writing

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What shall we do now?

Well, it’s Wednesday now, and since I have no appointments for X-rays or anything similar, I am heading on in to the office.  It’s continued to be a hectic time, and today is supposed to be the day on which we finally begin to do business in the new office, though many things have been moved during the day over the last few days.  I would have thought that the uprooting and shifting would have made working more difficult, but we’ve had very big days, especially yesterday.

It’s good I guess, but it’s annoying, because it means I’m very stressed out by more than one thing.

I’m still quite beat, by which I mean I’m so very tired and worn down and exhausted.  I told the boss yesterday that this last week plus had been one of the top five hardest weeks of my life‒and I pointed out the various other horrible weeks I’ve had so I could try to put it in perspective for him‒but I really don’t think he quite got the point.

I think my inability to convey how I feel, or the tendency for it not to show, as well as my own inherent tendency toward a kind of nihilistic stoicism, means that people don’t really know or at least don’t understand when I’m feeling truly horrible.  I’ve said before that this is why the line from Pink Floyd’s Brain Damage resonates with me so much:  “And if the cloudbursts thunder in your ear, you shout and no one seems to hear…”

I don’t even feel I’m at some breaking point anymore; I think I’m already broken, but I’m hobbling along because of inertia, holding the remnants of me together with paperclips and twine and baling wire.

Anyway, I’m exhausted.  I wish I could get back into writing or drawing or creating songs and doing music or studying more science and math, but though I have had passion for all those things at various times, there is only so much one can do to produce creative things in a vacuum, with nearly no feedback or appreciation, before one gives up.

Van Gogh had a similar situation, I guess (not that I am comparing my ability with his) in that he produced many brilliant works of art, but only one was bought by anyone in his lifetime and no one but his sibling appreciated his ability.  And, of course, finally, he shot himself in the torso and died from the wound not long after.  I can sympathize very much, even with his choice to shoot himself in a way that would not be immediately lethal.  It’s both a fear thing‒a lethal shot is scary to do‒and a form of self-punishment and self-hatred‒one doesn’t feel that one deserves an easy death.

I don’t know what I, myself, am going to do.  I’m just too exhausted from my current situation, and from the feeling that I need to use the bathroom 24 hours a day.

Okay, well, that’s enough for today.  I’m very tired, as I said, and it’s only early morning.  But, of course, my sleep is even worse than usual because of the whole bathroom urgency and flank pain thing.  Ah, whataya gonna do?

I hop that what you will do is have a good day.

***

Addendum:  Well, I’m at the office, and even though the Wi-Fi was supposed to be still active this morning in the office, it seems the movers, such as they are, took the router over with them.  My phone’s mobile hotspot function doesn’t get good enough reception here, and so far the public Xfinity Wi-Fi doesn’t seem to have any ability to do adequate data, so I cannot get anything done at the office.

Why did I bother to come in?  Well, of course, that was largely because I couldn’t sleep and there was no air conditioning at the house, but I also like to get a head start on office stuff.  I’ve even finished the last of the series’ of “light novels” with which I was trying to distract myself, so I can’t even count on any reading to help me.

I apparently will not have a closed area in the new office where I will be able to be at least partly cut off from the noise and all.  I wish I had just stayed at the house today, and maybe never left again.  I don’t even have a guitar here anymore, because I gave away my black Strat.  That action was one of those “gesture” things, to be honest, and I was hoping someone would pick up on the point of it, but either they didn’t recognize it, or‒more likely‒they don’t really much care.

I shouldn’t be surprised.  There are very few people for whom it would actually matter if I die.

I’ve finally been able to get the Xfinity thing working a bit, so I should be able to post this.  After that, I don’t know.  There’s just too much for me to deal with right now.  I wish I could just go to sleep and stay that way.  I hate this life.

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A quick, belated post

This is going to be brief (I suspect) in addition to being late (already).  I have an appointment for an X-ray this morning to follow up and see if the kidney stone has passed, which I hope it has.  So, I’m going to the office late, and writing this‒well starting this‒as I wait for my ride to the hospital to get the study done.  I don’t expect to finish it until afterwards, but who knows?

