I guess this is the new normal. Am I right?
All this staying in. Par for the course for me, though I do miss going to restaurants with my friends. But a weird time for the world in general.
For one thing, we are seeing the limits of individual liberty illustrated every day because we are in a situation where letting people come and go as they please can actually get people killed, and thus, fairly strong restrictions are actually justified.
Of course, you have the protesters. These people fail at civilization. The soul of civilization is rational restraint, and these people are having none of it.
Thus we all suffer from the effects of an overly permissive atmosphere.
But I can’t get too mad at these people because they are just reacting the way their culture has programmed them to react. There’s a reason places like Hong Kong are very hard to oppress, and that’s because free people instinctively resist.
It’s nothing we need to be told to do. It’s baked into the nature of free peoples itself.
So I can forgive these people for not quite making it to the level where they can restrain their instinctive reaction based on sobering but rather remote and theoretical truths.
And besides. These people are a very tiny minority of the population. Most people get it. We might not like it, but we get it.
But there is a reason (beyond mere sensationalism) the media gives these nutbars so much attention, and that’s because these people, wrongheaded as they are, are expressing something that everyone is feeling.
People don’t like being cooped up and told what they can and cannot do. Cutting people off from their jobs is very traumatic as most people derive most of their sense of purpose and their sense of having a place in their society from their jobs.
I mean, that’s the formula, isn’t it? You are what you do. Society tells us that as long as you are gainfully employed and paying your own way, you’re good. That is the sum total of what you owe the society that supports you.
Well, that and paying taxes, but you don’t exactly get a choice in that, so it’s hard to list that amongst one’s virtues.
Doesn’t keep people from trying, mind you.
But now, suddenly, everyone is on the dole. The whole damned world is facing the same struggle I face : how to find personal meaning without employment.
And I clearly don’t have any answers there. I just play video games all the time.
But I feel their pain. I think that there is a gently simmering spiritual crisis underneath the surface of the collective subconscious.
We have a world full of people feeling increasingly lost and directionless without their employment. This, historically, sets the stage for the rise of movements of all kinds, good or bad, left or right, freeing and fascist.
So the real legacy of this strange era might be a period of social and political instability that brings profound change to the very roots of modern society.
Whether that’s a good thing or not remains to be seen.
More after the break.
Son of a bitch. Now I can’t order from 7-Eleven because for some reason, I can’t log in to my PayPal any more.
And I would love to report this problem to PayPal, but I can’t, because you have to be logged in to do that.
This is downright Kafkaesque,
I am beginning to think I need to start looking for a new reloadable/secured VISA because shit like this just keeps happening.
And it’s causing me a hell of a lot of stress.
I mean, the only reason I was using PayPal to pay for my Uber Eats orders was that Uber Eats wouldn’t take my credit card directly in the first place.
Now even that doesn’t work.
I am beginning to wonder if my reloadable VISA comes from a really shady provider (my bank farms that shit out) and that’s why I keep having issues.
I am tempted to just transfer the balance to my bank account and use online debit.
I am pretty confident that VanCity is trustworthy, After all, they are a Canadian bank, and we have a very boring (and hence reliable) banking system.
God damn it, even calling Paypal on the phone requires you to log in. It says it’s for “greater convenience” but there ain’t another option.
It’s a hell of a catch, that Catch-22.
Update : I was able to log in to my credit card’s website, and put through a ticket there. Hopefully they can resolve it.
Burning down the house
Guess it’s time to try to shock and frighten myself into taking better care of myself.
My legs are now covered in lesions. Each leg has a big one about the size of an Odor-Eater and a host of small ones the size of a large zit,
I probably have some kind of infection. The kind that only dirty diabetics like me get because our sweat is like treacle.
And that segues neatly into the main reason I have not taken this to the doctor yet : shame. I am ashamed of how badly I have taken care of myself and ashamed of the horrible state I am in, and I don’t want to to have to admit to it all to my doctor, who is an authority figure, and that only makes it worse.
And yes I know that is completely crazy. The logical, sensible thing to do is swallow my pride and get this shit looked after ASAP.
But it ain’t that easy. Not when my depression and social anxiety are involved.
So who knows what it will take before I get myself fixed up. Suppurating wounds covering my entire body. Constant deep horrible pain. Not being able to walk any more. Losing my eyesight.
The possibilities are endless, really.
I mean, my medications from my psychiatrist were phone in last Friday and I still haven’t found the motivation to walk one block to go get them.
So I guess one of these days, I’ll just die.
There’s a certain comfort in that thought.
I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.