And I am starting to worry that this means there is something terribly wrong with me.
Seriously, the very idea of getting under an extra-heavy gives me the hives. It sets off all my claustrophobia and fear of confinement all at once.
For me, they would feel far too much like being buried alive. Or tied down in a hospital bed with tubes everywhere.
Heck, I can’t even stand being under a duvet.
And yet, these things are hella popular right now. There’s millions of them weighing down beds all over the world.
And that’s because they work. Countless people report sleeping much better now that they can cuddle up under their snuggly cuddly weighted blanket.
“It’s like sleeping in a warm hug!” they say.
And to think, this all started with autistic children. Yes, even freaking Rain Man could find comfort in these things, and he reacted to being touched like you were scalding him with a hot iron.
But not me, no. I’m special.
So what the fuck is wrong with me? Something went seriously wrong in my very early childhood and left me unable to partake in a very common and public form of self-soothing self care which if it wasn’t for my issues would sound very good to me.
I mean, who doesn’t want to sleep in a warm hug? That sounds awesome. Like a little baby animal sleeping in its mama’s arms, all snuggly and secure.
What could possibly be a better way to sleep than that?
But no, that’s not for me, apparently. Seems like I am not nearly as cuddly as I thought I was all these years. Maybe I can only the snuggly cuddly Fruvous everyone knows and loves because it’s all happening via the extreme distancing of text, and in real life I would have a full body freakout and hide up a tree and have to be coaxed down by firemen and social workers with Smartfood popcorn and porn.
OK, maybe not that extreme (or adorable).
But there was that time when I was having post sex snuggle time with a paramour and I was very close to sleep when I was suddenly seized by the desire to run away from him at top speed and never ever stop running till I tied.
It was the urge to flee amped up to 11. And it came out of nowhere. Once second very, very mellow and content. Very very groovy.
The next, total panic.
I did not, thankfully, run screaming into the night. That might have raised eyebrows, considering I was naked at the time.
But I had no idea I had all that in me.
I get the distinct feeling that I have some very serious emotional issues that I have never had to deal with because I have never gotten very close to anyone.
Say, why is that, anyway?
Oh right, crippling mental health issues.
Man, I’m more fucked up than can be measured by science.
More after the break.
The masses are a myth
Let’s kick the crap out of misanthropy tonight, shall we?
It started out with this video :
On which I left the following comment :
Good god, y’all. Why are we still paying attention to such outmoded thinking? The sorts of conformity and herd thinking that these 19th century bigwigs talked about died in the 1960s. Individualism won, conformism lost. “The masses” were never real either. They were just a convenient way for dyspeptic misanthropes to express their general inability to get along with others in a way they thought made them look cool. Note that if you ask them to look out the window and point to a “mass”. they can’t. Once they look at people as individuals, they aren’t “the masses” any more. But individuals are all we are and all we ever are.
Now don’t get me wrong. These gentlemen said a lot of things still well worth reading. We can learn a lot from them,
But all this BS about all those terrible “masses” is merely social maladjustment masquerading as philosophy.
me, dec 12, 2021, being my bad boy of philosophy self
A lot of thoughts I have had for a very long time came together in that little rant.
I have been an implacable opponent of misanthropy ever since I was a student at UPEI and first learned there were people who actually thought like that. As a philosophy.
Before that, I though “misanthrope” was just a fancy way of saying “grumpy person”.
And sp. in a primitive way, I saw through misanthropy’s bullshit right away. To me, it was intuitively obvious that it was not so much a philosophy as a personality defect.
There is nothing noble or correct about being unable to empathize or respect the individuality of people when they are in too big a group.
Let me illustrate my point above about not being able to find a “mass”.
Me : Well you keeping going on about those wretched “masses”. So show me one.
Misanthrope : I don’t understand.
Me : It’s a simple question. You say these teeming throngs are everywhere, especially here in the heart of London. Ergo they should be easy to find. So point one out to me.
Mis : (confused phumphering)
Me (pointing out the window to the street below) : There! The vicar in the brown tweed! Is he a “mass”? One of the “herd”? A “mindless horde”?
Mis : Well no…. that is…
Me : OK, then how about the redheaded lady with battered old pram? Or the old gentleman looking through the bins for bottles? How about the posh dowager with her tiny little dog? No? None of those people are “masses”? Why it’s almost as if the very concept of “the masses” is so specious it doesn’t even exist in the singular
.Mis : Now see here….
Me : Face it, it’s never been about the masses as people. As individuals. As they really are. Instead it’s been about dealing with your own fear of others by reducing all those scary other humans to a simple label you can handle. And then looking at them from Olympian heights so you can tell yourself they are not so big after all. Which is move without about as much intellectual honesty and rationality as going to the top of a tall building and thinking all those people down there really ARE as small as ants now!
me, today, somehow managing to foam at the mouth in print
God I can be a prick sometimes.
Doesn’t mean I’m wrong, though.
I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.