I’m going to the hospital to have them look at the ulcers on my leg at 2 pm today.
I will arrive prepared to be there for a long time.
Books, change of clothes in case I get admitted, and so on.
This ain’t my first rodeo.
It will be my first one in an ER, though.
I hope the cows don’t get infected with the coronavirus.
Then they would have to change the name to COWVID-19.
I am a very silly person.
Kinda of worried about going to a hospital when I know my immune system is compromised by sky high blood sugar, but that’s the hospital paradox for ya.
The place you go when you are sick is the place you are most likely to get sick because it’s full of other sick people and their germs.
That was bad enough in the Before Times. It’s even worse in the era of COWVID.
But I can’t afford to worry about that right now.
I need treatment for all these goddamned wounds.
Why does this shit keep happening to me on Friday?
On kicking the habit
Going to try to marshal my thoughts on addiction.
The main error in how we think of addictions is that we do not take into account the forces at play.
Addictions of all kinds hijack the part of the brain that governs cravings and rewards. This is the part of the brain that, in a state of nature, keeps us alive.
When an animal is thirsty, it drinks. When it is hungry, it eats. This is more than a matter of pleasure or scratching an itch.
“Giving in” to cravings is what leads an animal to do the things needed for survival.
And this is true of all animal life, from the protozoa to the killer whale. That means that the part of the brain that addictions hijack is very, very old, and very very powerful.
Defying it is not easy. Nature does not give animals a lot of choice when it comes to doing all the things necessary to live. It can’t afford to.
And that applies to us naked beach apes as well. Like I have said before, our self-control is entirely dependent on how well our basic needs are met.
It is only when we have food, water, and shelter that our drives will relax their grip enough to give us options.
And that’s the part of the brain that addictions hijack. To a human being, subjectively speaking, there is no emotional difference between starving and needing the next hit of your particular addiction.
It doesn’t matter that survival is not at stake at all and that getting that next hit will actually decrease your chances of survival.
To an addict, the emotions are exactly the same.
So that’s what any addict, whether their addiction is crossword puzzles or heroin, is up against when they try to kick the habit.
Kind of puts all the moralizing and self-flagellation about our own moral failings in perspective, doesn’t it?
Think twice before you judge anyone for giving in to their addiction.
After all, they truly feel like they are starving.
More after the break.
How the world seems to me
But first, this
Made this earlier today :
I really do feel that way. The fact that the left leans towards math averse types who would rather lose a limb than deal with elementary school level math drives me absolutely frigging insane.
The forces of evil bent on destroying civilization bank heavily on people’s belief that all financial matters are “complicated” and that they “couldn’t possibly understands them” and so we have no choice but to “trust them” with like, all the money.
Even though they clearly are not to be trusted with such power.
So this is not mere intellectual snobbery. Being someone who lives at the intersection of Art and Science, I don’t look down on either side for being how they are.
But the stakes are so damned high. We have to learn to pierce the veil of this new priest class of accountants, economists, and those professional liars know as “stock brokers” and reveal them to be the cheating fraudsters that they are, and that can only happen when we learn to read the Bible for ourselves.
That doesn’t mean every liberal needs to become a math whiz. It only means that we have to stop falling for these bastards’ bullshit and recognize that this shit is not actually all that complicated and that some of us, at least, are perfectly capable of reading the tea leaves ourselves and calling these evil motherfuckers out on their lies.
You know these people cannot be trusted. So why take their word that they and only they understand the great god known as The Economy, and we must do as they say or it with strike us unbelievers down with poverty and despair.
Fuck that. It’s just numbers. We can do this.
And what’s more, if we truly want to save the world, we must.
Meanwhile, back in Fanhattan
Went to the hospital. Told them about my symptoms. Showed them the sores on my legs. They said they were no big deal and they would heal once I got my blood sugar down to something reasonable.
Not sure I believe them, but that probably says more about my own paranoia about not being taken seriously than it does about the staff of Richmond Hospital.
Because to me, they seem like a pretty big issue. I have these open wounds on my freaking body. I thought they would at least bandage them up and send me back to the the Wound Clinic for regular dressing changes.
But nope. my high blood sugar was the easily understand variable and my leg sores were all, like, complicated and gross, so I got nothing.
Well, except for the realization that I possess a Hospital Mode, where I just lay in the bed and drowse, letting my mind run on momentum.
It lets my mind finish processing all the stuff I feed it all the time, and helps the long waits pass more quickly too.
Otherwise, the whole thing left me feeling like they missed the boat because once more, when I try to convince someone I need help, they just brush me off/.
I will try it their way for now.
But if it doesn’t work, I will be back with a vengeance.
I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.