No Post Today

I am not going to post today.   I did have a session today, but I also found out a member of my support group lost her battle Monday.   She was only 37.   RIP.

Bag Update

I just realized I have not spoken about my colostomy bag in quite some time.  It is actually a very good sign that I am not thinking about it all that often anymore.   On Saturday, I think I went a good ten hours without thinking about it and, more importantly, realization that I do have a bag did not upset me at all.   That tells me this is becoming my new normal.   It is not a positive yet and maybe never will be, but it is not a negative any longer; it is simply part of who I am.

Life after cancer is a lot like riding a bike after not doing it for thirty plus years: you basically know how to do it, but it is very awkward, uncomfortable, and frightening until you regain your confidence.   You also have to remember you are not the same person that you were the last time you rode that bike.   You are older now, different, more aware of the dangers, and a lot more fragile than you once were.   I suppose that it is more like riding that bike after an accident thirty years ago actually.  It feels familiar, but foreign.    You remember the tricks and stupid things you once did now fully aware of the consequences of a failed attempt.   It takes some getting used to.

I have been back on my bike for a little over two years now.   I had a major accident about eight months ago I am still recovering from, but I am back to riding and gaining confidence.

No Session

A week off for me from delving into my mind as Thera was sick today.   Sadly, I skipped last night's support group (for the second week in a row) due to weather.   I really need to go to that thing more than I do, but living so far from it is a pain in the arse to be honest.   I hate the wait after work before it starts and I hate the drive at the end of such a long day.   They do help however and, more importantly, I feel I help others there, so I really have to make an effort to recommit to that group.   They are really good and nice people after all and socializing isn't bad for me.

Today, if I were in session, I would have spoken about how today is great proof of the randomness of life and how nothing really matters in the long run.   Sadly, I think today also showed me Karma is a myth, so that could be problematic in the long run, but I am getting off subject-

Yesterday, as you know, I returned a twenty to the bank they gave me in error.   If life followed a plan or there was Karma, that should be a check in the "good" box for me, right?   Well, today I discovered why I had yet to receive my debt card even though it expires in 10 days- someone else got it.   It seems that not only did someone else get it, but they figured out a way to use it without activating it because, upon checking my account today, I found out someone charged $100 at Starbucks and $10 at some online shoe store I had never heard of.  

Is the Universe pissed at me for returning $20 they tried to slip to me?   If I believed in cause and effect in life's treatment of you, like I used to, I would be looking at, analyzing, and fixating on what life was trying to tell me in this series of events that obviously had to mean something, but nope; no meaning, no purpose, no nothing...just some random shit that lined up in an interesting way.

My attitude remains intact after this test of my philosophy and I went through it all with a smile and not even a little annoyed by it all.   I simply went to the bank, filled out some paperwork, canceled my card, ordered a new one, and went about my day with my mood unaltered.

It did amuse me when I walked into the bank.   The bank manager from yesterday looked up from her desk, smiled at me, and said "did we do it again?"   It was cute.

Better Be Good for Goodness' Sake

I just freaked the fuck out of my bank.  No, really; I just walked in and confused the entire lot of them.   I started with the receptionist who didn’t know how to handle me, so she referred me to a manager who didn’t know what to do exactly and she went and got the head teller who had to shake my hand because he didn’t know what else to do.   He said this was something they had not really encountered before and were just simply shocked.   He could only shake my hand and thank me profusely and repeatedly.   So what did I do?

Yesterday I had to cash a check for $200.   The teller gave me all twenties and counted them before me.  I counted them again and placed them in my wallet and went about my errands; just another Monday until I used my money and discovered there was too much there.    I should have only had 10 twenties which I spent, but when I handed the 10 twenties to the cashier, she handed me one back because there were eleven in the stack, not ten.   Two of the twenties had fallen in love and were in the middle of copulation it seems when the teller grabbed my cash and these lovers refused to be parted.   They stayed in the embrace of love even when I counted the money and it wasn’t until an honest salesperson spotted the lovers that I became aware of them…but now what?

“SCORE!’ was my natural first thought.  “Free Money!”  “I won!”

Then came the voice and it came very quickly: “don’t they count the money in drawers at the end of a shift at the bank?”

