month, and tomorrow begins the official Mental Health Awareness Month.

That last term is a bit odd.  If mental health is the norm, we don’t really need to be aware of it, except perhaps to be thankful if we have it (I certainly don’t).  It’s the lack of mental health‒you know, mental illness or even mental injury‒that we would like to be aware of and make better.  But I guess some people feel that’s too stigmatic or negative or something.

I think that’s silly.  Do we euphemize cancer?  Not really, not when we’re dealing with it seriously.  All the cancer awareness things slap you in the face, and they more or less say, it’s cancer, take it seriously, we want to fight it.  But what does it mean to be aware of mental health?  We don’t want to fight that, we want to fight for it.

I’m aware of mental health as a concept, of course, though even there, things can be a bit nebulous.  I guess health in general is just the notion that things are functioning more or less as they are supposed to function.  But that allows a fair bit of leeway.  It’s also somewhat relative.  If it were “normal” to be as healthy as Captain America, for instance, Usain Bolt might be considered a bit sickly, and most of the rest of us would be functionally disabled.

It’s hard to convince oneself that the average person, in America, at least, is as mentally healthy as one would like them to be.  I suppose that shouldn’t be too surprising.  Mental health (or the relative lack thereof) is measured largely by its interactions with the surrounding civilization, and that has been changing quite rapidly, from any kind of evolutionary standpoint, especially in the last few centuries, and especially in the last few decades.

Small wonder our brains/nervous systems often don’t function optimally in this realm.  The human (and humanoid/replicant/changeling/alien) brain is remarkably adaptable, but it is not a blank slate upon which just anything can be written at will.  There’s plenty of hardware that’s specific to certain kinds of functions, and there are read-only aspects of the operating systems and even the user interface (which we call consciousness when it’s combined with something akin to the Windows task manager).  We can’t rewrite the firmware yet, and we may never be able to do so.  We have trouble even changing current programs or loading new ones.

Well, that was an unplanned digression…which may be a redundant term.  Are planned digressions even truly digressions?

I was mostly just thinking this morning about what such a pair of months might mean to me.  Both of them are pertinent, since I have issues relating to both “awareness” subjects.  But so many of the things I see shared, particularly about “mental health”, are things I already know, but which have obviously not been adequate to improve my mental health.

Heck, I remember paying real attention in high school in our psychology lessons, reading all the abnormal psychology stuff, knowing that there was something off about me, but not seeing any good answers.  Of course, this was in the 80s, in a public high school, so the material was pretty simplistic and out of date even for the time.

I also used to own books about psychology, self-hypnotism, self help, lots of related stuff.  I didn’t know what it was with me, but I knew that I was strange.  I was pretty good at pretending to be “normal” in a sense, but a lot of even that was just me owning and sometimes exaggerating my odd habits as if they were normal things.

It helped that I was known to be smart, and also that I was raised to be polite and not to be mean or cruel or condescending to people.  That was pretty easy; while I was good at some things, there were many things with which I had difficulty, and I knew that only too well.  I still don’t feel very comfortable riding a bike, for instance, and many athletic pursuits requiring agility have always been hard*.  I also was truly abysmal at dealing with girls/relationships.  I had no idea how really to interact in any kind of would-be romantic way, nor to recognize if someone liked me, nor to let anyone know that I liked them.  I’ve not grown out of that problem.

Anyway, so I’ve been dealing with issues of mental health for as long as I can remember, including a time when I was really quite young and I almost made myself unable to talk after getting upset about some interaction and telling myself that I just wouldn’t talk anymore.  When I finally (after several hours) decided to talk again…I almost couldn’t do it!  I really had to force myself, and almost panicked before I finally was able to squeeze out some words.  That was frightening.

I don’t know if I’ve ever mentioned that to anyone before.

