Still got that cold. If anything, it might be a little worse.

And I know what that means : if it’s still here tomorrow, Thursday. I gotta call Doctor Chao and book an appointment to talk to him about it. Dammit.

Technically, I should do that today, because the rule for us diabetics is “anything that lasts more then 48 hours”, but I am feeling lazy (and real tired for some reason) so I am going to give my immune system another day to work on it.

Meanwhile, I am getting plenty of rest and fluids and taking it easy.

So, business as usual, really.

I’ve occasionally wondered if there was some relationship between living like an invalid and feeling like an invalid, and if said relationship could be reversed so that living as though I am healthier than I feel actually makes me feel healthier.

It’s not entirely implausible. One’s attitude towards life counts for a lot. And that’s not just pep talk. That’s science. People with more positive outlooks on life live longer, have better health outcomes, longer relationships, recover from negative events faster, and in general just plain have it better.

And they do it JUST TO ANNOY ME! Bastards.

Just kidding. That’s what my cranky, negative, Lou Grant curmudgeonly side would say. And while I kind of like that side of me, he’s never going to be in the driver’s seat.

Because while that kind of negativity and bitterness can be highly amusing and great catharsis now and then, it’s no way to live.

What I want is a ruggedly optimistic attitude towards life. Pragmatically positive, without any denial but with all the positive spin on things I can muster.

Because there’s always more than one way to interpret things and there is absolutely nothing wrong with always picking the most positive, life-affirming choice amongst all the equally realistic options.

Now if I can only get myself to believe that on an emotional level. It’s a considerable challenge because it involves overcoming decades of negative spin in my mind.

And more importantly, the self-tormenting impacted rage that fuels said spin.

I am constantly hurting myself on the inside. Just stabbing and twisting the knife over and over and over again, and chewing myself up like a dog with bone,

And that shit has to stop before I stand any chance of truly getting better. Right now, I say I don’t know how to stop, but I say that knowing that eventually that statement will be revealed to be ignorant when I realize, Zen style, that I have always known exactly how to stop and it’s the easiest thing in the world to do.

That, too, will be BS. It’s very easy to fool yourself into thinking that you should have just crossed the finish line at the beginning of the race and saved yourself a lot of time and effort, but the real world takes actual work, not just cleverness.

Which is another wise lesson I want to somehow pound through my thick wall of emotional callouses so I can make myself truly believe.

I know so much more than I feel. So much more.

I want to be wise on the inside, dammit.

More after the break.

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Fate’s Fuckery, Oblivious Edition

Now I’m in a seriously pissy mood because my Oblivion is fucking up.

Crashing, that is. And not a nice polite CTD^[1], either. Those suck, but meh, you load the game against and continue.

No, these are full on system crashes from which rebooting is the only escape. Which means I have rebooted 6 times in the last hour, or so.

That is super fucking frustrating.

But it’s partly my fault. I keep trying to get the same two saves to work when they are clearly fuck’d. But such is my aversion to loss that I keep trying to make them work anyhow so that I won’t lose progress in the game.

Instead I lose precious time waiting for my computer to reboot over and over again.

Well that’s progress for ya.

What I am going to have to do is just keep going through saves in reverse chronological order, newest to oldest, till I find one that works.

And then continue the game from THERE, as much as that will suck. All that precious progress, gone forever! ALAS!

Honestly, part of me – a not very sane part – would rather just start a new character. That would be a lot less painful because I wouldn’t feel like I had lost anything.

By any rational assessment, that’s just plain dumb. Better to get SOME of my progress back than have to start over at Square 1, right?

But what the hell. I’m not always rational. Knowing the “logical” choice doesn’t obligate me to do it, especially when it doesn’t take my emotions into account

Being a dedicated hardcore pragmatist, I firmly believe that it is logically impossible for the correct method to produce an incorrect or undesirable result.

Ergo, if doing something the “logical” way makes me feel worse or otherwise completely fails to meet my needs, it was the wrong way to do it by definition, no matter how “logical” it was.

Something can contain no errors in logic and still be wrong.

Try that one on the next race of hyper-logical robot aliens you encounter.

And it would not be the first time I started over rather then deal with a game’s bullshit. I’ve done it many times before.

It’s particularly effective at renewing my enthusiasm for a game I’m burning out on. And the great part is that the earlier parts of the game are now way easier with what you know now. You can zoom right through them.

Maybe even make better choices this time.

So it’s not as crazy as it sounds.

But in this case, I will try to do the rational thing and start from the most recent save game that works. See if I can live with that. Maybe do something random and crazy just to shake things up. Like install the slave trading mod and become a slaver!

What the hell, it’s just pixels.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.