Somewhere Between Love and Shoggoth

This Friday a man I don't really know, don't trust, and who only seems to be interested in the pleasure he gets from slicing on a living person is going to reach up my nose and (hopefully) cut all the sick out of my fucking head. Fortunately, I will probably be unconscious for that whole nasty endeavor, but it still brings a lot of Deep Hate out in me.

I watched doctors apathy my mother to death for most of a decade. Watched people who openly mocked her for her weight ignore the cancer that was creeping through her entire body until all the MRIs and x-rays and examinations didn't matter anymore. People whose only job was to watch for the things that ended up killing her, who would rather make a fat joke than discern between mysterious nerve pain and the pain caused by cancer ravaging bones and organs. I Hate doctors. Spending fifteen minutes in an office, listening to a bored man try to justify yet another course of the antibiotics that have to this point pretty much only served to destroy my digestive tract fills me with the kind of rage that characters in stories dedicate their lives to and ruins peoples lives in real life. The idea of spending three hours helpless while that same man digs around millimeters from my fucking brain is loathsome beyond description. The only thing that keeps me from being reduced to a Lovecraftian puddle of cosmic fury, much less actually going along with this, is my wife.

A person in pain for long enough tends to turn into a dick, especially a person known for being a grumpy fuck in the first place, and I won't put her through that. Not if I can help it. So for this week I'm going to do my best to be a man and not a Shoggoth, because she shouldn't have to pay for my anger. I honestly hope that this whole event can vent some of the poison from my heart, maybe even go some way towards convincing me that there are actually doctors out there who aren't worthless, self-righteous, shit-souled, fuckpuppets. I hope.

Decay Management

I have weird feelings about the concept of health. Don't get me wrong, not dieing is grand, I spend most of my time doing it, but there is a difference between wanting to lead a full life and frantically trying to avoid the looming spectre of entropy that shall lead us all one day into the Void. I'm not talking about the people who work out a couple of times a week, or jog to keep healthy and clear their head. I'm talking about the people who make "fitness" part of their identity, the people who try to keep up with what ever is passing for a healthy diet that day, people who seem to judge others for their prospective lifespan.

No one wins at life, not really. You might do well in a societal sense; monetary success, social standing, strong community presence, and those things are as good as any accomplishment. Then you die. We all die eventually, and other than the highly contextual impact on humankind in general and the very rare and probably temporary effect on the physical world we leave nothing behind except what we've done to those around us. This is a good thing, whether we want to admit it or not. At the very least our society wouldn't ever be able to hold up to the constant onslaught of "meaningful" lives. If everyone left a lasting imprint in society, or humanity, or nature we would be buried either in constant (probably conflicting) revolutionary changes or the ceaseless torrent of somehow crucial banality of billions of quiet lives slowly crushing the collective human soul with the sheer weight of its loss.

Some people forget this, or at least never really consider it. They fear carcinogens, they avoid "unhealthy" foods based on faddish buzzwords and misunderstood science. They shame and dehumanize people based on what they consider to be unhealthy. We've seen it happen to fat people, smokers, people who drink. Smokers I almost understand, second hand smoke can be pretty fucked up, its inflicting your vice on others which is not alright. Here's a list of things in second hand smoke, and here's what is in car exhaust, oh and here are some of the effects of being in the sun. No one gets out alive, really, most of us leave this place afraid and alone. When you face down that fact does it really matter to you how someone else gets through it as long as they aren't trying to hurt anyone else? It's all poison; some of it, like food, is poison that can keep you alive until it kills you. Some of it, like alcohol, is poison that can kill you faster, but might make all of the ridiculous bullshit we put each other through everyday a little easier to bear. We spend our entire lives walking into our graves so giving people shit for trying to enjoy the funeral march is pretty fucking low. Being healthy is great and all, but nothing gives you the right to be a dick.

Thank You Jeremy

Just this today. Brian and I talk about this shit... just entirely too much. We're creatives at heart, and this is a topic that we grind on even more at home then we do on here. I've had this exact argument in various states with varying degrees of success and I wish with all of my heart that I had ever managed the clarity and passion Jeremy brings to this rant. We here at Kinda Whatevs are once again in your debt sir. Now if you'll excuse me I need to see if I'll ever finish my shitty little story.

I Am Raising Awareness On Raising Awareness

I am sure everyone who reads this has seen something about raising awareness in the past. Be it a hashtag or a breast cancer awareness pink ribbon, they are everywhere. This is good right? I mean the first step to making a situation better is by knowing that the situation exists in the first place! While that last statement is correct there is a major misconception about what exactly raising awareness does.

I love that people want to help people who are worse off than them. This is a good mind set to be in. But raising awareness is only the first step, and it is a shame that for 90% of the public that raise awareness only do that and nothing else. After a while raising awareness only costs money. Before people know about a problem raising awareness will do two things in theory. 1: spread word about a problem. And 2: get the attention of people with money who might want to donate to help the cause/pay less on taxes. This is a good start sure, but after everyone knows about an issue all the advertising costs start to drain money away from other aspects of the cause.

That link also points out a study that shows people who just raise awareness assume that what they have done fills some kind of "goodness quotient" and use it as an excuse to behave poorly in other areas of life. Its this kind of shit that's the reason we can't have nice things. But if you want to actually help, there is plenty that you can do. After awareness is spread stop spreading it, and funnel the marketing costs into solutions to the problem. Everyone knows cigarettes are bad for you, that's why there is warning labels on the packages. All raising awareness about lung cancer does now is make shitty marketing execs richer.

Maybe create a scholarship for people who want to become doctors who try to cure cancer instead of making "awareness raising" breast cancer vodka. Adding #awareness or whatever to your tweets does almost nothing (if not absolutely nothing) to help the core of whatever problem you are trying to help. Maybe instead volunteer at/donate money to an inner city charity. Do something other than just talk about a problem.

I feel like I need to be clear about this. I am not trying to say that all awareness raising is useless, just the bulk of it for campaigns that are older than a couple of years. Just talking about the problem doesn't solve it. Action needs to be taken for something to happen. I will leave the last word to Doug Stanhope.