skepticlysm

En Guarde!

Written by

Skeptifist

in

  • The status quo has got to go!
  • On this trip to the great North, I received nothing but good news.
  • The neuro surgeon told me she didn’t want to see me again.
  • The infectious disease guy stopped the current antibiotics.
  • I now reside in the Mad Eye Moody realm.
  • …
  • “Constant vigilance!”
  • Wait and see, but … they think they got it.
  • Not a diagnosis with a name or anything like that, because nothing about this is easy or makes sense.
  • But …
  • I’m not sure what to do with this.
  • Process it in public, obviously.
  • When you have a giant growth in your head that has gotten into your brain, and the fucking Mayo can’t figure it out, you start to count your remaining years in single digits.
  • The worry feels immense.
  • Hope … well, hope is fucking dangerous.
  • Even now.
  • I still have to manage my hope.
  • The Specter looms, you know?
  • Because they don’t know what it was, they can’t say for sure, so we don’t know for sure.
  • Hope has to be managed.
  • It’s all a different kind of trauma, right?
  • Takes time to heal.
  • Minute-to-minute, hour-to-hour, day-to-day, year-to-year.
  • And having something like this changes your perspective.
  • Affects your Evaluation Matrix.
  • There’s a lot that becomes “not good enough.”
  • Hence that opening line, which no doubt I heard somewhere else.
  • (No, I’m not going to look it up.)
  • “Rage, rage against the dying of the light!”
  • Yeah, definitely going to get the tattoo now.
  • I have hoops to jump through there.
  • But I’m jumping.
  • So much of our lives are treading water.
  • Or you’ve switched fulfillment for jumping through hoops at your job, trying to advance.
  • More and more, to me, that seems a waste of time.
  • You’re limited in your jobs by managers or bureaucracy.
  • You think you’ll advance.
  • Because that’s the contract.
  • But that contract doesn’t actually exist.
  • It doesn’t actually matter how good you are.
  • How much time you give them.
  • How many KPIs you help achieve.
  • It’s all about the circumstances.
  • Timing.
  • Bah.
  • Too long others held the wheel.
  • Is it the same for you?
  • Hmm.
  • Yesterday afternoon, we hit some vintage shops here in Rochester.
  • I bought … And Justice for All on vinyl.
  • I don’t … own a record player.
  • The kid does.
  • I may hang it on the wall in my office and be done with it.
  • Last week on Discord, we talked home offices/working spaces.
  • I’m proud of mine.
  • First official one I’ve ever had.
  • One entire room in the house dedicated to all the categories of my nerdom.
  • There are a lot of books.
  • Computer.
  • Keyboards.
  • How lucky am I, right?
  • There it is.
  • Luck.
  • Do we ever give credit to the fortune in our lives?
  • Where you were born.
  • The opportunities you take for granted.
  • We’re hard-wired to notice the negative.
  • Like I’ve heard mention 5-to-1, 7-to-1, 10-to-1 positive to negative.
  • Meaning, it takes 5/7/10 positive things to overpower one negative.
  • I started seeing that first in regard to relationships.
  • And then it spread to everything else.
  • Think about it like this.
  • If you’re a boss, that ONE time you get onto your employee weighs as much as five compliments.
  • If you’re a husband, that one shitty comment weighs as much as five good deeds.
  • Because we’re wired to be on guard.
  • Too look for the bad.
  • So we can survive.
  • This is the root of the division in America.
  • The Bootstrap Bullshit.
  • (Go look up the etymology on that when you get bored.)
  • (It’s a retread of “Let them eat cake.”)
  • You only control you.
  • I’m sitting here typing on a table with wheels in a hotel room.
  • The Wife’s in a Teams meeting, headphones on.
  • The kid’s “asleep” behind us on one of the queen beds.
  • Walgreen’s keeps calling.
  • My legs are going to sleep and everything itches (again. still.).
  • Shortly, we’re going to have breakfast at Hollandberry, which is an amazing diner we found about half our trips here ago.
  • They serve this thing called a Pannekoeken.
  • They yell the word when they bring it to you.
  • Sounds like, “Panic again!”
  • I still haven’t tried it yet, but I am today.
  • I’ll post a picture later.
  • Goddamn, I love breakfast places.
  • Somehow, I have not been to Blue Moon in … half a year?
  • On my agenda for when I get back, even if I have to go alone.
  • Deep breaths.
  • Holy shit, you guys, I may be cured.
  • Sure, my car’s motor has a hole in it.
  • But …
  • Sigh.
  • Still here.
  • Still breathing.
  • Still sharing.
  • The bar’s been reset.
  • Maximum fulfillment is the goal now.
  • The status quo has got to go.

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