17th April

 With a small outing to take Hazel to the docs - finally they listened.. kind of.. - yesterday I spent my day off pretty much working.. on the Charity app. Slow progress, the challenge here is not so much the data, or the system, but the extensive installs and system setup that has to be done hands off, with no technical expertise on a random PC. Not your typical professional requirement. But I'm getting there. Currently writing an extensive and very friendly installer app to manage all the nonsense.

Didn't feel amazingly super again yesterday. Tingles are definitely more prominent, left side of face particularly. Last night I had a small touch of the tingles in my face reaching from above my left eye all the way down to my jaw. Ho hum. This morning on waking, left side of face above eye tingles. And there's always something "dubious" going on, left side of torso, bottom of rib cage.

Oh well. At this point I am very resigned to it, and just hopeful each day it improves. I guess I could live with this if this turns out to be the new normal. It's not fab. But it's not dire. Enjoying each moment where I am not actively suffering, taking one day at a time.

The daily reminder. Recovery could be a marathon, not a sprint. I know I said that yesterday. I barely listen to myself. Hence the refrain.

Oh yes. Andy forwarded me part of an interview on the radio yesterday. Some senior journalist complaining about the NHS. Using the exact terms I have been uttering. She mentioned it requiring a "huge kick up the arse". And its culture being embedded in antiquated bureaucracy, no decent IT, slackers in places, poor service in others, disappearing into the cracks. Not joined up. Ha. Indeed. I jokingly said to Andy she must be a fan of my blog. He said I should contact her and work together. Ha. It is slightly reassuring to see however that it's not just me that sees the problems. I have a small hope therefore that if it's not just me, someone better placed, someone more capable can do something about it than me having a largely futile whine on a blog. Still. Part of the solution process involves acknowledging a problem. And sometimes that's the hardest part. Even if it's just words on a blog. Human nature is adverse to admitting problems or mistakes that have been made by themselves. Getting people to embrace their problems and accept change in those circumstances is a very high and difficult art imho. Folded arms. Pouting lips. Sulks. Outright hostility. Tricky. There's a nice bit in the Hagakure about this exact thing. To badly paraphrase it basically sets out a strategy of highlighting your own related flaws, or how you dealt with such flaws rather than just outright criticism of others - which in the esteemed Samurai's opinion is worthless ( he likes using the word worthless ) and gets you nowhere, because people will just get defensive and reject your advice. He has a number of things to say about giving and receiving advice.

Not sure what my plans are for today. I was up today at 6.30am. I suspect I'll probably crash out in the afternoon. Other than that, one part of me wants to press on with the charity work. Another part of me counsels caution about working flat out all days of the week and weekend. Charity work or not, it's still work. I worked until 7pm yesterday. Ha. This is me resting and recuperating. Apparently. Well Johnny. You're a fucking idiot aren't you. Mmmm. Very likely. Hazel did give me a good few warnings. You're going to burn out. You're doing too much. The brain burns, do, do, do, do, problem solve, crunch. Sigh. Fanatical. Work til 7pm. Have something to eat. Then play Valheim where I was... problem solving how to build the best building and using the tools to squeeze what I need out of the editor. Ha ha ha. Sigh. Ironically I like to think I'm quite zen. I think I am. With a hidden ultra pushy, uber self critical, high demanding problem cruncher. Perhaps I should have just focused on art as a kid. I think my first mistake was probably solving puzzles. My mom used to love puzzle books, word searches in particular. She used to skip the puzzles that were logic puzzles. Which I used to love to solve. So I would do the bits of puzzle books she skipped. They would all be the same kind of thing - four people on an island, person A says this, person B has that, person C never tells a lie, person D you don't know anything about.... figure out what person D had for breakfast. That kind of malarkey. You had to logically step through and work it out. I loved doing them. The silly aesthetics appealed to me, of islanders, or the random people. And the steps of working out something logically was very satisifying. From there it was a short hop into the birth of home computing and applying those lessons to computers... and programming. Applied those same lessons to studying psychology as a teen. History, theology, philosophy, the human condition followed into my mid 20's and a widening scope into understanding the various writings from India, China and ( imho the largely derivative - not that that's an insult ) Japan. ( Science I found largely trivial. Few arguments. Largely objective. Easy. Human related studies however were much more shrouded in doubt, opinion and a fog of... human subjectivity ). A meta understanding that there are many paths and many wisdoms, most easily seen in taking in distant cultures that have had an "air gap" to evolve in. But also evident more subtly in things very close, but in the rainbow of opinions people have. Very Darwin. Very Galapagos. And of course ironically, my official school work I treated with disdain. Pfft. My path. Meh. I wouldn't recommend it. It's miserable. Perhaps I'm just miserable. Perhaps it's both. I suspect though that it doesn't do well to continually peak behind the curtain of the wizard of oz. No magic. All disappointment and misery. Ha. A little bit of wonder at the magic of the world is a good thing imho. Perhaps that's what Harry Potter can provide. A sense of magic in a nihilstic objective uncaring universe. A pity I am not super into Harry Potter. Once you know how a magic trick is done, it's a whole lot less amazing. There's a reason the magic circle protects its secrets.

Anywho. The old mental health chant. Today will be a better day.