Well that fucking sucked.
I just had the worst dizzy spell I’ve ever had.
And that’s saying something!
I had just exited the drowsing state that accompanies my waking up from a nap in the afternoon these days and walkered my way to the kitchen when it hit me like a ton of lead to the forebrain. Hit me so hard that the only reason I didn’t take a nasty fall was that our kitchen is tiny so I was able to shoot out my hands and grab hold of the cupboards on either side of me.
And even then I was in mortal peril because the room was still tilting from my point of view. A fact I learned when merely shifting my weight caused the world to do another violent shift that would have laid me out without the support of the cupboards.
Thanks, cupboards. You went above and beyond today.
Julian rushed over to see what was the matter, So he went above and beyond too. I managed to tell him I was dizzy. He asked what he could do as he helped me get the walker back upright. I honestly couldn’t think of a way he could help.
Some things you just gotta go through alone. Maybe if two burly interns with excellent reflexes has been there to hold me up, that would have helped.
But maybe not. I dunno.
Anyhow, I did the only thing I could do, namely hang on tight and wait for the dizzy spell to pass, which thankfully it did quite rapidly.
But that was very, very bad. I could have injured myself dozens of ways as my mighty mass came down on some poor part of me all at once. At my age, and with my osteoporosis, I could have broken a lot of my bones, too.
Makes me feel like I should go around in one of those safety harnesses that mountain climbers use. Plus a six inch layer of bubble wrap.
Now obviously, I got up too fast. That’s clearly the trigger in this situation. I was drowsing siesta style and then suddenly woke up and remembered that it was time o make my lunch and do part 1 of my blogging for the day, and that caused me to leap to my feet and walker to the kitchen far too quickly.
But that’s merely the inciting incident, not the root cause.
The root cause was probably dehydration. I get dehydrated so easily these days. So easily that I have to drink more or less constantly just to keep ahead of it.
So that combined with my circulatory issues is probably why I had such a severe onset of dizziness. And now I am left, as I so often am, wondering how seriously I should be taking this incident.
My normal, childlike reaction is to say, “well I am okay (ish) now, so I’ll forget about it. ”
Look, I’ve been telling you people I am not a competent caretaker for myself.
The other possibility would be to go to Urgent Care. And I don’t wanna. Ditto the ER. I am not in the mood to pack up some stuff and go to the UC or the ER and end up just sitting there bored out of my gourd (due to my fucking tablet not working any more) only for them to eventually tell me they can’t find a problem and so yay, you get to go home now. Aren’t you excited?
Go fuck yourself with a rusty bedpan, you knob. I wanted answers, not a pat on the back. Your lack of scientific curiosity offends me.
More after the break.
People who hate utilitarianism
My theory is that the people with a strong hate for utilitarianism are people who fundamentally hate math.
And all other forms of quantitative thinking. The idea that a moral problem – any moral problem – could be solved by simply looking to see which of two numbers is bigger is extremely offensive to them.
To these people, morality is warm and human, and numbers are cold and inhuman, therefore morality can never, ever be reduced to anything numerical.
These forces are fundamentally at odds with one another. They are opposites, more or less. to these people and that is a hill they are totally willing to die on.
Despite the fact that said opinion is an aesthetic one, not a logical one. They don’t have an articulate argument for their rejection of utilitarianism, just an emotional reaction to it.
And here’s the thing : the logic of utilitarianism is ironclad and irrefutable. All
utilitarianism boils down to is choosing the greater (or greatest) good.
Ergo in order to argue against it, you’d have to argue for the lesser good. And that would be downright silly.
I think a lot of people get a bad impression of utilitarianism because of the extremely contrived questions in ethics 101 books where utility would demand that you do the thing that IS right over the thing that FEELS right.
Like, say, pressing a button that dooms one man to die so that five others might live.
Now me, I would press that button. My morality would demand it. Five people surviving is better than only one person surviving. That’s so basic it’s elemental.
But I won’t claim that I would walk away from it feeling good. In fact, seeing that one person die and knowing they died by my hand would probably haunt me for the rest of my life. I’d have nightmares.
But, and this is a real sticking point for some, morality is about doing what is right, not what feels good. And that’s what really sticks in some people’s craw : the idea that those two things can diverge from one another, at times quite radically.
Oh, and one last thing : I know and accept that utilitarianism is not for everybody. There are many people in the world for whom my personal brand of precision pragmatism is quite simply incompatible software. They can’t think like that and it would be highly injurious to them emotionally to even try.
And to that I say, do whatever works for you, people.
After all, that is always the pragmatic choice.
I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.