DIY Holiday

So, as an atheist, former occultist, someone obsessed with intellectual pursuits, and lore nerd, I’ve decided to celebrate Hermaeus Mora’s summoning day as my own joke religious holiday. (That’d be march 5th for you heathens.) He is the Daedric Prince of discovery, learning,  secrets, and forbidden knowledge. Table is open to celebration ideas.

…off the top of my head something like a truth or dare tournament seems to fit, but might be a bit obvious.

🙂 Any suggestions?

And if you were to make up a holiday for yourself, what would you make?

Department Of Education and Star Trek

So, I feel like this says something. When turning on the captions on netflix for star trek, it says captionung provided by the US department of education.

…and there are a remarkable number of spelling errors, and some lines just straight up wrong entirely.

…to quote, “I’m not sayin’! I’m just sayin’.”

“What Doesnt Kill You Makes You Stronger” …does it? AKA, “glass neither half full nor empty, maybe it’s broken.”

I write this post instead of the planned one because of the field triage medical work I just had to do on my dog. Which got me thinking… and here goes:

So, for many years and many shrinks and similar people, I have been asked and wondered myself about the validity of “what doesnt kill you makes you stronger.”

It is interesting because at first glance people tend to fall into one of two camps, the hell yeah, and the hell no. The hell yeah crowd tend to be the sort who, say, went through boot camp. That sucked but they came out better and tougher than ever before. The hell nos tend to be the sort who, say, have been raped, and dont feel any better for the experience.

I, however, wonder.

Because on the one hand, sleeping in a cave for a week (boy scouts) means that everytime I’m a guest and the host is SO SORRY the only thing they have to offer I get to burst out laughing. Bitch I slept in a cave. A couch is totally fine.

On the other hand, I think about darker things like having to use… excessive physical force to stop a problem. I wont be more specific, but, the therapists and nightmares etc should give you a hint as to how, well, kinda wish those hadnt happened.

…but on the other-other hand, without the grueling effort of years and years and thousands of hours of practice in martial arts, I would have likely been killed, as would have the people I was trying to protect. So, there, effort lead to a good thing. And without having to do emergency bigass knife wound triage work on myself years ago, I wouldnt have been able to help my dog a few minutes ago when he ripped off the bandages from his surgery, and several other human patients Ive helped over the years.

So… yeah, tending a wound is gross, but it helps people. Intense violence was traumatizing, but I helped save people. Sleeping in a cave, while neato, was extremely uncomfortable but it gave me perspective.

…hell, going to college in alaska in the winter and on a feild trip to italy in the summer taught me the real meaning of hot and cold, so now neither seem so bad anymore.

I often get asked, usually on a second or third date sort of thing after some of this type of stuff has come out: wouldnt you be happier if you hadnt experienced those things?

….happier? Probably. In the ‘ignorance is bliss’ sense. But… satisfied? No. I wouldnt be who I am without the negative experiences, and well, I’m fairly proud of myself. I think I still have a long way to go, but, Ive done some pretty cool stuff and helped a lot of people and Im pretty pleased about that. I wouldnt have been able to without the knowledge and experience those events brought with them.

So, all in all, I think it really depends on how you handle the bad situations, and how they effect you. In a… utopian sort of way, itd be nice if you never had to experience bad things. But in a more ‘this is how the world works, at least for now’ Im kinda glad Ive had bad experiences, because Ive toughened up from them. Mostly. And thats a good thing. Mostly.

Hey, if philosophy were truly black and white answers it wouldnt be any fun to talk about 🙂

Strange thought (part one of a billion, I’m sure.)

…rather off-color humor my subconscious just mumbled: I wonder if birth rates went down for a while after Alien came out. It doesn’t exactly throw a positive light, albeit metaphorical, on pregnancy.

Reflections On Calm

So, I find emotions, on the whole, very interesting. I’m sure I’ll write more articles about the others at some future date, but for the moment, I’m going to write about calm/distress.

Ever since I was first introduced to the concept of metaphysics on the whole, and ideas like the combinatory nature of mind, body, and soul, it has made me wonder. Essentially, which part of that triune is… me. Well, some would say ‘me’ is the combination of all three. Obvious example being girlfriend cheats on me, this makes me sad and thus my soul is damaged (or however you’d like to put it, since of the three, its… well not even proven to exist but if nothing else, the least studied) and from that damage, my brain releases hormones of sadness, and my body in turn has physiological reactions such as upset stomach, tears, and so on. But which bit causes which? How can you be sure?

This gets all the more interesting when I consider situations such as my sickness (intense nausea, specifically) causes anxiety in me. Because I am frankly stressed out about being sick for 5 straight goddamn years. So, some chemical reaction that causes nausea also causes stress. body, to mind. then that stress makes me angry at myself or the crappy cards I’ve been dealt by fate or what have you, which seems a more soul-based reaction. Conversely, a panic attack, which I cannot control, can make happy peaceful me into furious, terrified and upset me. A change in my mind causes a change in my very personality, in my soul. And that panic attack, because god is a massive asshole, also causes intense nausea. A body reaction.

….Isn’t that interesting. An uroboros of blame, of cause and effect, of ‘wtf?’ Forever circling and so hard to pin point exactly what causes what, or connects to what. I find it fascinating that this… strange connection exists. What does it mean, and why is it so?

I also find it interesting how… well, an example would be easier than a long winded explanation. Before mental illness got to the severity level it is now, previously I had practiced calm and emotional control well enough to be terrified or furious, take a moment, and cleanse myself of those feelings. I could WILL myself down from rage or fear or distress.

…Now, how interesting it is that I can be quite content and no matter how much my brain or soul or whatever ‘me’ is huffs and puffs, I will have an anxiety attack. Every trick I have ever learned, decades of practice, and some goddamn… thing is messing with my zen thing, man. I am powerless in the front of chemistry. But ho! Chemistry to the rescue! I pop a few miligrams of specially crafted chemicals and 15-50 minutes later, I turn into spock mixed with the dallai lamma. Calm, serene, almost nothing can get me riled up at all, even when people are screaming and insulting. Which … I have to admit I find darkly humorous since that level of calm is what I have always aspired to, but from within, not from pills.

I guess I don’t have a point per se, simply to share how remarkable I find… existing. The fact that chemicals can fundamentally change how I perceive reality, perceive emotions, perceive people, is frankly amazing. Don’t you think? And conversely, that choosing to remain calm can change the chemicals in my body and brain.

Really does make you wonder where exactly the ‘me’ that is me… is.

Seems like it ought to be in the brain, right. But if my stomach can cause seratonin imbalances which cause emotional imbalances, and I am the sum of my emotions and thoughts, well, then my stomach has a voice in the choir of ‘me’ just as much as my brain. Or what about when my heart goes nuts during a panic attack. just a big squishy pumping thing for blood can cause emotional and mental changes. Isn’t that remarkable? How strange.

I simply wanted to share some “huh. fancy that.” thoughts with you today.  Get ya thinkin.