May 22

 An alright day yesterday.

No major feelings of ill, and, I ate a bunch of random crap. "Random". Low on the bread. Low on the fiber. Avoiding pepper and yada. Ate later than earlier. Still off the stomach meds.

So far, so maintenance-ish.

Not sure if it's a coincidence, but since stopping my stomach meds I wake up a lot more rough. It feels like my quality of sleep has tanked. Too short to tell if its just a coincidence, or maybe without those meds it affects my sleep. Uh huh.

Didn't do shit yesterday. No chores. No art. Nada. Played some games. Watched a movie. Went for a super short walk around the block with Athena to post my stupid licence. Fourth day on the trot for a walk. She was very happy to go out. But literally, 300 yards through the walk. Ohh. I'm tired. Uh huh. It's a super short 400 yard walk old lady, we're good. No super perfect answer here, she likes being out and walking, but, just like me in some ways, the mind is willing, the body, eh, unable to keep up with the expectations anymore.

And she doesn't have a strong suit in common sense. So I am her common sense.

Also possibly like me.

Lovely day today. Can't feel it. Submerged. Muted water sounds. That's it. Curious. And fascinating. Also awful. But uh huh.

Perhaps I just need another donut. Ho ho.

Today I am gonna eschew bread and all bready things. Give it a rest day. Not sure if this makes a difference or not. But I can tell when I eat bread of any kind. It's like eating a pillow. Stuffs you out. I noticed this 2 years ago when I went through that whole cut out bread thing, and I can distinctly remember going out to eat with Nicky, sitting down, ordering a burger with a bun - and commenting I hadn't been eating bread, and holy shit. That burger bun made me feel like I had just eaten something the size of a car.

Interesting.

Try it yourself, if you're a bit of a glutton for punishment. Avoid anything bready for a month. Avoid pasta.

Then eat a bread roll with your usual dinner.

Perhaps it's just me. But I'm betting you're gonna feel like the stay puft marshmallow man.

It does make me wonder meta style, that this is the whole point of something like bread. It stuffs you out. Means you don't have to eat a bucket of vegetables, meat, fruit. Just fill in the gaps with bread ! You know. For the poors. ( also it's about food security in the days of arrggg, the fruit bush has died this year ). Also see why margarine came to replace butter. For the poors. Is it good for you ? Ha ha. Shut up and eat your margarine.

But as these things tend to do, bread is now part of a "normal" western diet. It's what we've always done. Also goes back to the whole evolution thing. The paleo diet. We were not evolved on toast ( as much as I love toast ). Well, if your friend jumped off a cliff, would you ?? The answer is invariably yes. Particularly if there is a long history of jumping off cliffs. The fact you even have to ask the question, would you jump off a cliff as well highlights the fact that yes, the drive to do so is apparent, prominent, and needs some level of checking against.

But as for what we're evolved for.

Imagine an ATM machine. You present a card, it allows you access.

After 200,000 years of doing that you decide, what if I were to just insert jam through the slot. That'd work right ?

Uh. Maybe ?

And by some weird random thing, it does work. But man. Does it gum up the slot. Attract ants. Smells bad after a while. And the ATM stops working after a bit.

Uh huh.

I think this is always the question with anything new. Consider its impact to the system that was designed for something else. Pass ? Fail ? Copeable ? The fails are easy to spot. The copeable.. with bad things down the line... are almost impossible to spot. Until then the copeable looks a lot like a pass.

This is true for just about anything. Ecosystems. Your diet. Computer code. Fuel additives in your engine. Social systems. Economic systems. Pollution. Careers. Work life balance. Debt. Society in general.

Fuck around. Find out.

I think the general level of understanding of the risks involved are basically not understood. Here. Have a mushroom. Will it kill me ? No idea. Why don't you eat it and we'll find out. Risk. High. Everyone knows about mushrooms. And gets it drilled into them as a kid. Don't. Eat. The. Fucking. Mushrooms.

Everything else ? Ehhhh.

Here's a new oil. Gone through some processing. Makes things real crispy with a better shelf time. Risk ? Well. They said it was fine. 30 years later. Actual risk ? Bad shit. Ban ! ( trans fats ). Who knew that fucking around with something and turning it into something else your body was not evolved for was a bad thing to do.

But no worries. Ha ha. Just a one off mistake.

Oh, so, we've learned and now carefully screen and consider future implications ?

*sweats visibly*. Uhhh. Y-y-yeah. Sure. Look. We uhh. Have a rule now with a name. It uh. Yeah. Protects you. It. Uh. *reads notes*. Ensures you don't spontaneously combust on eating something. It. Uh. Covers you.  It's good. I wouldn't worry about it if I were you. By the way. Try this new food ! It won't make you spontaneously combust and has the seal of rule SC11X Pass approval. Ok. But will it make my heart explode ? Ah ha ha ha. Stupid thing to say ! Of course not ! But did you test it ? Well, no. I mean. Yes. We ran the spontaneous combust test. Why would you need more. Do you know how much that costs to test lots of things ? And you can't test for what we don't know. It'll be fine. TRY IT.

Uh huh.

Jam. In. The. Slot.

People can be smart. As a society full of hold over processes and self interests and capitalism and yada, we are dumb as bricks. We aren't collectively smart enough to understand and take appropriate actions for screening impacts to our environment, ourselves, our societies. We have almost a universal fuck around and find out attitude. You name it. It ends up a cautionary tale. Pollution. Climate change. Ozone layers. Pesticides. Foods. All manner of tech. Regimes. Wealth inequality.

Just one long running unwitting experiment carried out on mass by the collective dumbassery.

We're stupid and don't like long term problems. We're better at monkey see, monkey do. A button that lights up when you press it - good. A button that lights up 1 month after you press it - bad. A button that lights up in combination with a lever - bad.

And when we do actually figure something out. Slowly. Painfully. Then you meet the, yeah but, what's in it for me. I make a lot of money with it just like this. So. Fuck it. Like this it is.

Not only do you have to arrive at the solution - hard. You then have to have the finder not be a self interested shitbag - hard. So double hard. In a society that promotes self interest as Good and a Great Builder Of The Economy.

Well.

That's a rant about shit isn't it.

Right. Off for some tea. Black. No sugar. And something to eat. And then noodle with art.

People are lovely. Societies are dumbfucks. Fuck the world. Fuck humanity. Just a big mess of nope. Embrace absurdism. Sit in your corner and paint a lovely canvas whilst on the edge of the apocalypse.

You can go watch this to see how shit gets tested. And then ignored. And sticks around for way wayyyy longer than is reasonable. All the while fucking people up.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IV3dnLzthDA

And this, you can be sure, repeats itself endlessly. From cigarettes. To energy.