So, anyway, I’ve been weird my whole life, and I’m no less weird now, but now I am alone, and I have lost pretty much everything I worked very hard to get or be or create as well as nearly everyone I care about most**.  I recognize that it’s not impossible that good things will happen for me in the future.  But I can see pretty clearly that it’s really unlikely.  What could lead me to think otherwise?  Only some profound delusions could do that, and though I cannot rule out delusions in myself, if I have them, they are not of the optimistic variety.

Geez Louise, this is such a pointless post‒just like my pointless life.  I need to wrap it up and be done already.  I hope you have a good day.

*It turns out at least some of this was related to my congenital heart defect, which was discovered when I was 18, and for which I had open heart surgery in the summer after my freshman year in college.

**By this I mean they’re not around, and most of them don’t want to be around me, not that they’ve died‒except my parents, of course, but that was basically natural.  Still, there was a long stretch when I didn’t even interact with them.  It wasn’t as long as the time since I last saw my own children, but it was still very painful.

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How long should one keep smacking the bottom of that bottle?

I made it through Monday again, it seems.  It wasn’t particularly easy.  Starting in the morning, I developed a nasty, unilateral headache that I couldn’t seem to get to go away.  I finally left the office at lunchtime and went back to the house, where I mostly laid around and tried to sedate myself, with some success.

The headache didn’t really start to fade until around midnight, so I didn’t have quite the rest I might have desired, but at least I got some rest.  And now, only a faint residue of the headache remains.

It didn’t feel like a typical migraine, which I have from time to time‒thankfully not very often‒but almost more like a bad, unilateral sinus headache.  Hopefully, it has pretty much run its course now.

It might be nice if there could be a situation in which one could go through some period of painful illness, but then come out afterwards with one’s prior, chronic pain somehow eliminated.  Of course, that’s not likely to happen in real life.  It certainly hasn’t happened to me.

It is true, apparently, that a bad measles infection can effectively wipe out prior immunities, making one vulnerable to diseases to which one had previous resistance.  I suppose that might even be a boon in someone with an autoimmune dysfunction, though it would be difficult to time the infection just right.

I’m not aware of anyone having tried such a therapy, and I don’t think it’s something I would recommend, even if it were workable (which it really isn’t).  Better just to keep vaccination for measles and other preventable illnesses going and look for other avenues to treat autoimmune disorders.

As for what else to discuss…I’m coming up empty here at the moment.  Actually, it’s not just at the moment, is it?  I’ve been squeezing the dregs out of the mustard bottle that is my life force for a long time now.

Sorry, I know that’s a terrible metaphor, but I don’t feel that I’m really worthy of anything fancier.  Anyway, I’ve certainly spread that condiment out over a lot of sandwiches (that’s my continuing the rotten metaphor, with a sandwich representing a day).  But there’s hardly anything left in there, and there are no refills available, as far as I know, and now I’m really just going through the motions.  There’s just a dribbly little, watery remnant, with no flavor left and very little color.

I really pushed that one to the crumpling point, I fear.  But I hope I at least got my point across.  If I didn’t, that would be a real shame.  What a thing not only to have used a truly lame metaphor but to have it fail to do what one intended.  What a tragic joke that would be.

It wouldn’t be very tragic, of course‒it’s hardly anything of consequence.  But still, it would be sad.

I’m really tired and wiped out, even though I went back to the house early yesterday.  Well, I mean, I did just say that my headache didn’t really start to go away until about midnight, and as per my usual self, I was awake today well before three in the morning.

I know, I know, this is all so boring and repetitive!  I’m very sorry.  I wish I could be telling you all about a new story I’m writing, or about my return to a past story, or about some new music I was learning or writing, or even some new drawings I might have done.

Heck, I’d like to tell you I was making progress in studying quantum mechanics and general relativity or differential geometry or computer programming and computer science in general.  I wish I could tell you (and do so honestly) that I was learning more Japanese, or refreshing my Spanish or learning Russian or German, or even French, all of which languages are interesting.

But I’m not doing any of those things.  I’m not doing anything creative or productive or even just distractive (that’s probably not a formally recognized word, but maybe it is).  I don’t have the energy to do anything creative other than this, if this even counts.

