And for once, I am NOT talking about my penis. (laugh track)

No, I am, of course, talking about my goddamned blood sugar, and the title of this entry is the first question I am going to ask Doctor Caswell when I see her tomorrow.

Because what I am currently doing is not working.

I exercise, and take insulin, and rest for a bit, and then I take a reading and it seems totally random whether it gets a little better, stays the same, or even gets worse.

I mean, what the ever loving fuck, right?

Dehydration might be a factor. I looked it up just to be sure and just as I suspected, being dehydrated can lead to false high blood sugar scores.

Dehydration leads to lower blood volume leading to higher relative blood sugar scores because the glucose is a higher percentage of the blood.

So not false, exactly. But misleading.

Ergo, it might be that what I really need is to get my electrolyte balance under control. I drink a lot of water (and Diet Coke) to stay hydrated, and that works, but if my electrolytes are off, that’s like pouring water into a bucket with a hole in the bottom.

Sure, it keep the bucket full, but it doesn’t fix the goddamned hole and might even make it worse over time.

And you end up going through so much water!

So there’s that. It might well be that the exercise does lower my blood sugar but I end up sweating enough that my relative blood sugar stays the same or gets worse.

But it could also be that I am not exercising hard or long enough. Ten minutes is all I can do so far. And while my heart rate and respiration definitely go up and I feel the strain and the burn, it’s not exactly the Ironman competition either.

The one without Tony Stark. Or Black Sabbath.

That said, I am not sure I can do much more. That light-ish ten minutes takes a lot out of me and I am hurting by the end of it.

Plus, without more information about my heart health, I am not even sure how much exercise is even safe for me at this point.

Would be ironic to have a heart attack because I was trying to get my blood sugar down. It’s like my health issues are competing for who gets to kill me.

So I dunno. On the id level, I want to just cut loose, embrace the pain, feel the burn, and exercise myself into a quivering stupor where I am absolutely spent.

That sounds good to me on both a physical and emotional level.

But of course, that would be very stupid. I am a sick and fragile man and I would likely end up making things a whole lot worse.

Honestly, what I wish I had was someone to guide me through exercising in a medically sound way. Someone who has all the knowledge and experience to be able to teach me to exercise properly and safely.

Sort of like a combination personal trainer and physiotherapist.

If I had someone like that whose competence I fully trusted, I would do everything they asked of me.

I am perfectly willing to put the effort in. Toil and strain and pain don’t deter me. I am ready to burn for my freedom.

But I am scared to go to far and be consumed by the flame.

Hopefully Doctor Caswell can point me in the right direction.

More after the break.

---

Nothing is certain

But lots of things are damned near certain.

It’s absolutely true to say that absolutely nothing is totally certain because it is always possible to construct a scenario where it would be false.

The sky is blue? Well what if it’s night? Or sunset? Or a nearby forest fire has filled the sky with wood smoke and the sun is just a dull red ball in the sky? Or what if you’re having a stroke and your color perception is reversed?

What then, huh, tough guy?

Oh, you think water is wet? Well what about when it is locked away in mineral crystals? Or what about when it’s frozen, is it still wet then? The frozen part isn’t. The part that melts when you handle the ice becomes water, and thus no longer ice.

Oh, you think therefore you are? That’s cogito ergo DUMB. What if you just think that you think, huh? What if this is all a simulation and you are nothing but an AI programmed to simulate a thinking being but with no genuine internal life?

WHAT THEN, MOTHERFUCKER?

This has been an excerpt from my one man show, “Tough Guy Philosophy Prof”.

It was very fun to write.

Anyhow, point is. there is no absolute certainty. What does that leave you with?

Playing the odds, that’s what.

There is still probability. Some things are far, far more likely to be true. In fact, the odds are so heavily in their favour that the difference between them and certainty is statistically insignificant and unworthy of consideration.

Sure, when you drop an object, it might not fall towards the center of the Earth… but it probably will. A clear sky tomorrow might turn out not to be blue… but that’s the odds-on favorite. Water might not always be wet, but that’s where the smart money is placing their bets most of the time.

So forget certainty. Like perfection, its pursuit can lead to madness and destruction when taken to extremes.

It can even lead to preferring a negative certainty over a merely probable positive.

And that’s about as crazy as it gets.

It’s fine to pursue both perfection and certainty – they are excellent ideals. But ideals are directions, not destinations. They show you which way to go but you pursue them knowing that you can never actually get there, any more than you can finally arrive at a place called East.

Above all, do not delay happiness or fulfillment until you reach these impossible places.

There they be dragons.

So abandon the search for certainty and make friends with probability. In many cases, it’s just as good, and way less dangerous to demand of the world.

I think you will find that once you accept the merely extremely probable, you will find you barely miss certainty at all.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.