March 2020

Self-quarantine

From informational; it might cause anxiety. That was part of the scattered message I got from this podcast this morning.

Part of what the psychology professor there had was this idea of limiting your intake of information to avoid the mental anguish new information might provoke

What. The. Actual. Fuck?

I did have a medical provider who told me the same sort of thing.

How can you even live in that sort of world/

That there are people who do might actually cause more anxiety for me than the change in “decided” facts.

No, information comes in, and you adjust based on that new information.

This is even more true when you have notable hosts, who’ve been demonstrably wrong, are worried that the audience doesn’t trust them. Oh, I don’t know? Or, maybe?

But back to the pod, the suggestion was that taking in new information constantly causes anxiety.

This is just completely incomprehensible to me.

Whenever I’m working on an argument, I do tend to dislike using the comparisons to cars or food. I understand that it’s probably lazy, but most people can comprehend the two ideas of driving a car, or cooking something. But, back to the examples I don’t like; does glancing at the speedometer periodically give you nightmares? How about looking through the oven window to see that the cake isn’t burning?

Incredible.

Subsequent things on the playlist, like the Reason Roundtable, quelled the disgust a bit.

Am I nervous about COVID-19? Yes. Am I nervous because I consume a lot of news? No.

Would I be better off if I was ignorant of the reasons for all the things that are affecting normal life?

No.

Even moreso when you consider that I’m on immeunosuppressants, and am at a greater risk of getting sick.

But I also know that the chances of me dying, even with my chemically-weakened immune system, is pretty low.

Assuming a 10% infection rate, and a 2% death rate, I’d be looking at a 0.2% chance of dying from the disease.

That I’m not anxious about that probably means that there’s something wrong with me.

Listening to the podcast only reinforces that. I’m messed up because I’m not that freaked out.

Okay.

So I should stop from taking things in because I might be freaked out?

How do I fix that?

Also, I should be trusting Chuck Todd, because not doing so is dangerous.

Again. Okay.

It takes a lot to really get me spun up.

See ya

Back in the summer of 2019, I wrote a blog post called, “You can leave.”

When I wrote it, I was talking largely about what I was seeing happening with Google and Facebook.

Since I’ve been in virtual isolation worried about COVID-19/Coronavirus/”The Chinese Virus,” I’ve opened back up to social media, I’m leaving again. I’ve been glancing at Facebook more often. I’ve been reading Nextdoor, after the wholehearted endorsement by the corporate media’s Republican sweetheart, David Brooks, on the dumpster fire (all apologies to Ms. Bridget Phetasy, whose Totes-Didn’t-Used-To-Be-Evil video show is called that) that is Meet The Press.

My mistake. But understand that I’d be okay never speaking to some of you ever again. If I care the last about you, you’re getting muted during one of my rare visits. If you do it repeatedly, you’re getting removed from my friends list.

That’s the kindest way to deal with it, even if it means that those people will hate me now, want to see me executed later. I don’t care. But, then, I am the one who’s seeing a Psychologist on the regular.

But, back to Nextdoor, the sentiments go along with the area where I live. My neighbors are authoritarians who want to use the force of government. Today it’s forcing businesses to close. What is it tomorrow? When does it get to killing people who don’t behave the way you want them to?

So I’m withdrawing into myself, and praying for Senator Paul.

A Moment

That’s how long it took me to realize the reason my early alarm didn’t go off was because, um, it’s Saturday, and the alarm is only scheduled for Monday through Friday.

I’m glad I didn’t wake my wife, worried that she’d be late starting her telework.

The semi-isolation for COVID-19 is ongoing.

Monday I have two medical appointments that are going to be done over the phone. The second one is a follow-up to an MRI I had at Georgetown on Friday.

That I was sedated might explain a bit better about why I didn’t fully-comprehend that today is Saturday.

For me, though the experience at Georgetown was a bit off, things have been really not all that different for me, but, as someone who works from home most of the time, that isn’t that big a surprise.

I haven’t been to my office in like three weeks. Okay. And? I’m really smoothing things over with this system I help run, as well as pointing out things that can be done to improve corporate contract performance.

This is what I can still do.

But do I still want to when I see the effects on people, including very good friends, of what’s happening?

That didn’t make a lot of sense, so maybe I ought to quit writing for now.

The temptation to write is very much there right now, and that’s one of the things that I tend to do when I’m mentally-stressed.

Sunday Night

Up late doing work. It happens. I did get a little teed-off about one of these tell-everybody-you-can-think-of emails from one of the other techs.

He said I was ignoring text messages.

Were you sending them to my old number?

Oh.

But an officious email to everybody will cover up for the problem existing between the keyboard and chair, no? PEBKAC.

Otherwise, I’ve been abusing myself by watching Chuck Todd, and, on one of his gusts’ recommendations, NextDoor.

MSNBC might well be a bigger danger to society than a politician who decries “fake news,” Upchuck.

This is somebody who’s been saying that people who don’t trust people like him are dangerous. 1, 2, 3, 4.

Because I’m a bit of a masochist, I have been trying to watch his show lately. One of his guests, the just-as-Republican-as-Bill-Weld David Brooks, mentioned Nextdoor.

Later in the afternoon, I got an email message talking about how MSNBC and change.org were working on a petition to get everyone a COVID-19 test.

Really? Seriously?

Then these old, rich, white folks were telling me exactly how I should handle the situation. No, that’s okay. I’ll let my docs at Georgetown to dictate.

Sorry if that makes me dangerous, Upchuck.

Turn Your Head and Cough

But make sure it’s into your shoulder.

I’ve been listening to podcasts about ~~Coronavirus~~COVID-19.

Obviously, this is of particular concern to me as someone with a chemically-suppressed immune system.

But at the same time, I can’t get too wound up about it, really.

I was happy to see that Wall Street had pretty much the same reaction I had to President Trump’s news conference yesterday.

I guess my question is whether the sort of cooperation among private companies would happen under a government-run system.

I’m more than a little skeptical.

One of the things I did notice about the news conference, however, was the push to do things like provide paid leave to people who really now get no benefits from their jobs.

For a long stretch, there, I had no PTO. None. Not even paid Federal holidays. Nothing.

But that’s what people had voted for.

Registering Dissent

Much as I appreciate Katherine Mangu-Ward’s argument against voting, I did go vote in the Virginia Democratic Primary this afternoon.

Why?

Because some of the candidates, two in particular, were so terribly awful I felt the need to try to contribute to their early departure.

I won’t name specifics, but I will say, “New England.”

It does, however, feed into my still-alive idea of “You Can Leave.“

Two of the leading candidates, again, “New England,’ want to stop that.

Don’t like the things Google is doing with its search algorhythms?

You can leave.

But the politicians have a problem with that.

That freedom is the thing that candidates are trying to end.

I’m not.

That might well make me a bad person.

But I don’t care.