Of course, I go to work and do my job, and that’s all well and good as far as it goes, since I don’t like being a burden to people.  But that’s as good as it gets, I think.

I don’t know what else I can do.  I’m just a mess.  I feel like a tattered and smeared old wrapper from a cheap, fast food hamburger.  I suppose some of the smeared matter on the wrapper might be mustard, if we want to keep the metaphor‒or simile, in this case‒consistent.

Well, my train will be here soon, so I’ll bring this to a close.  I hope I haven’t been too much of a downer.  If I have, well, take comfort in the fact that you are only reading these thoughts.  You don’t actually have to experience them.

Please try to have a good day, and try to have better thoughts than mine.

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Step up or STFU

Here I go again, writing another blog post.  It seems like just yesterday that I wrote a previous one‒but of course, it was two days ago, not just one.  Wow, what a spooky difference.

I’m getting ready to be at work, or rather, am in the process of being on my way to work as I begin to write this.  I’m not actually currently moving relative to the surface of the Earth, but that happens a lot during commutes, especially when you don’t have your own vehicle anymore.

I don’t really have “my own” much of anything anymore.  I mean, I have a small amount of stuff, as George Carlin might say, though I’m quite sure I have waaaaaay less stuff than he had when he performed that particular routine.  Not that that’s bad; he certainly earned his stuff.  I mean, he’s still making loads of people laugh and think even after he’s been dead for a while.  I don’t know how long that will go on‒contrary to delusional claims by people who like a cool-sounding expression, online is not forever‒but he will, I suspect, be remembered fondly far longer than most.

The average day, on the other hand, feels like it is forever.  I don’t think I really look forward (in the positive sense) to anything nowadays.  There are two movies in theaters right now that I ought to want to go see, but if you presented me with free tickets, free concessions, and a ride to and from a theater of my choice, I think I’d say, “Thanks, but I’m not interested.”  And that would be true.

Likewise, though I watched the first episode of the latest series of Doctor Who a few weeks ago, two more have come out since then, and I have no desire to watch them, or anything else.  There are no books to which I look forward.  I’ve had to force myself to read at all, and even that’s probably a mistake*.  I occasionally look at my guitars and at the keyboard and they almost feel alien to me.  Like, what is that even used for?  I can’t really even imagine picking one up and playing it (or sitting down and playing, in the case of the keyboard).

I can’t really imagine writing any fiction.  The only thing(s) I anticipate at all anymore is something to eat, and that’s just so, so pathetic.  Thankfully, even my favorite snacks are starting to feel and taste and smell very dull lately.  I don’t know if perhaps I had my sense of smell altered back when I got Covid, or if this is born of the fact that all pleasures have backfired on me at least one time or another, and more so than ever, lately.

I really think I’m just about done.  I should’ve been done already.  I should’ve been done a long time ago.  But we’re always told to hold on, to stay alive, that we’re wanted and needed here on this stupid planet.  It’s a bit of a similar situation to what happens with “pro-life” people:  They don’t want there to be abortions, they want all those potential people born, but they aren’t helping to take care of them, and they don’t even want there to be public services available for them or for education or what have you.

So it is with the people who don’t want other people to commit suicide.  They don’t want you to kill yourself, but they’re not offering to help you be alive, not in any meaningful sense of helping.  And so, of course, when people do reach the end of their rope (sorry, no pun intended, but the expression is doubly appropriate so I’m leaving it) they have to choose the analogue of “back alley abortions”, killing themselves (or trying to do so) in messy, unreliable, disruptive ways that often don’t succeed but can lead to permanent damage and social opprobrium.

In some civilized countries, it’s possible for people to go to places like Dignitas and get physician-supervised ways to end their lives with minimal pain and with some peace.  Of course, even in such places, the service seems to be available mainly for people with terminal cancer and similar incurable illnesses.  But depression is often a terminal illness, and it is certainly incurable as far as I can see.  And, of course, ASD is not a disease, it’s a neurodevelopmental difference, so there’s no curing that, short of a brain transplant (which would really be a body transplant for the donor brain).