“I’m sure they do.”

“And won’t they find out the drawer was twenty short?”

“Probably….and?”

“And they might have a zero tolerance policy.   The teller could lose her job over it.   How long will that twenty last you versus how long a steady paycheck will last her?”

Bastard was right; the money wasn’t going to change my life at all, but the missing money could alter her life horribly, so I called the bank and told the manager on duty what happened and she informed me the teller’s drawer was indeed short and, when I guessed the amount, she sighed relief.   I told her I would be in today to return the money, but I guess she didn’t tell anyone else about it.   She probably dismissed it as something I would intend to do, but not follow through on over a simply twenty.

So today I walked into the bank and confused the bloody lot of them.  They thanked me and told me people never do this, but I said there was nothing else I could do.   I didn’t want someone to lose their job over a simple mistake and I was simply doing the thing we all tell ourselves we would do.    Doing right only counts in my humble opinion, when nobody is watching you.   There was no reward, no parade, no holiday in my honor, but maybe I restored a little faith in humanity.

Session I'm Too Lazy To Check What Number

"So, when we last met," Thera said, "we were talking about nihilism and finding a purpose in life."

"You can't." I said.

"You can't what?" she asked.

"You can't find a purpose to life.   There isn't one."

"Explain."

Thera, short for therapist because it is not my place to use her real name, is quite good at leading questions and I have never learned so much about myself from someone in my life.

"Life has no purpose other than life," I said.   "It is without meaning and is basically, in essence, pointless."

"You talked about a bumper sticker..."

"The meaning of life is to give life meaning."

"Yes," she continued.  "So what does that mean to you?"

"That life is inherently meaningless and it is up to us to give it meaning."

"So it can have meaning then?"

"No.   Like perfection, it should be strived for, but can never be attained, but in the end most things are random and therefore rather pointless really."

"But you value life?   You spoke before about going through things to preserve life.  It must have value."

"My life has value to me and to a small circle of people of course, but in the grand scheme of things very few of us really matter and even those effects are short-lived.   If I died tomorrow, my friends and family would mourn for a while and always miss me, but life would go on.   It is, in the end, pointless.   Of course I could be totally wrong."

"I want to stay on this for a moment," she said.   "You said pointless and meaningless to define life, but you also said you value it."

"Yes, but I also see a difference between pointless and meaningless."

"How so?"

"Something that is pointless can never have value while something that is meaningless can.   It is extrinsic vs intrinsic values: a pointless thing never has either while a meaningless thing can have intrinsic value, but both have no extrinsic value."

"I'm not sure I'm following you."

"Take Don Quixote."

"OK"

"As I remember the story, Don Quixote was just a guy on a mule jousting windmills, but in his head he was a brave knight fighting giants to defend his one true love.   His actions were pointless: he was never going to win his love or kill the giants as neither existed nor was he ever going to defeat a windmill from atop a mule, but they were not meaningless.   They gave his life meaning and were of the utmost importance to him.   It was pointless to all and meaningless to all, but him.

"My life," I continued,"is meaningless to the grand scheme.   It is pointless.   Today, on my way to work, I had to park far away from my office because someone decided to get into a gun fight with the police and lost.   Their life, aside from making me park further away from my office was meaningless and pointless.   He will be mourned by some and his death celebrated by others, but 99.9% of us will never even know his name."

"And this bothers you?"

"It used to.  It didn't before cancer while I was still immortal, but it did after.   I had a hard time finding a value in the meaningless and the pointless.   Everything had to either be striving towards something or in response to something and all that was lost.   A random life devoid of purpose means the goals are illusions and the memories just that."

"And now?"

"I am learning to live in the now.   I am learning to live not for the memory or for tomorrow, but for the moment.   I am trying to enjoy what I have now because I know tomorrow is not a promise and yesterday is gone.   It has taken cancer and chemo-brain to teach me this, but I think I am learning it."

"And how does your nihilism fit into this new outlook?"

"It is liberating to be honest.   If life is without meaning or purpose, then I can stop worrying about tomorrow and simply be.   You can drive yourself mad worrying what if and trying to find patterns to everything which I used to do.    You tell yourself you misread the patterns when things don't work out as you thought they should rather than realizing it is just random and those few times things sync up are just simply a few times some really cool shit happened to you and nothing more. "

This is of course not a verbatim of my last session, but is in essence a fictional account of our actual discussion and the things I said here are as close to my actual answers as I can recall.