I wonder whether the little app thing for the hospital system will give me the result of the X-ray when it is read, before I see the urologist.  That would be kind of cool, actually.  I like being able to review my labs and radiology reports without needing the priestly intervention of the physicians, especially since I am one, though no longer in practice.

***

Okay, I’m done with the X-ray, which went very quickly.  They seem to be a very well-run place over there.

It’s terribly frustrating that I have to quick duck into the restroom at every full stop (and even some commas).  There’s just a never-ending sense of urgency, probably because of the stent in place and the thread that goes from it to the outside world, and I don’t want to ignore it, of course, because the last thing I want to do is create circumstances for more kidney stones.

It’s a bit of a negative nostalgia situation, as well.  I was the youngest of 3 children (well…I still am) and I tended to have to pee a lot, certainly more than anyone else in my family.  So I ended up having to hold my urine in much more than did my peers*.  Not that people were unkind (though my sixth grade teacher gave me the nickname “Straight Pipes” which is somewhat unkind, I guess, but I took it as affectionate teasing).  But it just means that I have quite a lot of nonspecific memories of desperately trying not to wet my pants while waiting for, for instance, the family car to get somewhere I could use the restroom.

I don’t know, maybe that tendency has something to do with ASD.  I wonder if it could be some sort of sensory sensitivity.  I’m probably overthinking it.

Anyway, this’ll do for now.  Sorry for the delay, and please have a good day.

*Sorry, I couldn’t resist.

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New week, still weak

It’s Monday, and although I am not particularly happy to be starting a new work week, I am definitely glad that last week is over.  Last week was a very bad week indeed.  At a first estimate (and a second one as well) last week was among the five hardest weeks of my life.  And that includes the week of my open-heart surgery when I was 18 (1 week after which I went back to start my second year at university) and the week of my back surgery, and the week of my divorce and of my arrest and all that crap.  I’ve also been in residency, during one November of which I had worked 19 days without break, had a day off, then worked another seven or eight days.  I had one on-call time in the ICU when I literally did not sit down for about 30 hours.  I am not exaggerating.

There was also the week when I was in university and, thanks to some very serious issues between my then-fiancée and my parents, my parents cut me off from support for room and board (not just for a week‒we didn’t speak for about 8 years).  I was on a full scholarship, but I had to scramble to be able to pay for housing and food and books and so on.  That was a hell of a thing.  We got past it eventually, but it was pretty rough 

Anyway, my point is, I’ve been through some shit in my life, but last week, between the pain and the stress of moving, and the horrible rest (even for me), and the more pain, and the schedule that was incoherent for the move at work, and the unexpected (by me) work this weekend and so on, was one of the most difficult and unpleasant weeks I’ve known, both objectively and subjectively.  It had a huge silver lining, of course, in the person of Ezra, my youngest, and I cannot easily exaggerate how wonderful that was.  If not for Ezra, last week might have been the hardest week of my life.  I am, after all, older and much less healthy (especially mentally) than I was when dealing with some of my earlier issues.

It’s probably stupid to try to rank or categorize such life events.  After all, the weighting I give now is colored by my current state of mind, and of course, there are many axes* along which one can measure the “difficulty” of a week, and criteria by which one may judge them at any given time.  Reality isn’t even linear, let alone binary.

My point is, last week was one fucking rough week, and in addition to my physical stress, I came very close to a full-on mental breakdown.  And it’s not as though I have fully recovered; I’ve had all of 1 day of comparative rest, and now I’m heading back to battle.  It’s a mark of how physically exhausted I am that I was able to nap for about two hours straight yesterday afternoon.  But as you may know, I often start off on Monday mornings with relative energy, even sometimes with slightly ambitious plans, but by the end of the first day of the week, I am often already completely wiped out.

I’m certainly not starting this week from a place of enthusiasm and energy, even relatively speaking, really.  So I guess I’ll see how it goes.  It would be absurd, magical thinking to expect that I’ll feel better at the end of the day because I’m starting the morning from a relative low, since that would be a sort of “opposite” pattern.  It would be nice if things worked that way, but as far as I can tell, they don’t.

I hope all of you had a good weekend, and I thank you for putting up with my antics, or whatever you might want to call them.  It’s greatly appreciated.

