It’s officially a chest cold now, although cold tend to move around on me, so it might become a head cold eventually.

But right now, I have the scratchy throat and heavy chest that indicates a chest cold. And I am tired. So very tired. Not sleepy, just…. not firing on the majority of my cylinders. Writing these words is taking a lot out of me, and it is not usually ever this hard. But I am plum wore out.

It’s a FRED night. Not sure if I should go. I am quite ill feeling, but that’s not enough in and of itself. I feel like crap all the time, can’t let that stop me. But I am also presumably quite contagious, and so there’s that to figure into the equation. I am especially worried about Barb. She’s a delicate creature and I would hate to be responsible for putting her in the hospital.

And I have to admit, staying in and just ordering Chinese food (for the nutrients) or pizza (for the nom value) does sound appealing. But appealing in a bad way. I am trying to overcome my tendency to isolate myself. I will never learn to feel safe amongst others if I continue to flee their presence. And the FRED crowd are people around whom I feel pretty comfortable. So they make for good practice.

So I dunno. I will play it by ear, I suppose. I will make up my mind by 6 at the latest, so there is still time for me to text Felicity and telll her she doesn’t need to pick me up should I decide not to attend. That will give me time to decide how I feel about the whole thing and how I am feeling health wise.

Funny how the products of reason so rarely lead to a rational decision with me, despite my high level of intellect. it’s that whole playing for stalemate thing. What my intellect can formulate, it can counter-formulate, and therefore it is always up to emotion to break the tie.

Perhaps that’s universally true : that intellect informs, but emotion decides. Or if not emotion, will. Decisions require the inner strength and confidence to commit oneself to a course of action. That means accepting the risk of being wrong. The intellect on its own wants to make all decisions based on sure and certain knowledge. But that is a rare substance and the demand for decisions far outstrips what anyone’s intellect can supply, no matter how intelligent. It’s rare to even have a clear sense of the odds.

So for the intelligent people like myself who tend to “lead with our heads”, the devil is in making decisions with insufficient information. To gamble, basically. Take risks. Face the unknown and unknowable. Thinking that one will be fine when one cannot possibly know that is a very potent kind of faith, and yet it seems to be necessary for mental health. At the very least, it requires that one extrapolate an overall trend of doing okay from one’s life experiences, and that’s the sort of thing that can’t possibly be used in a predictive matter.

Woe to me that I have traveled along the path of “pure intellect” for so long. I look back upon my life and I think about all the time I have spent without understanding that there is more to life than the mind, and that you don’t have to understand something before accepting it as true, and that mental health requires experiences just as much as thoughts in order to spur inner growth.

Even stupid people understand that, though they can’t be said to know it. They just have to listen to the wisdom of their instincts, and do what their emotions tell them to do, and while they will win no Nobel prizes that way, they will at least pursue their own inner needs on a regular basis.

And then there’s we, the blessed idiots, who are too smart to know what we really want, let alone truly need. We are truly les idiot savantes, capable of great feats of wizardry but with our heads so far up our own clouds that we trip on pebbles and end up in the gutter right alongside the basest of fools.

And there is only two ways to get back onto the right track. Either go all the way back to where you went wrong, which is a tad daunting when you diverged from it as a preschooler, or forge your own route back through the dark and terrible forest of your mind. That requires a great deal of effort but it’s the more direct route. And the wood is full of monsters… but you own them all.

We come up with so many ways to hide from ourselves and hide from the world. We create roadblocks then forget we are the ones who put them there so we can pretend that we really do want what we are supposed to want, and it’s only that darned roadblock that is keeping us from going for it.

When the truth is, we are choosing to preserve the ideal by blocking its pursuit. It’s like loving someone from afar. By never approaching your goal, you eliminate all risk of it not living up to the ideal in your mind. And best of all, it also means you don’t have to do with the hot, messy, complicated real world, and can remain in the deep sharp shadows of the light of intellect without the warmth of emotion.

It’s a terrible neighborhood, but at least the rent is high.

And to think that it all boils down to faith : the ability to believe in that which is not known…. or knowable. The feeling that you will come out okay no matter what. It is something no act of intellect can deliver and yet it is the vital core of true mental health.

It is an ironic fate indeed to die of skepticism.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.

I am definitely coming down with something.

