I Know Not Where

Many times in the past few weeks I began writing a post. I had something to say, then I just stopped, saved the draft, only to come back later and trash it. One was about the 2017 video game Assassin’s Creed Odyssey and I seem to have forgotten the others.

That’s okay; it’s happened before. Odyssey may be the best game I’ve played in all my times of wishing that a bad game was better and a good game was longer. But even though I’ve put 400 hours into it and want to write all the reasons why every gamer should experience it, I can’t. Not being able to write what I want to is getting to be a real problem. Forgetting things, hoping the game’s puzzles will help, is hell. One day I will wake up and not know who I am. That’s a worthy thing to fear. Having seen it happen to other people, and going through lapses myself where people greet me by name and I swear I dont know them–I’m scared.

Perhaps the worst thing I, and many of us have dealt with over the past year is the isolation. While others flouted the advice to wear masks and use social distancing, we adhered to it because we accepted reality. Others only accepted it when they were in an ambulance.

Loneliness has been and always will be a killer. Added to stress, it affects both mind and body in ways we find fantastic, difficult to believe. It can raise blood pressure, cause digestive problems, heart complications, interfere with neural activity and that, right there, is mood. Mood is not just loneliness. Depression and what it can do is a serious health issue that hits everyone in various ways. Things get more difficult to do. You can’t get motivated. Taking a shower seems a gargantuan task despite knowing that you’ll feel better. A shave can make me feel better but forget it. I can’t manage it until I’m miserable from the stubble. Even then I get chest pains.

Sleep is something no one should take for granted. Changes in sleep patterns can indicate underlying conditions that you need to have checked out. In one year I went from having a problem getting sleep at all to an almost narcoleptic state. I can fall asleep playing a video game, eating, drinking coffee. It can happen any hour of the day and I get little to no warning.

I’ve had quite a few things get worse or change these past twelve months. I remember at the beginning, how I never heard traffic anymore. Being in the landing pattern of BWI/MARSHALL, I saw that change too; very seldom did a plane fly over. And with the skies silent, I could hear private aircraft for the first time in years.

Nightmares when I was sick last year with covid, fever dreams, gave way to my normal PTSD type dreams. If you can call those normal. But I began to sleep so deeply that I rarely remembered my dreams. That, at least, was a blessing.

I went from improvising masks to being able to take my pick. Still can’t get medical grade, but the signs are clear, masks help.

I went from seeing everyone with masks to rarely seeing anyone masked, or improperly masked. A worker at Subway had his nose uncovered. I left.

An abundance of caution rarely hurts anything. A lack of it often kills.

I just got my first Moderna vaccination this week. The protection kicks in a week or so later. It is not a pass for me to go out and act recklessly. The second vaccination won’t be, either. We still need masks and social distancing because this virus is changing, as they all do, as they have for eons. It’s what they do, how they survive. Same thing for all microbial species; that’s why our reckless use of antibiotics has caused super bacteria to emerge. In one way of thinking we are, as Shakespeare would put it, “Hoist by our own petard”, the translation of which means we’ve blown ourselves up with our own bombs. Funny how The Bard never fades from relevance, yes? Truly a man before his time.

Of course, Shakespeare did make the occasional mistake: in Julius Caesar, Act 2, the title character asks what time it is and Brutus answers, “Caesar, the clock has struck eight.”

While striking clocks did exist when Shakespeare wrote, they certainly did not in the first century BCE.

But who cares? And who cares that the last words of Caesar were not “Et tu, Brute?”

One thing’s for certain. We’ve done a lot of staring at or unplugging clocks for the last year. Time and seclusion don’t mix well.

Over half a million people are gone from us. They left behind bewildered and heartbroken families and friends. Some were stored in refrigerated trailers before final arrangements were made. And that’s a horror too many have either forgotten or never believed was real. We are a nation of mixed nuts. As proof I offer a call by a European university for all of its students abroad to return home because of other countries which have crude and primitive healthcare systems. We were among them. Us. The mighty United States. We should all hang our heads in embarrassment. And shame.

The bastards like Mitch McConnell oppose healthcare reforms. That man just made a bold two-faced statement to corporate America because they spoke out against the draconian and racist voter restrictions passed in Georgia. He said corporations should stay out of politics. But not so far as to stop political contributions. What a pissant. Idiot.

We have Republicans on video tape coming right out and saying “If we dont cheat, we’ll never win another election.”

How in-your-face can you get? And you should hear what they’ve slipped up and said about George Floyd. Or the siege on 6 January at the Capitol building. They would have ordered more protection, been more afraid, if it was ANTIFA.

Racist liars. They were all pissing themselves as they hid that day.

Maybe I have had problems writing because of bullshit like that.

An maybe because I’m fed up with the left hating on all people  with religious beliefs. Most of it’s anti-Christian. I know why. The far right evangelicals and Southern Baptists are hate groups. Anyone still associated with those denominations is dangerous. I’m sorry,  but if you dont stand up against hate and dishonor, you stand for nothing.

Somehow, as Easter approached, the anti-Christian hate posts increased. It got so bad that I had to post an answer to it. I dont disagree that the far right are hardly Christians; Jesus never said. “Go forth like wolves among lambs and teach evil and hatred.”

