Apr 26

 Pains are really bad at the moment.

Yesterday I popped out to pick up a bare few groceries. I knew I wouldn't be able to manage a full run. Just. A few things.

I severely underestimated how much pain that would cause.

Just getting in and out of the car was ... difficult. Every movement accompanied with the stab of a hundred knives.

This isn't unfamiliar territory. Again. Falls into one of those familiar patterns. This is pattern number 6.

I got to the supermarket and gingerly made my way around. Everything *hurt*. Ironically, for once, it wasn't my energy disappearing on my that caused me to tap out of the grocery run, it was pain. Which increased and got harder to deal with the longer I "poked at it".

Arriving back home I dropped something as I moved to get out of the car.

I stopped. And contemplated existence. I knew I would have to bend over to get the thing. And how much pain it would cause. A tiny bit of conditioning accruing. This is going to hurt. I don't want it to hurt. How about I just sit here quietly instead.

I picked the thing up. Breath stealing pain. I gritted my teeth. Rolled out of the car. And gasped for air and groaned in pain. My. Fucking. Life. I slowly got the few groceries I had, groaned my way into the house. And took some painkillers and collapsed.

I am munching painkillers at the moment. A somewhat steady diet. It. Takes the edge off. For a while.

Another thing to track at the moment. Not only, oh, do I have any energy to do something with ? I have persistent high pain with any kind of effort or exertion - do I truly need to do something even if I have a bit of energy.

It is what it is. Hopefully. The pains fade away in some days. Or weeks. They typically ease up after a while. That oh so familiar background rhythm of all the bullshit that goes on with my CFS, dysautonomia and the rest of it. Pretty sure you can add in fibromyalgia to that list now as well.

Got the bill in for the heating work done. They have knocked £100 off the cost as a gesture towards the work being held up mid job, from a two day outage, to a six day outage.

I am taking it as what it is. Debated replying and laying all the issues out. Decided. I can't be bothered.

We shall skip the fact their incompetence wiped out a £400 bit of equiment. That they blocked my sink resulting in another £260 bill - admittedly some of this is my expense at getting the system just brought up to spec whilst there. Nor shall we talk about the fact they broke my waste pipe that I have had to fix. 

I have reflected on this.

They know the issues they caused. Or at least 2 out of 3 of them. The excuses of "didn't do it on purpose" and, "don't know how that happened". Are. A nothing burger. They do not remove responsibility. Or outcome. At best, they are a statement of this not being a deliberate bit of criminal damage. So. Not out to target me, or some jolly of a sociopath. That. Falls squarely into, things you don't need to say. I am going to assume you're not sociopaths. But. It *is* people. Falling into well worn troughs of things to say. Without understanding the irrelevance of the statement. It's. Low processed shit. Or to be brutal about it. Idiots. The kind of universal idiocy much of the fucking human herd operate at. Untested. Unconsidered. One foot in front of another.

I have also decided to just let Hazel have the laptop for however long thats going to be. Through into June I would assume. That she is taking liberties is beyond doubt. That she doesn't seek to counter this or apologise being fully aware of the transgression she is making. Is another signal.

But again. This isn't out of character for her. This is her... less than great side. Apart from the borderline personality disorder. This is just her... not behaving in a great way. She has become accustomed to acting like an asshole and not getting called on it. Because she rages up. Argues away. Places herself as the victim. And there is a comfy level of exploitation she has become used to there. A. Dark pattern of personality. Does it work ? Sure. Often. To some extent. Does it have consequences ? Very definitely. But then. As she admits herself. She is a continual maker of bad choices. Infamously bad at cutting the branch of the tree on which she sits. Or perhaps biting the hand that feeds her.

You can get justifiably angry about all this. You can get justifiably angry about everything going on in the world. The rampant lies. The self serving greed. Easy to do.

Anger. Serves a purpose. At it's best it is a response designed to pushback on the intolerable. It is a pressure for the pendulum to swing the other way. A balance check. And whether you like it or not, it's hardcoded into the firmware, the hardware, of the human system.

But. The important bit that gets missed. Consider the human system. It is a system optimised for a local frame of reference, operating in an adversarial resource environment, at a small scale. Or in other words. It's formed from small social groups, in small ecosystems. What it is not designed for. Is bigger scale. The world at large. The entire ecosystem of the earth. At that scale. A lot of what anger does is dysfunction. A lot of what humans do *period* is dysfunction. Chopping a tree down to make a fire is ok in the local small scale frame. 9 billion people doing this every day on the other hand has *consequences*. But back to anger.

Railing in anger about this or that or the other, outside of a local frame reference often serves zero purpose other than to harm yourself.

Which is not to say you should let transgressions pass. Note them. Act on them. But. The crucial bit. Don't let the anger sit beyond its use. Understand that it's probably not helpful. In the same way that being stressed in an office, with a fight or flight reflex triggering because of 100,000 year old biochemical firmware, giving you an entirely inappropriate response whilst sat at a desk, and at worst, actually damaging not helping the system it sits in.

People can rage. Stomp about. And know that the world at large doesn't see it. Doesn't care. Is unaffected. It's just a person. Beating themselves up. At its intended small local scale. Getting angry at *someone* in their local social group. It serves a purpose. It doesn't serve a purpose when its non local. Not in a social group. A stranger. Maybe not even in the same country.

Let the anger go. Before it poisons you. As the buddhists say. Getting angry is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.