But if no one is going to give serious help to a person who has severe difficulty even wanting to live, and who has no capacity to lift himself out of the whirlpool of self-loathing and chronic pain, then why is there all the verbiage about how “depression is a liar” and other bullshit like that.  As if optimism weren’t a liar.  As if all the ideals and isms and dogmae and “good” things weren’t lies or liars or both.

So, fuck that noise.  Don’t tell a woman not to have an abortion if you’re not going to care for her and the child, and don’t cajole and guilt-trip a suicidal person about not killing themselves if you’re not gonna come in and help them in some real, tangible, serious way, God damn it.  A person on the verge of suicide is already admitting that they don’t think they can survive under their own steam.  They can’t swim anywhere, but you want them to keep treading water, or at least floating‒indefinitely‒just so you don’t have to be aware of the fact that they drowned while you were out boating.

All right, that’s enough for now.  I hope you all have a good day.  Autism Awareness Month ends this week and Mental Health Awareness Month begins.  Fat lot of good they’ve done or do.

*Interesting aside:  I accidentally typed “provably” when I tried to write “probably” right there.  The words are, so I understand, etymologically** related‒probe, prove, proof, probable, etc.

**Etymology and entomology are however (apart from the “ology” bit) unrelated.

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Definitely NOT in the park (and it isn’t the 4th of July)

Well, it’s Saturday, and this is a blog post, so as you may surmise, I am working today.  I’m writing this on Google Docs, but not on my mini laptop computer and also not on my phone.  I’m writing this on the desktop computer I use at the office.

I went to the train to head back to the house yesterday, feeling despondent and dreary.  When the train arrived, it was so overcrowded that I just couldn’t stand the idea of getting on, and so I decided to wait for the next one.  Then, as I waited and more people arrived at the station, I thought the next train was likely to get just as crowded as the previous.

I thought about the fact that I would just be going back to the house and trying to lie down and sleep and then trying (so to speak) to stay asleep, only to need to get up and make my way back to the office again.  Well, there’s nothing at the house that makes it much more inviting than the office, apart from the shower and clothes.  But I wear the same clothes to work every day, anyway‒same color, style, brand, what have you.  I can get away with a bit of deodorant and spray cologne and a shave and toothbrush‒I keep extra implements for such things at work.

So, anyway, I came back to the office and just slept here on the floor.  This is the exciting and glamorous life that I lead.

Now, it’s early in the morning on Saturday, and I figure I might as well write a blog post, as I warned you I might.  And here I am, writing it.  I think it’s going to be short; I have no topic to address, nor really any interest in anything.  I’m disconnected and disaffected, and if I can think of a good third word that both rhymes and applies, I’ll add it.

Nothing’s coming to mind so far, though.

I’m actually kind of pulling up short already.  I don’t know what to say next, other than to comment on the fact that I don’t know what to say next.  I’m still in pain, and it’s still above my average (though not by a huge amount), and of course, I slept no better at the office than I would at the house, but I also slept no worse.  It’s quieter at the office, also.  And it’s not as though there would have been anything interesting for me to do on Friday night, even if I’d been free, and there’s certainly no one with whom I would do anything.

I see that Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith is out in “select” theaters this week, to celebrate its 20th anniversary.  I’m unlikely to go see it.  If I had someone to accompany me (whose company I found comfortable enough) I might go, though it would be bittersweet, I think*.  The last time I saw the movie in theaters, I was with my (ex) wife and our kids.  We had a very good time, and my son at least was probably old enough to remember some of the event.

That’s about it.  No new fiction, no music‒I have my guitar right here next to me as I write this, but I cannot even comprehend the notion of wanting to pick it up and play.  When I conjure the image, I feel more like one might feel sitting in an overly sterile, very crowded waiting room for a job interview for a truly uninspiring company, one at which one really doesn’t want to work.  At least it’s not a nervous feeling; it’s just a bored and pointless feeling, a lack of interest in or at least energy for anything.