Quick Thought....

Republicans seem to think terrorism is some ghost in a Tim Burton movie and if we just said “radical Islam” three times aloud, it would go away.  I think Obama has made it tragically clear that he has no issue bombing Muslims as he has done it steadily for the last eight years and, as the GOP points out, we are no safer.   Why would more bombs and a change in lexicon make any difference?

My Highhorse Vs Yours.

It is so easy to hate. It is too easy to condemn.  Guns are too easy to get.   Control won't do anything. Muslims want us is dead. I fear. Fear. Fear. Let the bodies hit the floor.  There are no victims anymore, just unwilling Pawns and a game they never signed up to play. I realize I'm bout to violate the very thing that I'm condemning by doing this, but it has to be said. I beg of you to forgive my hi horse for the moment.  I want you to think about the tragedy in Orlando that happened this weekend. I'm sure you are already, but I want you to focus on something specific. I want you to ask yourself how well do you know the shooter; However old you know the issues that people are pushing; and how much do you know about the victims? I set up my Facebook page that it is OK to sit Shivah.  It's of the upmost importance that we remember the victims. It is vital to our over all humanity but we not turn every tragedy into an opportunity to score some type of political points or to prove you were right about something. That is selfish.  It tells me you're not sad about what happened; it tells me that you really not concerned about people; it tells me that you actually probably happy something like this happened see you can say see I told you.   At a minimum, 103 peoples lives breather ended horribly or forever burdened with the memories that will hunt them. Someone who survived the randomness of life, I really feel for the survivors will be even more overlooked those who diedand those who died but will have to deal with trying to find some sort of rhyme and reason to why they survived and others did not. It is a heavy burden to carry and I really hope they find the help that they are going to need to regain some semblance of life. My prayers to the family's.    

The Means Define the Ends

It has been said that the ends justify the means, but, in the end it is the means that matter most for the end is never constant, but the means used once forever changes how things will happen next.  We constantly see the bar being lowered under the justification of "well, they did it."   We cling to some high road mentality as we engage in low road tactics all while ignoring the hypocrites we become in the process.

Ambition only counts when something is hard; if it were easy it would have already been done...whatever "it" may be.   And it is how we achieve our ambitions that define us, not the ambitions we achieve.  Is it worth world peace, for example, if you have to kill every human being to gain it?   Is it worth ending global warming if we must return to the Stone Age to achieve it?   Both these means will achieve those ends, but isn't the price just a tad bit too high?

America currently stands at a crossroads, and they seem to be mistaking it for a fork in the road.  They assume their choices limited to two.    They will be told repeatedly a vote for any other option than the two is like voting for one of the two.   They will be told they will be to blame should America end up with a bad choice.   They will be bullied, brow-beaten, guilted, cajoled, and condescended too.   This is all bullshit, in my not-so-humble opinion.

Is it worth stopping Trump if we end up with Clinton and her warhawk private prison double-speaking Wall Street lying  shape-shifting tendencies?

Is it worth stopping Clinton if we end up with Trump and his random uncouth hate-filled empty rhetorical self idolizing short fused vindictive tendencies?  

Check your third parties please.   Ignore the wasted vote accusations.   A wasted vote in my opinion is voting for a bad candidate to stop a bad candidate when there are good candidates out there.   If you vote actually FOR someone instead of AGAINST someone else, we might actually get a GOOD President instead of the LESSER of two EVILS.

Thank you for your time.

Last Political Post?

This could quite possibly be my last political post ever.  I am that disgusted with this election cycle on all fronts.   I have tried to mostly avoid really getting into it, but I am going to go for broke right now because I have to say it....somebody does.

If MSNBC does as Chris Matthews said they would and declare Clinton the Democratic Nominee at 8PM EST while the polls are still open for three hours, I am finished with politics forever and am finished with the news media forever.   It will be that final proof that we live in with an illusion of choice where media manipulation overpowers free will and free thought.    It will prove will no longer are humans, but are truly lemmings eager to run over that cliff.   Calling all wayward lemmings!