*By which I mean, the axes of a Cartesian style graph, e.g., the x-axis, the y-axis, not as in “more than one sharp, wedge-based tool such as are used for chopping wood”.

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A nameless Friday blog post

It’s hard to believe, but something truly obvious didn’t even occur to me until yesterday afternoon as I was getting ready to leave the office.  I was really worn out and tired and grumpy, and I said to my coworker, who was very kindly giving me a ride to the train station, “If I were a sane person in a civilized world, I wouldn’t even have come to work at all this week.”

That’s when I thought: the people at the hospital probably didn’t expect me to go back to work this week.

Meanwhile, this has been one of our busiest weeks in a very long time at the office, and the office is in the process of moving to our new location, and I had to iron out the details of the records from Monday and Tuesday, which were a bit off, and then I had to do the payroll on Wednesday all while having the busiest day of this very busy week so far.

Yesterday was not quite as hectic as Wednesday for me, but on Wednesday I had kind of maxxed the pain med dose so I could get done what I needed to do.  Not so on Thursday.  I want to make sure not to overuse the meds in the short term, since I don’t know when a really bad spasm might happen.  Of course, I’m not taking my usual aspirin either, per recommendation, nor any other go-to NSAIDS, so things are complicated.

Anyway, the meds situation wasn’t what I wanted to discuss.  I just wanted to note how pathological I must be to have not only come right back to work after being discharged from the hospital, but to have applied pressure to get me discharged Tuesday afternoon.  I can’t believe that I even said I would sign out AMA* if I had to do so.

But I am basically on my own; if I don’t work, I don’t eat, so to speak.  Even that is misleading, though, and is not my real reason, which is that I have to be productive or useful to someone, in a way that I accept, or else there is no point to the fact of my continued existence.

I mean, I know no one wants to be around me or to have me around them for fun and pleasure; the copious evidence for that is glaring and even blinding.  But I am capable of being useful in quite a few different ways; even my misautonomy doesn’t force me to deny that I have gifts that can be productive and useful and even sometimes beautiful.

So, if I can’t be useful, well…what’s the use of me?  If I were not at work, what would I be doing but lying around in my one room (plus bathroom) with a malfunctioning AC unit?  

Meanwhile, I still haven’t made my follow-up appointments or any of that.  My sister has offered to help, and I think I’m going to have to take her up on that, though she’ll have to be doing stuff from long distance and second-hand and I still find the process daunting.  It’s really quite pathetic.

And if not being useful is a feeling like being in an intergalactic void, it’s even more horrible to feel like I’m a burden or even an inconvenience to someone else, especially someone who really matters to me.  That’s a failure worthy of fire.

Also, I am tired of being in pain.  Everything in my life centers around pain.  I suppose it should have been obvious for quite a while, but at least since the time I was sent to be a guest at FSP West, pain has been the central fact, the only consistent thing, about my existence.  Now I’ve just added another color, another flavor, another timbre and type of pain to my usual mix.

I suppose one could almost call it refreshing as a change, or one might if it weren’t just absolutely overwhelming at its peak, and none too pleasant when it’s at a lower level.  And while, if one’s pain is in one’s back and legs, it is possible to rest them to some degree, you can’t really rest your urinary tract when it is where the pain is focused.  If you try to drink less, you’ll only make the primary problem worse, but of course, drinking more (hopefully to get the stone to pass) does mean more of the acute discomfort in the meantime.

Why am I doing any of this?  Why am I continuing?  It’s certainly not out of any sense of my personal value.  I’m just a maggot-ridden turd lying by a dirt path in a humid, stagnant, pollen laden drizzle that doesn’t refresh anything or allow anything but mold and fungi and coprophagic organisms to grow.  I’m so tired.  I have no purpose, and I am so tired.

Anyway, this ought to be it for this week.  I don’t think there’s a plan for the office to be open tomorrow.  If it is, by rights I ought not to come in anyway.  But since the alternative is just lying around by myself, and since I’m stupid, and I don’t live in a civilized world, and I am certainly not sane, if they open the office, I will probably be here.  If so, I’ll probably write a blog post.

