Jun 5

 Gonna ramble today. But first.

Athena is improving. She seems pretty comfortable and happy, albeit, her wound looks to be visibly getting uglier. And is still bleeding at times. But. It doesn't seem to be causing her much if any stress at this point. She's genuinely contented. I have a worried eye on her a lot of the time. And am spoiling her a little with food.

I had a bit of a sniffle this morning. Nothing terrible. But a quiet tear or two. Despite being quiet. Athena heard. Gets up. Hey. Whatcha doing. You ok ? I get a snoot in my face and a lick. Waggy tail. Still the momma bear despite the wound.

The mornings. Left to my own thinking. No distractions. Anti nuts defences a little down before my brain properly kicks in. I am getting climbs in anxiety. And dark spaces. I am clearly. Not thriving when left alone in a dark space. I start eating myself. I've noticed this before. And I have to admit. It's beginning to be clear. Sometimes. I am really best not left on my own. As much as I hate to say that.

In the scale of things I've had hilariously farrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr worse. But it's there. And not good. It's ok though. It will - probably - pass.

The last few days have made me think about a certain aspect of life.

You're always told to eat this, don't eat that. Live longer. What to avoid. The ideal amount of excercise. A veritable laundry list of things - and their attendant years lost in life if you don't obey them. Lifelong disciplines to edge the odds in your favour. Go mediterranean ! Eat light in the afternoon ! Fast here ! Avoid this !

Here's the thing.

In my experience. To date. None of that has mattered what so fucking ever.

Those are not the fights I have had to fight. Are you sure you're getting a perfectly balanced diet ? Avoid sugar ? Too fat !

None of it has mattered a jot.

Everything that has severely tested me, pushed me to the edge of non existence has been through things that basically, are not exactly under my control, or entirely not under my control.

So. It makes me think. It's lovely to peddle along in this holier than thou nanny state idealised patronising lectured state of what you should and shouldn't be doing. Live the model life. And then a car drops on you from above and you're gone.

Your lah de fucking dah excercise regime did not save you from a dropped car.

Oh dear.

Yeah. But. Yeah. But. It's. About. Improving your odds isn't it. You can't avoid the dropped car. But yeah. In general. It's a good idea to live the ideal life.

Is it though. Because. It all depends on how much benefit you get. If you're doing a whole bunch of shit that only has a payoff in 0.01% of cases. Sure in theory it's better to do that. In practice it makes no fucking difference.

A good example.

Always wearing an asteroid impact proof helmet. Everywhere you go. In theory. This ups your survival odds from getting hit by a rogue asteroid.

Great in theory. In practice that's not the thing that you need to worry about. Ever.

It's a false risk assessment. Not that it doesn't exist. Or isn't a problem. But it's a problem with the amounts. How likely a risk is that.

And that's the rub. All the bullshit you read. All the wank about this that and the other. Ooh, this is 20% better for you. Wearing an asteroid helmet gives you a 20% chance better survival from asteroid impact.

But if you only get hit by an asteroid once in 10 billion days - many single lifetimes of a person. Guess what. 20% of basically 0 is... 0. 20% looks nice. Reads good. Grabs a headline. But it's bullshit. It's zero.

Everyone is worrying about what they should be doing. Meanwhile, everyone is literally looking the other way whilst crossing a motorway.

It's not your fucking wine intake that's going to kill you ( in most cases ).

It's a whole host of other bullshit like work stress, late stage capitalism, corporate exploitation and destruction of the environment whilst neatly shifting responsibility onto the individual.

So.

Makes you think.

In practice, in my life, all my pains and miseries, problems struggles et al. Are not because I ate one too many bits of cheese. Or didn't eat at exactly 5pm. No. It's everything fucking else. The world. Work. Other people. The lies. The corruption. Some fucker 10,000 miles away on the other side of the planet agrees to a piss poor food health policy to keep the locals happy and prevent general uprising. Which causes a crossover viral. Which causes a pandemic. Which causes millions to die. And a whole host of others to go through mental anguish, lingering health effects and yada. Just because some twat wanted to keep the peasantry slightly happy so they could go on staying in autocratic power**.

There is shit all I can do about that. And no end of me drinking precisely the correct amount of Oat Milk could have prevented that.

A. Big. Fucking. Distraction. Neurotic attention paid to the insignificant. Whilst avoiding the elephants in the room.

Meh.

So maybe I will stuff my face full of donuts. Die of a heart attack. But even then. That wasn't the real pain point in my life. Not the actual problem with living. It was everything else. That they studiously avoid. Like how fucking shit the modern late stage capitalist world is.

All in all. It gives a very rational and very down to earth assessment of bothering to worry about the bullshit they want you to worry about. We are all mortal. Doesn't matter how few cigarettes you smoke. You're still going to die. As Bill Hicks once said.

Fuck the noise. The systems and media and general expertise is not helping. At all. It misses the point. It neurotics off in the wrong direction. A media driven to get eyeballs looking at them, peddling FUD which is the only thing they can do to get you to look. A crazy system. Autocrats and lies spewing their bullshit into the world. Whether you think it applies to you or not. Some fucked up dude, with a shit viral policy, can very much reach out and touch you, and destroy your world. Ask anyone whos lost someone to covid.

Uh huh. That's my ramble.

Are you sure you should eat that donut ? My dude. Go fuck yourself. Life is a hill of shit. Suffering pain and everything else. The donut. Is the absolute leastest most benign fucking worry in my life you absolute cretin. If all there was to worry about was some fucking middle class guardianista take on how many ounces of quinoa I should be eating, then life would be pretty fucking easy.

Eat the donut. Fuck the twattery with their bullshit lists of things that don't matter but make them feel important.

** So this is the true story of Covid. Back when bird flu and SARS and all that shit kicked off in China before Covid was known, the government over there quickly realised that the shitty food safety in densely packed populations was a real viral breeder. Even worse, because the population were keen on wild meat, and the practice of going out and killing.. anything and everything... and then bringing it to market was a huge risk in bringing novel viruses into a dense unhygenic population. It's no random effect that these things keep on popping up where they do. They figured this out.

So the government banned the sale of wild meat. Tightened up health.

Here's the problem though. Much of the poor were using this as a means to make money. Get rich. Entrepeneurial. And cutting that off was unpopular. Unpopular to the extent that it could threaten support for the communist party. Upset the apple cart of autocratic power.

So.

A short time later. They backtracked. Wild meat was back on the menu. Wet markets were ok. Let's trade safety, science and common sense for power.

Shortly after that. Covid pops up. Gets out. The rest is history.

All because the fucking communist wankers wanted to keep a lid on unrest and stay in power forever.

So it comes down to two things.

Power - the elite wanting it. And money - the poor wanting more money in a capitalist dog eat dog world. The often twin achilles heels of humanity in general.

And no end of recyling, healthy eating, or whatever bullshit you subscribe to in a Western fucked up world would have stopped that occurring.