And now, this week I’m going to be getting less weekend rest than I have been for the past short while.  I only hope it doesn’t too strongly impact next week.  But it’s not as though I’ve been doing well even with full weekends and heavily sedated sleep (as heavy as OTC stuff will allow).

You would think that, as you approach the center of the whirlpool that leads you down to the inevitable abyss, you would pick up speed and things might at least become a little bit exciting.  This does not, however, appear to be the case for me right now.  I’m losing my patience.  I’m in physical and mental pain every waking moment‒and for me, that’s more moments per day than for most people‒and can really only seek distraction when I can get it.

That’s enough kvetching for now.  I know all you regular readers already know of my issues, and I don’t think anyone out there has any answers for me, even if they were inclined to provide them.  I hope you all have/are having a good weekend.

*Not the candy.  I don’t tend to eat anything with bittersweet chocolate while at the movies.

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“Everything is…broken”

Hi, everybody.

(Hi, Dr. Nick!)

I am writing this blog post on my mini laptop computer this morning, because I’ve been getting sick and tired of writing on the “smartphone”.  I’m also getting sick of writing blog posts to some degree, so it’s best to make it relatively easy on myself when I can, and when I have the gumption, or the will, or the “spoons”, whatever you want to call it.

We have some new people at the office this week, so depending on how many of them would be able to show up, I may be working tomorrow.  If I do, I suppose I’ll probably write a blog post tomorrow morning.  So, I guess you’ll all know whether or not I’m working based on whether or not there’s a blog post.

Of course, if I don’t work tomorrow, there will be no blog post (or at least it’s very unlikely).  And, definitely, if I die (or become gravely or catastrophically ill or injured) before tomorrow, there will of course be no blog post.

As for everything else, well—to a good first approximation, everything else sucks.  Although the universe as a whole may actually be doing the opposite of sucking, since the cosmologic constant, or Dark Energy, or whatever, appears to be leading to the universe’s accelerated expansion.  But metaphorically, at least, the universe could still suck even while it expands (you could even say it blows).

None of my problems are resolving, nor are any improving, to be honest.  I can’t even accept telephone calls from people I know, nor can I seem to find the energy to play any music, nor to write any fiction.  I am more or less all out of “spoons”*, or nearly so.  And I don’t seem to be getting as many of them replaced when I do get them.  It’s as though my subscription has been downgraded.

That’s all metaphorical, of course.  When I say spoons, I’m referring to all members of the dairy professions.

(That was a Life of Brian reference.)

I’m sorry that I keep pausing while writing; I hope it’s not too boring for you while I do (ha ha).  I’m having some difficulty concentrating.  This is at least partly because my left eyelashes seem to be getting tangled and poking at parts of my eyelids in the wrong way, and I have not yet been able to locate and remove the offending lash(es).  This used to happen only to my right eye, but apparently things are changing themselves up—equal opportunity offenses, I guess.  Sometimes I feel like I want just to pull my whole eyelid off, it’s so irritating; it’s hard to ignore something that’s basically poking you in the eye.

My back and legs are already flaring this morning well above their baseline, and I feel like I got even worse sleep than usual.  I’m not as overtly angry as I was yesterday, not because the causes are any different, but because I’m just steadily more exhausted all the time.  I don’t have the energy to do anything much.  I can barely conjure the will to do this.

And, of course, my depression and my ASD and the related anxiety and all that continue to make life uncomfortable at all moments, and there are very few things that make up for it.  Even food is losing its taste.  Where is Lestat to turn me into a vampire?

Well, I know that isn’t going to happen because that doesn’t actually happen.  It’s called reality.  Google it.

Well, this post is going nowhere, isn’t it?  I guess in that, it’s like everything else, including the universe itself (as far as we can tell).  It’s some measure of how far I’ve sunk that the first draft of this little tidbit of a blog post has taken me over an hour to write, and again, this is on my mini laptop computer.  Given that I can generally type far faster than I can speak, that should give some indication of the degree of my dysfunction.

