Every now and then, my computer forgets that its network card exists.
Which is irritating, because nothing short of a cold reboot will make it remember. I have to shut the computer all the way off, not just reset it, and only then will I have internet.
This just happened. Except this time it came with a twist : my computer would not turn back on for me.
Icy panic gripped me. Like it or not, this computer is kind of the center of my existence. Without it, all I would have is my tablet, and being confined to that thing sounds a lot like hell to me.
Luckily, I was able to fix the problem by turning the juice off to my computer at the power supply level, waiting ten seconds, then turning it back on again.
But that was definitely some stress I did not need.
Hopefully that was a one-off anomaly and I won’t ever have to get a scare like that again. Or if I do, the same solution works again.
Please don’t scare me like that again, Mister Computer.
I swear I will get you a RAM upgrade real soon now!
Meanwhile, in local news, I ordered some stuff from Amazon Canada today.
Not noteworthy in and of itself, granted. That is a once a week thing for me now. Part of my whole groceries gathering routine.
The amount of stuff I ordered was a little unusual, because I was trying to use up all the remaining money on my latest card.
So in addition to a trail mix from the lovely people at Yupik (Village Mix, with the lovely little sesame sticks) and something snacky for between meal noshing (some “nothing but cheese” crisps), I ordered some sugar free stuff from Russell Stover.
And that is where things got complicated because this apparently caused my order to, like Billy Pilgrim in Slaughterhouse Five, become unstuck in time.
Because the trail mix will arrive tomorrow (normal), but the cheesy crisps won’t get here until Tuesday (because of “two day” shipping, even though today is SATURDAY), the two hard candy orders won’t arrive until some time between Oct 7 and Oct 11, and the sugar free candy bar I ordered won’t arrive till HALLOWEEN!
That’s five fucking WEEKS from now!
I tried to cancel that last one but I couldn’t figure out how to do so without canceling the entire order and having to start over again.
And fuck THAT noise.
Oh well, I will probably appreciate having a sugar free caramel and chocolate bar on Halloween. In fact, I may order more stuff for then.
And I have learned my lesson. I can’t go assuming I can get whatever I want within one or two days all the time.
Apparently some things have to be shipped in from frickin’ Mars or some shit.
And what galls me is that a lot of these things are Russell Stover products, so apparently they don’t keep them all in the same place.
I find that to be maddeningly random.
Oh well. All I can do is try to forget about the long term stuff so I can treat the arrival of each one like a happy little surprise.
More after the break.
Feel first, think later
Dare I speak such blasphemy?
Pfft. Have you met me? I dare speak things far worse than that.
As I was lugging my INACCURATE order[1] back from the door, which was a mighty struggle, it occurred to me that what is important in life is to refuse to gatekeep your feelings in the name of so-called reason.
The temptation is to block all emotions that might lead in the “wrong” direction – that is, to making logical errors which you will then hate yourself for.
Generally speaking, from the jaundiced view of the ego, it is the dark, strong, passionate emotions like anger and lust that are “bad” because they might lead to the ultimate sin of acting on emotion.
But that’s all wrong. That’s getting everything backwards. There are no “bad” emotions. Emotions are reactions to what is going on both in our minds and in our world. They represent an important truth, even when they are unpleasant or painful.
And to do their job they must be felt. Any gatekeeping has to occur past that point.
We must gatekeep our actions, NOT our emotions.
When we strive to filter out the “bad” emotions so we can think more clearly and maintain a detached and logical state of mind, we only end up creating elaborate convolutions and complications of the mind that only serve to make clear thinking nearly impossible because of the inner bureaucracy it creates.
The priority has to be on feeling everything there is to feel first, without judgment or restraint, so that suppression is not needed.
That way, one can live cleanly, without creating an ever growing pile of undischarged emotion that poisons the whole mind with its stench.
The tricky part for those of us who have taken the false path of “reason” before emotion is to separate the emotion from the action it points to.
If someone does something that makes you want to punch them in the face, that anger does not become “bad” just because acting on it would be wrong.
Feel the anger but keep your hands in your pockets.
At first this will be very difficult, and you will want to go back to pushing the “bad” emotions out of your mind and pretending they don’t exist because it’s easier.
Go ahead and fall back on that when you need to. But always with the full and sincere intention of getting right back to feeling things once you have recovered.
Above all, do not fear intense emotions. Sure, it can be scary to face the really dark and nasty ones and what they make you want to do, but nevertheless, emotions themselves are not the enemy.
And you will never be mentally whole unless you stop segregating your emotions into “good” and “bad” and start just feeling it all, no matter what.
I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.
[[1][ Fuckers at Pizza Hut gave me REGULAR Pepsi instead of DIET, and REGULAR Pepsi is POISON to me. Grr. [[1]]