Aug 3

 Cold is definitely on the way out. Voice continues to drop deeper, cough is still kicking, but, seems like we are on the way out.

I'm feeling a bit better all round to be honest. The pains are quiet. The continually dead hands and arms have almost gone away entirely. The nausea is taking a break. The exhaustion has not shifted. It dogs me. And after a few hours of doing anything - even just playing a game - I can feel it kick in and put an ever increasing weight on me to just sleep. My eyes have been variable. At times absolutely awful. Occasionally better, really not good, but eh, better.

My mood is a little better to go with the lifting. It's not saying much. I still find myself tearing up at times. Because of Athena. Because of feeling sorry for myself. But. A little better.

I find myself with a complicated mix of emotions and thoughts. A little clearer. A little more... resentful. A little more willing to say shit like, no, that's not good enough, you treat me like shit. And I am sick of it. This is not who I am though, the eternal people pleaser. I am unhappy, not depressed unhappy, I am unhappy about how I get treated. After thought. Used. Whatever.

My friend occasionally prods me about it. Which I wont get into. Suffice to say, he made a pointed observation yesterday about someone failing / incapable to do a simple thing for me, whilst I did a lot for them.

I got the point.

I am really missing going for walks. Out to the forest. The rivers. Finding cool places to wander. I miss it badly. But I find I cannot really do it without Athena or Ares at my side. I find the idea of doing it on my own to be ... unnatural. Weird. Unsatisfying. Wrong. I am also not enthused with the idea of just another human tagging along. I think. In the end. I badly miss getting out into nature. But it's not just that. It's about exploring that world with my two furry butt friends. I miss them. Badly.

Sigh.

Such is life.

I suppose at some point you have to confront such things. At some point in your life you are unable to do what you used to do. Particularly as old age begins to bite and maybe you can't walk anymore. Or see anymore. Or whatever it is. And your world narrows. And things you used to enjoy, you can't anymore.

In a lovely world, there would be a continual change of things that interested you. A sublime balance of things you slowly grew out of, slowly grew into, and a happy state all the while.

If you're lucky, I think maybe the world works like that for you.

I think for many it does not.

And having to deal with that emotional difficulty of coming to terms with your own failing capabilities is a hard battle. Which you are in no way guarateed to win. Hopelessness may triumph in that fight.

So perhaps in a way, I am just experiencing that level of loss. Just. A good deal earlier than maybe you might expect.

I sometimes imagine it from the point of view of being my dad. Failing health. Failing mental capacity. A self made prisoner of his own home. Isolated. How terrible that must be to lose all the things that used to define you - capable of so much. Now incapable.

I have to remind myself that fate doesn't have to work out that way. That's just a bleak path. Very possible. More than possible. But not guaranteed. There are other - better - outcomes.

Still.

I am unhappy. In so many ways. At so many different levels. Not just one thing.

As ever. I don't know. I have no answers. Other than it sucks.

I watched a youtube recently of a couple exploring weird bits of canal engineering. What an odd thing to do I thought as I watched the dude burble on about overspills. Imagine gearing your life up to go to the middle of nowhere, walk along a towpath and visit a damp pile of bricks somewhere in the UK. Don't get me wrong, it was mildly interesting. And good for them. But I was struck by the absolute pointlessness of it all. Which a fraction of a second later was followed by, the pointlessness of it all. Is not everything that everyone does just a variation of this ? From watching the football. To going for a walk. To canoeing. To painting. It is all. Just a way to pass time dancing on the edge of oblivion. There is no point to any of it. Life. Is pointless ? A conveyor belt of reproducing genes that serves no purpose. And humans stuck on that same belt, just filling their time with manufactured drama. Indulgences. Randomness.

Staring at a damp pile of bricks in a field is as good as painting the mona lisa.

Nihilism. It always circles back to the drain of nihilism.

That existentialism is a "counter" to nihilism I don't see. I don't see how existentialism - effectively just make something up, believe in that, and be happy - isn't just a fancy word for the Same Old Shit. As theology. Superstition. Nonsense. Nihilism to me, still takes that, chews it up, spits it out. Worthless.

I am in a minority. Plenty of people apply existentialism - whether they know it or not - continually to their lives.

Like going to see that pile of damp bricks in a field. To them. It's great. They did a thing. They made it important. They did the important thing. All is good in the world.

From the outside nihilistic point of view, it is absurd at best.

Difficult.

What is the point in anything I do. Nothing is of value. Excepting perhaps that attempt at making others lives less painful. That at least, you can concretely say, does make a difference. Even if nothing else matters in the end. Lessening someones pain in the ongoing bit, has a worth. Reduction in suffering is always worthwhile.

The awkward extroplation of that from, if its worthwhile to reduce someone elses pain, you are also someone else, and therefore it is worthwhile to then reduce your own pain is the very plain next step. Even though the no self worth eternal people pleaser writhes to not be included in the "I am also worthy of not being in pain", it is obviously correct.

So perhaps. The only point. As the buddhists have already pointed out more than once - very clever buddhists - the reduction of your pain is point 1. The reduction of everyone elses pain, if possible, after you've sorted yourself out, is point 2. And try not to add to anyones - or your pain. The world has pain enough aplenty to dish out already.