So what exactly is a "wayward lemming?"   I'm sure you have asked that at least once to yourself.  A "Wayward Lemming" is a lemming or follower that has seen a few too many predecessors fall to their deaths by following the popular trend.   They are a lemming who suddenly decided to try something different, but has no clue as to what to try, who to follow, or where to go.    A "wayward lemming" is a new born baby in the body of an adult searching for identity.

OK, so, now that that tangent is over, let's get back to my angry rant before I stop being angry and forget what I was talking about.

The one aspect of this election cycle I have really avoid talking about until now is the overt bias in the media and in the electoral process.   Between the two, the system really is rigged against almost all "threats" to the system.   Trump is a bit of an anomaly, but I will get to him later.  

When Debbie Wasserman Schultz said that the purpose of Superdelegates was to protect the party elite from grassroots candidates, there should have been a call to all Democrats that the system was rigged against them.     When the media continuously said Sanders couldn't win despite his run at the primaries and his rising poll numbers and his growing crowds of supporters, the people should have questioned the purpose of the "news."   They didn't: they were good lemmings.   They repeated as they were told: I like Sanders, but he can't win.

Trump has bucked the odds and it is amazing.   He says incredibly horrible things, but then the media tends to take context out of other things that are benign and turns those into real major stories which basically destroys their credibility to anyone who bothers to see what Trump actually said.   I don't understand why they feel a need to take a really bad candidate who was destined to lose and turn him into an almost sympathetic symbol of media bullying.    I won't vote for him, but a part of me kind of hopes he wins because of it.

I said once here to imagine of Hitler, Stalin, and FDR were all running for President and we dismissed FDR.  I want to really think about that.   Trump is a wildcard who is so "off the cuff" that you don't know what kind of President he will be day-to-day; what stupid thing he will say at the wrong time to the wrong person; if he will even stay committed to being President for four long years or will he get bored of it.   It is too many variable for me to vote for him.   But Clinton...

Hillary Clinton is not a wildcard and what she says really is meaningless white noise.  She is a master at saying what needs to be said to get her objective done.   Both she and her husband are among the best at making you believe they believe what you believe.    She has been exposed numerous times already saying contradictory things based on a swing in polls.    A true chameleon with a venomous stinger.    She has thirty years of us knowing how she uses power: from her time as First Lady, to her time in the Senate to her time as Secretary of State; experience only matters if you learn from it and all she learns is how to better sell her failures as simply an external flaw in her vision.    Her Iraq war vote was wrong because of Bush.   Her support for Libya was the fault of Obama's lack of commitment.   Her support to get into the Ukraine was also crushed because of Obama's lack of vision.   Her Syrian plans were crushed because of a weak government.    Her African adventures continue unreported to this day.

She is the worst America can offer: A Neocon Warhawk who manages to get Liberal support for far-right wing agendas.    She is the candidate of choice of the PNAC crowd, the Koch brothers, the Military Industrial Complex, the Private Prisons, Wall Street, the Mainstream Media, the Pollsters, the editorial boards of numerous newspapers- if this doesn't terrify you, I don't know what will.   And I won't even touch the email saga....yet.

Sanders is still in it and his support still grows.   And he can still mathematically win regardless of what the "experts" tell you.   And if the DNC decides to go with Clinton, I hope and pray Sanders considers a run with Jill Stein.   He owes the DNC nothing.   They only allowed him to run because there was no Democratic challengers to Clinton and the DNC wanted a primary, not a coronation.    I think what he owes America as the only real chance we have to avoid pointless war, gain stability, and catch up with the modern world is more important.

Thanks for reading even if you vehemently disagree.

Why Yes...Yes I Am

I think it is time to out myself and no, I am not gay...not that there's anything wrong with that.   What I am is Asexual.   I took a few online quizzes and I am what they call "Grey -A" Asexual.   This means I don't mind doing things and do have a preference between sexes, but I just don't have that drive to "bring it all home."    I will play football, but have no desire to score a touchdown; I just enjoy the game.    I will play baseball, but am quite happy at first or second base.   I get home sometimes certainly, but that is to make the team happy and not due to an internal desire to score.   Nope, I am quite Asexual it seems.