My throat’s all scratchy, I’m burning up, my nose is running (quick, someone catch it!), my muscles are stiff and achy, I am lightheaded and slightly nauseous, and I have that overall feeling of malaise that I associate exclusively with my immune system going to war.

And it’s happening right before the weekend, and I have mixed feelings about that. On the one hand, my adult side is glad I probably won’t miss any class because of this bug. But the kid in me kind of wishes he got some sick days and nurturing attention out of the whole thing.

We never really grow up.

Today was fun at school. I had Short Script course, and today was the day we presented our three ideas for short scripts.

Here were mine :

1. A jury-room drama in which average citizens argue the case of the People versus the SNAP corporation, the makers of the pill that cures boredom. Take a pill, and for four hours, you are immune to boredom’s effects. You can do damned near anything and not get bored at all. The pill is, of course, a massive success, especially after SNAP gets the pill rated safe for over-the-counter sale without a prescription. It is extremely psychologically addictive and overuse leads to people becoming increasingly dull of wit as they no longer have boredom to spur them into mental activity. It’s gotten to the point where hospitals are starting to fill up with victims of what the media calls “grey brain syndrome”, or greyheading, which causes severe addicts to burn out completely and lose all desire to do anything at all. Understandably, it did not take long for a massive class action suit to be launched, and that’s the case our jurors are deciding. SNAP insists that the drug is harmless “when used as directed” and they are therefore not liable for what happens when people abuse it. The prosecution argues that abuse was easily predictable by anyone with a grain of sense, and that SNAP is both criminally negligent and actionably liable for the millions of people losing IQ points, possibly permanently, to this insidious and dangerous substance. Unbeknownst to the jurors, one of them is actually a plant from the SNAP corporation who is being paid a lot of money to make sure the company is not ruled against no matter what it takes, and is sabotaging all attempts to reach a verdict.

Pretty exciting stuff, huh?

2. A man wakes up after a night of hard partying and many exotic substances ingested wakes up completely sober and with no hangover, but now has the ability to look into people’s souls. At first this ability frightens him, but he soon figures out how to use this ability to manipulate people, make lots of money, and live out his most avaricious fantasies. As this happens, though, a curious phenomenon emerges. Increasingly, when he looks into people’s souls, he only sees…. himself. Eventually, despite his new wealth and power, he loses his mind as he descends into a solipsistic nightmare where nobody but him is real and he feels so alone that it drives him mad.

And finally, last but the opposite of least (most?)….

3. An American Intervention. A short film in which the rest of the world stages an intervention to tell America how worried we all are about it and how we are all willing to pull together to get it the help it needs in order to keep it from harming itself or others. Works well with the international roster of student at VFS!

And just think, there was ten of us, with three ideas to present each, each idea pitch to be two minutes max… it was fun but exhausting. And then we workshopped them!

Then, I might have found it exhausting because I am ill. My tonsils are beginning to hurt and the ache in my throat is solidifying. I am doing my best to stay hydrated and positive. This is just some stupid bug. It will suck, but then it will over and life will go on just like all the other times I have been sick in my life.

I wish I had thought to get OJ when I was shopping earlier, though. I have chicken soup, but the thought of eating anything hot right now repulses me. I will eat extra helpings of fruit when I can manage it in order to boost my immune system, and maybe a granola bar here and there because I am sick and sick people get nice foods to eat so they don’t feel so bad.

Oh, and of course, today of all days is the day I got caught in the rain without my jacket on the way home from the Skytrain stop at Richmond-Brighouse. Luckily, it was very light rain for the majority of the two blocks home, and I took advantage of every awning and overhang I could find.

I really need to get a summer jacket. Preferably made of something nice and light so having it in my schoolbag all the time won’t be a huge drag.

Oh, I forgot to mention : the point of bringing in three ideas is so we could get feedback on them that would help us pick the one we wanted to write.

And for me, there’s no contest. I am writing the American Intervention one. That thing is going to be fun to write. And even though we’re only expected to write the thing, not get it made, I am going to try to get it made anyhow as I think it could go majorly viral online, and at the very least, it’s the sort of thing I could really enjoy doing.

I would, of course, direct, and possibly produce.

Oh, and of course, the moderator of the intervention is…. Canada! After all…. nobody knows more about the lunatics to the south than we Canadians.

We’re the mouse in bed with the elephant, after all.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.