I dont think much of religion bashing. We all have the right to choose what we believe. Everyone gets that choice. Who am I to denigrate another for their faith? I dont get offended by others’ beliefs. What I do find offensive is being judged deficient because I believe in a false god. Personally yes, I’m hurt by it. It calls my freedom of choice and my intelligence into question. If I dont do these things to others, it’s because I know how they’ll feel. Because I respect their choices. I respect them.

On the other hand, I feel obligated to speak out about harmful cults. Like ones where “members” are mistreated, shunned, locked away and worse. That’s torture and conditioning. Not religion. I also will continue to challenge false Christians who have lost the meaning of their own doctrine, refuse to love others, embrace racism and who worship money and flaunt wealth. They’re poisonous vipers. Stay away from them. Tell the world what they really are.

Oh, 2020-2021; they’ve got their place in history. We are part of it. We saw it. Watched it, lived it. While the news made us feel alone, or more alone than we were, our diversions became limited. TV shows and films halted production. Everyone was affected.

Prices went up. Then as products came available agian, the prices went up even more. People lost jobs and the other day, when I went for my covid vaccine,  I saw something that wrenched my soul.

On Route 108 in Columbia there is a business park. The largest building sits beside the highway.  People who worked there had to number over a thousand. The parking there was chaos. People used three entries that I could see with more in the back. A corner restaurant carryout did a rush trade. It made so much money during business hours that it was closed at 1500 or 1600, and never opened on weekends.

Now the parking lot sits empty. Completely empty. All jobs were lost. Seeing such a sight, not having been there in the past year, was a shock that drove home just how much damage we’ve sustained. Now I can picture many more places once teeming with workers whose biggest worries were whether to make lasagna or order out after a hard day at work, now desolate, abandoned, a testament to human suffering that smacks you in the face. Truly a stark monument to death and disease.

We are diminished and we cannot ignore it. Even the military now admits that an all-volunteer force is no longer sufficient to protect this country, much less our allies.

Misconceptions and false rumors abound. Fighting them is a task Heracles himself would run from. Lies, they have a power all their own. Like living things, they grow and spread and they have more than enough power to take life.

One thing very true and frightening is the warning that the next pandemic looms near; the organism that will cause it already exists. But it doesn’t have to happen. Mitigation is possible. We know how to do that now. The question is, have we learned our lesson?

I would say no. Businesses suffered, as I’ve said, to the point of no return. But restaurants that did survive are now hosting inside dining. It is too soon and it is dangerous. I heard a report recently that covid cases are on the rise in 20 states; but Michigan and Pennsylvania seem among the hardest hit. The variants plus irresponsible behavior is proving our ignorance, stubbornness and the fact that we have not learned.

For myself, this has done a number on my mental health. The worst of the dreams, which resemble my fever dreams, are back. Last night I dreamt of a girl from high school named Jane who, of course, was beautiful and therefore hated me. In the dream, I snaked through those damned labyrinths and along the way she would appear, egg me on, kiss me, tell me sweet nothings, once even flashing me her shaved, uh, you know. My desire was only equaled by genuine love and I couldn’t make her listen to that part.

Of course this goes clear back to my fucked up childhood, when the worst betrayal of my life happened. My father was never a good parent. My earliest memories of him contain fear. But my mother’s betrayal came after I knew her as a mommy. As someone who colored with me, read me stories, kissed my boo boos and held me.

It played into the inherent fear of women most men have. That fear, indescribable for me, is the root of today’s bias against women in the workplace and every other part of life.

Of course it can’t be so simplified; human behavior is complex and prone to being set. Once set, like concrete, it is difficult to change. It has to be hammered apart and nobody likes that kind of change. Men fear upheaval that women simply view as righteous equality.

The dream (nightmare) wasn’t sexually pleasing. I never thought of that girl all those years ago in a sexual way. I didn’t love her. Was not infatuated. She scared me. I can’t remember why, but like so many girls that year, I sensed her loathing for me. I never want to dream of her again, but we humans haven’t the power to prevent nightmares or who is in them.

Now, I’d love to tell you about the video game, the only one I’ve ever spent 400+ hours on in the first playthrough, but I can’t. It has occupied time I would otherwise have spent concentrating on my problems and brooding, and it’s the only game I have ever wanted to so thoroughly beat, mastering every aspect of play it offers, and believe me, this baby is huge. I mean I’ve seen posts where people claim to defeat it in 60 hours, but they’re lying. Not even the base game, without the downloadable content which continues the story, can be completely defeated in 60 hours. They’re referring to the main storyline which is a totally different thing. Even that is improbable within 60 hours, but hardcore gamers do weird shit. I’m a casual gamer and faced with such a big, beautiful and multifaceted adventure, I have taken my time. Assaulting a fixed fortification by myself, I found out quite early, is rather futile. I never go through the gate, always attacking from outside and either above or below the walls. It’s time consuming and some players don’t use strategy; they barge right in. The game is too unfair for me to do that. It was designed by (brilliant) sadists for a masochistic consumer base. I’ll tell you more later with a gallery you won’t believe, but right now, I’m taking a break.

That’s because I have writer’s block and my mind has wandered off, I know not where.

I hope you all are well. Please leave a comment or a like to let me know.