But this doesn't mean no consequence. Inaction. It also doesn't mean suppress.

It just means. Understand the utility of what's going on. And like anything. Anger that has no meaningful result, that burns and burns. Is. Detrimental. And just like some CBT methodology. Of not spiralling. Or a meditation course. Designed to calm and center. Or an anxiety practice, designed to lower the anxiety. All these things can be a conscious adjustment of the default or emergent base behaviour.

Same with anger.

Let it go. When it serves no purpose.

Remember. Adapt.

So it is.

So. I am letting my anger go over this. It has been bubbling. And there is that realisation. Ok. What am I doing. The only person being affected by this. Is me.

There are consequences to the events.

There will be a tightening of any future interactions with contractor work. Less leeway. More responsibility. I can be understanding. But also. Hold people to standards. And as for Hazel. It's noted. It's not a good look. I will be less generous in future, and more... boundary driven. And more coldly assessing. I don't want to have to deal with it like that. I don't like dealing with it like that. But it is an unfortunate necessity. An erosion of trust.

There is. A bit of a pattern in all of this. And it's something I realise I do with everyone.

It's a test.

Not that I Sit there testing everyone like some sociopath. It just. Happens like that because of the way it is.

I tend not to give people any boundaries. Be who you are. Act how you like. No pressures. No laid on expectations. And it's not about sentiment. Or talk. It's about what *you do*. Actions. Not words.

So. I end up putting people in a clean space. And then. We see which direction they walk.

More often than not. People are cautious. Defensive. They lie. They cheat. They are ungenerous. They spin. They excuse.

And. It makes sense. At some meta biological level. You are looking at defensive strategies. To maintain status. To hide intent. To protect ego. To gather all the beads and hoard them.

What frustrates me is that people often talk a good talk. Most people hold aspirations of justice, and fairness, kindness, humility, truth etc. And yet. Given a free choice. No demands. People do *not* do those things. It occurs to me. That those things being held as aspirations. Are that exactly *because* they are not the norm. If they were the norm. They wouldn't be aspirational. It would just be Tuesday.

When we look at people like Trump. The greed. The narcissism. The endless lies - lies by default. The continual attacks on anyone that appears smarter, or better, or more truthful or anyone that demonstrates the failing of him. Arguably almost the peak of terrible things a human can be.

But again. It's not a them and us. He being some unspeakable aberration. He is *human*. Admittedly he is an outlier in many of those negative traits coming together so strongly. But absolutely he is human. These things are the human condition. Written broadly through the species. All those tendencies are there. In some form or another. What you are seeing is not some spectacular failure case. What you're seeing is a strong demonstrator of intrinsic capability. Human.

You can work against or with these things. Good days. Bad days. You would hope, in general, the better traits of people - co-operation, care - offset or overcome some of the worse ones. But the understanding that they are all in the pot. And that many of them require a conscious choice to combat.

I can see those same underlying traits everywhere. Sneaky. Quiet. When no one is looking. They feel more free to venture forth.

My problem is. I am not stupid. Or blind. Trained by trauma to read people. To the nth degree. And I see the shit. Particuarly. When people think they've been so clever getting away with something.

No. I saw it. I just didn't respond to it. But there are consequences. You just can't see them yet.

People are used to an instant pushback response. Anger. Crap like that.

More often that not, I wont do that. And overwhelmingly I never signal when I have seen things. For good reasons. I guess in many ways. This makes me exceedingly tricky. You're not going to get me to engage actively with setting your boundaries. I am going to expect you to do that, by yourself. And your values and where you choose to set them, will be the mark of your character.

I suppose in some ways this is unfair. Some people are only ever used to running on a model of life where they have people pushback on their choices and can then adjust their boundaries. They are not used to, and possibly even can't, maintain their own sense of ethics. They require others around them to shape them. When I don't do that. Their ethics wander. Freeform. Default. To less... great.. standards. And my standard is. Do better. Self police. And if you can't....

And that's the unfair bit.

Something to consider. Sometimes. I may need to pushback. Because. That's the only way that person knows how to operate. 

This also brings to mind the therapist. With her. Ill timed enforcement of contractual obligation that superseded the personal relationship they are always keen to promote. You would hope. A therapist would be a lot better... at self policing than that. But maybe not.

If you were being meta. You might drop that point. To the therapist. And see what they do with it. And where they think they are on the scale. And then. Compare with where their actions *actually* trend towards.

Or.

Just maybe not.

Let people be people. And withdraw. And isolate. And look for that alien picking up hitchhikers so I can escape this planet. And go explore the universe.

I too am human. And flawed.

But I try. And in a whole bunch of those ways I try hard. I am aware. I am not your average fucking monkey. And that. Causes issues. 

I am slowly getting my zen and patience back. I do understand the human condition. I do understand just living a day as a human is no easy thing. And I am aware as a flawed human, I am not infinite of patience. And sometimes I need a bit of a "break". To recover.

Nevertheless. None of what I say is wrong. It's just. From different points on the understanding / brutality scale. 

Also the meta meta. The bit that so many people get wrong. Or don't understand. When I say I understand someone. Or something. And people immediately jump to me then defending said thing I understand. It's this -

Understanding doesn't mean condoning. And or also closely related. Understanding doesn't obligate tolerance.

Understanding is just that. Comprehension. Not agreement. Not condoning. Not cheerleading. Not judging. Just comprehension. The what. The why. The underlying pressure. Understood.