Until my next post, whenever it is, I truly and sincerely and urgently hope you all have objectively good days and nights and everything else.  If my words have the power to make anything real, that is what I would want.

*Against medical advice.

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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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Dolly on the trolley found a seat, by golly

It’s Friday, and I am not expecting to work tomorrow.  In fact, I think if I were asked to work tomorrow, I would have to refuse.  If someone tried to coerce me with a gun to my head, I would probably just tell them to pull the effing trigger.  I might just try to fight them, frankly, and force their hand, because if someone threatened me with deadly force, I wouldn’t feel any real compunction about doing my best to kill them, instead.

My point is, I’m not going to work tomorrow unless lives depend on it (which seem quite unlikely).  Even then, it would very much matter whose life was in the balance; there’s a moral triage that would need to be done.  There are people whom I would not be willing to put myself to any significant effort to save, even if I were the only one able to do it.

That’s not true of most people, though.  Despite my talk in yesterday’s post, I wouldn’t be inclined to let any of the vast majority of people on the planet die just so I could avoid going to work.  But there are people about whom I would consider it a lovely opportunity, if it happened.

This is all so stupid, I’m sorry.  It’s just an absurd notion, though I know that sometimes one can imagine physically unlikely situations in order to clarify moral concerns, such as in the truly blunt thought instrument of the “trolley problem”.  I think that scenario is so absurd and contrived that I have a hard time taking it seriously when I hear or read it.

I mean, how did I come to be put in charge of this trolley lever?  I certainly didn’t ask for the responsibility.  And then there’s the whole “fat person” variation, where you can push a heavy person onto the track to stop the trolley, saving the 5 people down the way.  But if a trolley can be stopped by one person, however large, then how could it have the power to kill all 5 people working down the track?  Is that one person literally larger than five track workers?  And are the track workers really so oblivious that they can’t see or hear the trolley coming?  It can’t be going very fast, since kinetic energy scales as velocity squared, and if it was going very fast, the heavy person wouldn’t stop it.

Also, what about the people in the trolley?  What about the driver?  Are they all just oblivious?  If I can see the problem, why can’t the driver?  If the heavy person is pushed and stops the trolley, will it derail?  How many injuries and potential deaths will be caused by the sudden, catastrophic stopping of the trolley?  And where are those responsible for the scheduling and routing of these trolleys?  And where is the foreman (foreperson?*) responsible for scheduling the track work?  Why am I being thrust into a situation where I need to fix their failures?

More importantly, how did I get sidetracked (ha ha) onto the stupid trolley problem?  What is my idiot mind doing today, anyway?

I’m so beat right now.  We’re going to be moving offices within this next week, and I hate the process of moving and the need to adapt to a new place.  It’s so irritating and stressful.  It would be one thing if there were compensations of some kind‒not monetary, but perhaps an improvement in my commute.  Unfortunately, the new location is barely different from the old, just a block or two away.

I also have accumulated a fair amount of stuff in the office.  I’m tempted just to throw all of it away, including my guitar, my science books, my drawing supplies, all of it.  It’s all just going to lie fallow, and will simply act as a constant reminder and reproach about all my various failed endeavors, which are legion.

Yesterday morning, I forced myself to pick up and strum around on my guitar at the office and sing.  I literally had to force myself.  I got bored after about three or four songs, though it was nice that I didn’t need to look at the chord sheets or anything for most of them.  The tuning didn’t require much adjustment, which points toward how consistent the temperature in the office is.

And here I go again, just meandering in my thoughts, not giving any kind of consistent output.  I’m not sure if any of this even makes sense.  It’s almost like free association, as in the old Freudian style psychoanalysis.  I suppose this blog provides a slightly pertinent data point about just how useless that endeavor was, since doing this has clearly not helped my mental health (well, maybe I would be even worse otherwise, but at the very least it has failed to get me into a healthy mental state).

Okay, that’s enough idiocy.  I’m past 800 words, and I doubt more than one or two people will really read this whole thing (you have my admiration, oh intrepid souls).  I hope you all have a good day, a good weekend, and as good an every day after that as you can.

*I raise the question because I’m led to understand that, in its origins and original use, the word “man” was sex/gender neutral, and just referred to a person.  I may be wrong about that, though.

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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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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.