When I have brought this subject up before, it has always  been dismissed as either a side-effect of medication I am on, a simple fact I have yet to meet that right person, or recently as an after-effect of my cancer treatments, but I must sadly say none of the above is correct.    When I look back on my life I clearly see that I am just not a sexual creature and that is fine really.

I got my first girlfriend when I was fifteen.   She picked me up at a skating rink (kids, ask your parents) I was at while pledging a high school frat.   I didn't get in the frat, but I did get a girl, so I think I won overall.    And it was fun; a lot of fun.   We did everything together and I was totally in head over heals love with this girl, but we didn't have sex.   We fooled around; we explored like kids do; we teased and played: we did all that, but I never broke the barrier.    I didn't want to.  It wasn't important to me.     Everyone assumed we were having sex like bunnies in heat because we did play around A LOT, but nope; no sex.   Not until I turned eighteen and felt I wanted to keep this girl even though I was leaving for college.   It was for her I did IT, not for me.    It was nice, but it wasn't as much fun as other things we did and I just wasn't moved to want to do it more.

I went to college and my lack of a sex drive kept me very faithful to my girl friend back home, but her discovery of a sex drive made it hard for her to do the same for me.   She was an attractive girl in her last year of high school and was finding herself popular.   While I blamed and cursed her at the time, I can understand in retrospect.    She broke up with me quite a few times during that freshman year and for some reason I kept taking her back.   Eventually this girl brought out my dark side and I will write about that another day.    Nothing fatal or illegal, so relax.

I went a few years without either a girl friend or casual sex after the break up.   I had sex with one girl who I did like because I thought that was what I was supposed to do, but it didn't work out.   Great friend, but no romance.  

I met another girl a year or so later and fell again head over heals in love and this time we were sexually active, but I just wasn't there mentally for that final act.   I think she sensed it.   We dated for years, but the sex slowly faded as I think I just couldn't keep faking interest in that.   I loved everything else and could do foreplay for hours, but when it came time to doing IT, I would mentally check out.

When that relationship ended, I think I used the hurt of it as an excuse to the world as to why I wasn't engaging with or looking for anyone, but I think inside I was kind of happy to have that pressure of sex lifted off of me.

So here we are some 25 years later and I am finally admitting I am Asexual.   I love women.  I really do.  I have fantasies and desires and such, but I don't want sex.   It doesn't interest me in the slightest.   I know there are others out there like me and I know I will eventually find another and live in asexual bliss, so I am not worried.   Ironically, a side-effect of the cancer treatments that would destroy most men is no big deal to me: I can't ejaculate.  TMI? Tough!    And yes I am hiding this in another paragraph fully aware it should be a new one, so deal with that too!    I think that news would destroy most men, but I take it as an asset and a shield to those who questioned why I wasn't sexually active: I couldn't be.   Me?  I am quite happy to be Asexual and can't imagine being any other way.

Um....Yeah; Its Something

This is why I can't be a professional writer: it is either there or it is not.   I can't force it and I am trying right now to force it.   I want to write, but literally have nothing of importance to say right now.  I could write another essay on writer's block and do that "meta" thing I always do of writing about how I am writing for the sake of writing, but I have done that so many times already; including last week with the essay about destroying.

Yes, I could easily probably pull 500 words out of my ass about Trump or Clinton or Sanders or the state of political discourse in America or the failing of the media to remain objective during an election or any number of various rants you can read on hundreds of websites by name much better known than my own.   It would be easy and moot.

I could return to my old online haunt to engage in meaningless flame wars with an endless array of trolls and tell myself it is in the name of keeping my typing skills fluid.   And yes, I have used that very excuse before to justify my pointless arguments.    It also would be easy, but also quite moot.

And no, I am not depressed today in the slightest.   I could be and probably should be given my car's recent kerfuffle, but I am not.   I just don't seem to be in the mood to write today and thought it would be an apt time to show why I can't write professionally.   Who would pay for this?

=D

Sessionless

No session today as my...not sure what you call her, counselor or is it therapist or maybe talking-listen person....not sure.  Anyway, she is out of the country this week, thus the "two week" theme of last week's post.   Don't seem to have anything on my mind either.   Kind of nice actually.   Going to go enjoy the silence.