That’s it, I’m done with this for today, I’m out of here.  I unfortunately did not die yet this morning, so here we go again with the blog post.  Couldn’t I at least be hospitalized?  Heavy sigh.  I guess I’ll finish with a quote from a great artist who took what was probably the sensible course: “Oh well, whatever.  Never mind.”

*All Out of Spoons was the original title for the old Air Supply song All Out of Love, but they decided that wasn’t catchy enough**.

**That’s a lie, of course.  At least, it is as far as I know.

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That one might read the blog of fate, and see the revolution of the times

Hello and good morning.  This is my Thursday blog post.  There are many other blogs out there, but this one is mine.

That’s about all I have to say about that, honestly.  I don’t have any other clue.  If anyone has seen a stylized cartoon paw print anywhere, please let me know*.

I don’t know.  What should I write?  I don’t really want to deal with politics right now‒not even political philosophy, which I sometimes find quite interesting.  But watching the world now, it just seems clear that humans are pathetic and, at least when two or more are gathered together in the name of something, their net IQ seems to be the lowest one of all those present divided by the number of people present.

That’s probably harsher than reality‒by that measure, two people each with an IQ of 150 would together have an IQ of 75.  But I don’t have the patience to work out some more likely formula, which would probably involve natural logarithms and the like.  And how would one test such a thing?  The point is, as Tommy Lee Jones’s character in Men In Black pointed out, a person can be smart, but people are stupid.

If humans destroy themselves (whether or not they take the rest of the world with them) it will be a well and truly earned destruction.  It will be a shame, of course, since there is also great potential there.  But then again, in all the hydrogen atoms of the universe there lies the potential for fusion into larger elements and then the creation of beings and civilizations and technology and art and love and even the capacity to produce civilizations that could not only last well into the livable duration of the cosmos but could possibly even alter or steer the fate of the universe itself, doing cosmic engineering.

But of course, almost no hydrogen atoms will ever be part of such a thing.  Perhaps none of them will be.  Certainly, if humans survive and eventually become cosmically relevant, it will be entirely because of luck.  It will not be deserved.

Actually, I’m not even sure what “deserve” really means most of the time.  When people say things like “you deserve love” or “you deserve to be happy” I don’t see the logic**.  How does one come to deserve love or happiness?  Does one come to deserve them just by being born?

That may be a nice idea, but it doesn’t make a lot of sense.  How can one earn some reward by doing nothing?  One can have rights of course, but most real rights are rights not to have others interfere with you.  If you can be said to have a right to something that is in limited supply and to which there is no possible guarantee, then that “right” is pointless.  I might as well say that each person has a right to two unicorns and a wyvern.

All that aside, I suspect that the vast majority of humans are literally no more likely to make any significant contribution to becoming a cosmically relevant civilization than are typical nematodes.  The current (and past) political climate of the world provides strong evidence for that much.

And now that we have thoroughly unqualified public appointees calling for registries of the disabled‒very much like the governments of certain well known and rightly despised 20th century regimes did‒I return to thoughts that “neurodivergent” people should take a Magneto/brotherhood of mutants approach to things and rise up and throw off the control of the so-called neurotypical people.

Neurodivergent people are far less likely‒or so it certainly seems‒to succumb to mob mentality and populism.  I suspect they (we) are far more likely to make a cosmically relevant civilization than the troglodytes are.

As I’ve said before‒in some recent post on this blog, I think‒neurodivergent people are more like Vulcans, and the rest of humanity is like the Romulans.  Whom would you rather have guiding the future of your civilization?

Well, that’s all extremely nerdy and probably silly, but it’s nevertheless probably not wrong.  Maybe we can convince most of the morons to refuse to be vaccinated, and then encourage them all to live close together so they’re not “contaminated” by people who have been vaccinated, and then let the viruses fall where they may.

Whatever.  This is all stupid.  Everything is stupid.  Everyone is uncountably infinitely stupid.  And I am surely among the stupidest of all for even bothering, for even trying to do anything.

