For whatever reason, I don’t normally talk about politics and the news here.
But today I am going to make an exception because the world’s gone crazy and that is definitely having an effect on my mental health.
Last night, on Colbert, they said there might be as many as 50 million Americans infected with Covid.
That’s around 1/7 of the population. Think about that. One out of seven Americans having the disease that’s shaken the world to its core.
And all because the American right wing has been trained to attack and destroy any fact they don’t like without giving it any due consideration.
I feel like all of America is facing the test of the Gob Jabbar from Dune right now.
For those who aren’t familiar with it, in said test the person puts their hand in a box while a poisoned needle – the Gom Jabbar – is pressed to the back of their neck.
They are told that if they take their hand out of the box, the needle will be pressed into the back of their neck and they will be dead within seconds.
The box then makes the person being tested feel the exact sensations they would feel if it was burning their hand all the way to the bone.
The person doesn’t know it’s only faking it, of course.
The idea is to test whether the person is “human” or not by testing whether the knowledge that to withdraw their hand is to die is enough to keep the person from doing what every animal instinct is saying to do and yank your hand out of the fire.
This is harsh and cruel and problematic, but I like the underlying concept of testing whether the individual has the rational self-control to keep their hand in that box based purely on knowledge alone.
And that’s the test millions of Americans are failing right now. For most of the world, the knowledge that there is a deadly disease out there killing people is more than enough to make us accept the limitations of these times and change our behaviour.
But not for the Fox News set. They don’t want Covid to be real because if it was, they would have to control themselves and do what they are told, and as a group they are a bunch of spoiled brats for whom being asked to restrain themselves is the worst thing ever and never ever justified.
So they’re going to die. And there’s not a damned thing we can do about it.
Millions of Americans are going to die from their own ignorance and stupidity and stubborn pride,and all the rest of the world and the rest of America can do is watch.
I mean, we will keep trying to make them see reason, but without much hope of success. Maybe they will change their minds when they start dying in large numbers.
But I doubt it.
So millions will perish and I am frightened by how callous I am becoming about that.
Let them die of their own stupidity, then, and make the world a smarter place.
Those dark thoughts are not welcome but I can’t seem to shake them,
We live in mighty interesting times.
More after the break.
My drug is video games
Every depressive self-medicates and we are all addicted to our chosen method of self-medication. Every single one of us.
We all have the thing we do obsessively because depression suppresses our ability to feel pleasure, so precious little gives us pleasure.
This creates a deadly emotional wasteland, Human beings need pleasure. Without pleasure we truly lose our minds, our hearts, and our souls.
Pleasure is how nature tells animals they are doing the right thing. Pain sends the opposite signal. Without them, we are adrift.
Therefore, every depressive clings desperately to absolutely anything that will bring them pleasure and hyper fixates on it to the point of addiction.
For me, my destructive self-medication is video games.
Like I have said before, while I am playing a good video game, I am not depressed. I am not anxious. I am not worried. My ever-lurking dread is nowhere to be seen.
Playing a good video game fills my mind so much that it pushes all the bad stuff out and keeps me entertained and engaged.
It even provides a (false) sense of accomplishment and even worth.
All without any of the messy scary details that make real life so hard.
No wonder most of my free time is spent playing video games. They are my refuge from a world where I don’t fit in and I am always scared and everything is too loud, too sudden, too bright, too stimulating, or just plain too much.
So why not spend most of my time in the one place where I am happy, or at the very least, too busy and having too much fun to notice how unhappy I am.
Because it’s keeping me from having a life. That’s why not. Because it sucks my time and my life and my days on Earth away from me. Because I could be doing so much more with myself and my time if I was not so damned addicted to them,.
Because they are what I have instead of having a life, and deep down inside. I am miserable.I am dying on the inside from lack of growth. Because I am wasting away from lack of vital emotional nutrients.
Because video games are not enough. Human beings need far more than distraction and entertainment. I am no longer a child whiling away the hours till it’s time to go to school again. I am not just keeping myself busy till someone tells me what to do.
I have an entire adult life to do with as I please and nobody is going to come tell me what to do or where to go or tell me I am a good boy.
I’m on my own. Like always.
Might as well get used to it.
I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.