TTFN

*This is a reference to the kids’ show Blue’s Clues, which my kids (and I) really enjoyed when they were little.

**Probably because there is none.

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I have not become comfortably numb

     Well, I misjudged things a bit, and though when I wrote my post yesterday I didn’t realize it, I had developed blisters on my feet from my long walking‒especially the right one, on which I had been wearing a spandex brace (prophylactically*‒I hadn’t yet been having any ankle problems, but wanted to avoid them if possible).  So, today, I am not walking, at least not to the train/work.

     I have realized that topical lidocaine creams, such as the max strength versions of “Icy Hot”, dull the irritation of blisters.  That’s nice to know, in a pinch, though I don’t know if it would dull the pain of a pinch; it seems only to work with superficial pain, not deeper pain.  Curiously, it also seems to dull some of the local signs and effects of inflammation (though Ibuprofen contributed to that).  Don’t worry, I’m not expecting to cover up my pain and forget about it.  That doesn’t seem doable.  I’ve tried.

     If I could slather lidocaine all over my body and thus numb all my pain, believe me, I would do it.  But I always hit a wall beyond which the numbing doesn’t reach.  Heck, I’ve had multiple steroid/lidocaine epidural injections and they didn’t seem to do anything to my pain, even temporarily.

     I should probably study up on the nature of congenital insensitivity to pain, just to see if the metabolic pathways involved in the condition shed any light on the sorts of things that might make a person have their pain sense shut off.  Mind you, given the nature of that disorder**, I suspect that its effects come about through some aberrant development of the nervous system, not by the presence (or absence) of some neurotransmitter.

     If memory serves, the saliva of the vampire bat has significant pain-reducing as well as anticoagulant properties.  I’ve heard all my life about people thinking it would be good to investigate as a source of potential powerful analgesics, but nothing has come of it, as far as I’m aware.  It wouldn’t be all that hard to separate out the molecules in vampire bat saliva and examine them and try to replicate them.  Heck, if you can figure out the bat’s biochemical process for making the molecules, you could develop transgenic bacteria that could produce the substance en masse, like how replacement thyroid hormone is made.

     No, either there were unforeseen difficulties with using the vampire bat’s saliva analgesic, or no one was interested in doing the research (which seems unlikely but is not impossible), or “big pharma” has blocked the research because it would interfere with the sales of opioids and NSAIDs and so on (see picture below for an example of such interference).  I would like to think that’s unlikely; after all, there would be tremendous potential for legitimate profit in a revolutionary new pain treatment.

     Still, if it turned out that anyone in a big drug company or companies did block research into such a potential pain killer, then all the people involved would need to be strapped to tables and have all their joints and other “tender areas”, like genitals and nipples and lips and eyes, injected with some combination of‒for instance‒capsaicin and gympie-gympie leaf extract and fire ant venom, with some uric acid crystals*** thrown in for good measure.  Oh, and also they should be given constant, powerful stimulants so that they cannot escape their pain by losing consciousness.

     That’s if I don’t think of anything even better to do to them.

     Obviously, I take pain treatment seriously.  That should come as no surprise, given my personal, decades-long chronic pain and my own having gone to prison for trying (naively) to treat other people’s pain, only to be thrown under the bus by people who were taking advantage of my naïveté.  I have very little patience for those who would interfere with other people reducing their pain and suffering, or who would make light of the suffering of innocent people.

     Mind you, though I think vindictive thoughts and entertain vindictive fantasies, I would probably (like a moron and a sucker) feel pity even for people who had done such horrible deeds, and I would probably end their lives with minimal pain.

     I would not feel bad about that though.  People who willfully engender greater suffering in others for their own short-term (or long-term) profit, whatever form that might take (unless it is truly and honestly and reasonably something they perceive to be an emergency or an absolute survival need) are more than worthy of being erased from existence.  And while it might be reasonable for those who knew them to miss them, they would not deserve to be mourned.

     Look at me, getting all murderously vindictive about purely imaginary people, when there are so many real people who are thoroughly deserving of such animus.  But, anyway, that’s enough of this weird-ass blog post for today.  I’ll let you go to enjoy something more wholesome.  Please have a good day if you’re able.

*I am pleased to note that my right ankle is in no danger of an unwanted pregnancy.

**And yes, it is a disorder, not just a “difference”, because it significantly reduces the survival and thrival of people who have it.

***Look them up; they’re related to gout.

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Monday morning nonsense

     It’s Monday again; aren’t you all just delighted?  I’m writing this on my smartphone, starting at the train station, after having walked here from the house.

     I did a lot of walking this weekend:  about ten and a half miles on Saturday, then a little over six on Sunday, then just about six so far today.  My new shoes seem to be a good choice so far.  Of course, I have some modest blistering on my right foot (I’m not entirely sure why it’s only on the right, though I have a hypothesis or two) but not enough to cause serious trouble.  The goal is to try just to do more and more of my traveling on foot and to get in better condition‒not just because of the sort of things that filled me with rage on Friday morning, but also just to try to get myself healthier, or at least stronger.

     Of course, the popular wisdom is that regular exercise like walking can help with depression, though I’ve never been completely convinced by the data I’ve seen on that.  Also, to be honest, I had some of my worst trouble with depression in college when I was doing pretty serious exercise.  I was running six plus miles and doing ridiculous numbers of push ups and so on at the time.  Perhaps my episodes of depression had (and still have) more to do with burnout, possibly from masking and related ASD based issues than with more garden-variety depression.  Who knows?

     This was a momentous weekend, holiday-wise.  It was the end of Passover and yesterday was also Easter (they tend to fall around the same time of year and that’s no mere coincidence‒remember that Jesus’s “last supper” was a Passover Seder).  And for those for whom marijuana is a bit of a modern sacrament, yesterday was 4/20, which for some reason is the number related to marijuana use.  I’ve heard some rather dubious explanations for that association, but since I don’t have any convincing reasons to believe any given one, I won’t get into it.

     Yesterday was also a day of very important remembrance for me, and for some modicum of hope related to that remembrance.  But that hope was unfulfilled, which unfortunately comes as no surprise.  I really need to stop with any and all “hope” nonsense.  What’s the line from A Christmas Carol about comfort?  It comes from other regions and is conveyed by other ministers to other kinds of men.  That about sums up the notion of “hope” when it comes to me.

     I really don’t have any hope for anything good at all in the world, and particularly not for me.  Look at the state of things, and the degree to which reason and ethics seem to have deteriorated.  Is human civilization even worth saving?  I suppose there are many innocent people among the throng of humans, and it would be a shame for them to suffer unnecessarily just because a vocal, moronic minority causes so much trouble.  But good grief, it can be frustrating.

     As for me and my life, well…there’s nothing much to say.  I suppose we’ll see if, after enough time doing it, my walking will help my outlook and my mood.  At the very least, it might help my physical condition.  That’s a positive thing, assuming all other things are equal.

     I’m not going to get into political discussion right now, though I will say that I would rather hear the thoughts of the dead worm in RFK, Jr’s head than whatever nonsense he voices with his own minimally functioning brain.  He’s just pathetic.

     Of course, pathetic is the typical order of things, and I certainly match that adjective, myself…but not in the way he does.

     Anyway, I’m a bit sleepy, probably from the long walk, and I’m on the train now.  I’m going to make this blog post short today; maybe tomorrow I’ll write more and something of greater interest or consequence.  Or, maybe I’ll get hit by a truck while crossing a street or something.  That wouldn’t be such a tragedy, though it would be a shame to screw up an honest truck driver’s workday.

     In any case, I hope you all had a very good weekend and that you also have a very good week.  Actually, even if you didn’t have a good weekend, I hope you have a good week.  You might as well.  You are readers, and readers are the people who embrace the greatest invention of the human race.  Please do your best to encourage and spread that love.  Written language is still the best thing we have.