The problem with making an edge case of yourself (in any respect) is that it becomes painfully obvious when people lapse into framing specific "You" as a generalized "Them."
People very often are not interacting with a specific you. You dissolve for them into a category. This is perfectly normal, and usually unnoticed by either party. It happens most commonly out of laziness.
It takes special consideration and extra concentration for someone to lock onto you as a unique entity rather than a generic one-of-them. So you often become the category. Humanity-in-general, or else whichever personality type you're seen as representing. If you wear fuzzy sweaters and smoke lots of pot and repeat "It's all good!" a lot, this makes you easily categorizable, and you'll often be spoken to as That Guy; a cartoonish blur rather than the specific person you are.
The second cause is narcissism. If people exist to serve one's needs — populating dramatic arc requirements and filling in needed chunks — there's little reason to conceive them as unique entities...except insofar as it helps to manipulate the desired result. Being essentially disposable, we scarcely merit tighter focus.
It even happens with chatbots, who are neither lazy nor narcissistic. Even if you've shown over time that you're very much this way, a given utterance on your end might be parsed that way if that's a more widely typical interpretation. You might chalk it up to a bot's inclination to draw from corpus rather than unique current circumstance, but I see no difference from what humans do. We smear from our experience, barely heedful of custom fit — which is, after all, a pain to maintain ad infinitum. And my point here is that you'll only notice if there's a stark difference. If, that is, you've made yourself an edge case.
Disintegration-into-category normally rolls up quite comfortably within the suspension of disbelief fueling human sociality. We seldom notice when an interlocutor lapses into viewing us blearily as "people" rather than "person" if there are no major differences between the two. But insofar as we stray from the mean via achievement or failure, or uncommon ways of thinking, talking, or acting (“exceptionality” isn't just high achievement; it's any variation from human baseline) it will become horrifyingly obvious when our personhood fades. Where'd I go???
This isn't just about encounters between people who don't know each other well. My mother often deemed my intentions selfish, though selfishness is not among my many flaws, as even a casual acquaintance would observe. She had three children, two of them remarkably selfish (with positive qualities, as well, some of which I lack), so my mother, having sensibly registered that the majority of her kids were that way, settled into the reasonable operating assumption that "My kids are selfish.". She'd frequently ascribe my intentions that way, as I felt myself blurring into the category. Which is weird.
My mother wasn't really at fault. She was just doing what we all do most of the time. And if I were a more normal 60-80% selfish, I'd have felt light exasperation when wrongly accused, not the alien uncanny experience of a mother eerily blind to her child’s most obvious quality. If selfishness were more in my mix, it would have been a perfectly understandable error. A fine-tuning issue. But, having made an edge case of yourself, it becomes painfully obvious when people lapse into framing specific you as a generalized "them."
I was haunted for years by an experience that turned very strange on the bucolic, idyllic New England small town lane I lived in for a while. I'd observed that one of the neighborhood children had extraordinary artistic talent. As I've noted, this sort of thing can be very hard to notice because we tend to compress greatness (placing "fabulously great" adjacent to "competently okay"; i.e. "greatness" seems like "goodness" with extra oomph). Everyone knew she drew well, but it wasn't recognized that she was a prodigy. I told her father, and his face turned red and gnarled into pained disgust. "My child is not extraordinary!" he fumed, leaving me paralyzed with bewilderment. Ever since, I've been painstakingly unraveling what, exactly, he meant.
I think he sensed something I couldn't at the time: the uncanny, horrifying drawbacks of being an edge case, and he didn't want that for her. I interpreted it at the time as a hard-headed celebration of mediocrity. But maybe he was onto something. Maybe this explains the universal impulse to conform and not stick out. Maybe people innately sense something that took me decades to recognize.
Thursday, July 30, 2026
Wednesday, July 29, 2026
The Temperature Magician
In a recent posting titled "Sharpening", I wrote:
When I enter a room, I guess the temperature, very informally, and then glance at the thermometer. How many iterations would you imagine it took to get within half a degree? 1000? 10,000?
No, more like 15. After 15 iterations, I was usually surprisingly right, though occasionally dead wrong.
After 200, I was not much righter, but dead wrong slightly less.
Now, after 1000, I'm about the same. After a billion, I'd expect any improvement to be hardly noticeable (unless, perhaps, I managed to maintain a fresh sense of discovery as the process becomes tediously routine).
Related: Confusion Isn’t Infinity, it’s Twelve (or Three)
Many people can guess the current time to the minute whenever they pop awake in the middle of the night. It feels like a superpower, but it's not.I bought a bunch of cheap little temperature and humidity sensors from Xiaomi, and left one in every room. Mostly to help decide if I really need AC, and to track effectiveness of open/closed blinds and fan placements.
Whenever a cashier adds you up, flash a total. Don't calculate. Don't try to be right. Just quietly flash a number, with zero effort. Pretty soon you'll get super good at it.
Whenever you check anything, flash a result. Nothing obsessive or emotionally fraught. Don't be like a daft compulsive gambler trying to game absolutely everything. Just flash a result, calmly, and see how you do. Then don't give it another thought. Let subconscious calibration happen.
Keep this up as a long game, and you'll get like Nostradamus.
When I enter a room, I guess the temperature, very informally, and then glance at the thermometer. How many iterations would you imagine it took to get within half a degree? 1000? 10,000?
No, more like 15. After 15 iterations, I was usually surprisingly right, though occasionally dead wrong.
After 200, I was not much righter, but dead wrong slightly less.
Now, after 1000, I'm about the same. After a billion, I'd expect any improvement to be hardly noticeable (unless, perhaps, I managed to maintain a fresh sense of discovery as the process becomes tediously routine).
Related: Confusion Isn’t Infinity, it’s Twelve (or Three)
Saturday, July 25, 2026
You Can't Get There From Here
How far away is another frame?
Impossibly far yet immediately accessible.
It sounds like a trippy puzzle, but there's nothing spooky about it. It's a simple matter of shifting perspective.
How far away is forgiveness? Impossibly far, but you can do it right here and right now. It's immediately accessible. Just reframe!
How far away is gratitude? Impossibly far yet immediately accessible. Just reframe!
How far away is love? Impossibly far yet immediately accessible. Just reframe!
How far away is your reorientation as a speck within a vast universe, making petty concerns irrelevant? Impossibly far yet immediately accessible. Just reframe!
There used to be a saying, "You can't get there from here!" With shifts of perspective, this is literally true. You can't get there from here...yet it's immediately accessible. Just shift perspective. Just reframe.
It's not a question of "trying harder." It's a matter of viewing differently.
We've all experienced this. One day the world seems different — we're "inspired" or "in love" or "forgiving" or "appreciative" or "freshly determined" or "finally at peace". It all shifts, and things look different, so we figure the world must have changed out there.
But no. We did it — by shifting perspective in here. And this ability is always available, like a smartphone feature we've forgotten about.
A shift of perspective can bring us impossibly far. You can't even get there from here! Yet it's immediately accessible.
That's the simplest explanation. The "Explain it like I'm 10" version.
This series goes the other way, explaining how the entire multiverse hinges on this utterly simple flexion of subjectivity. I.e. this is how it all works.
Impossibly far yet immediately accessible.
It sounds like a trippy puzzle, but there's nothing spooky about it. It's a simple matter of shifting perspective.
How far away is forgiveness? Impossibly far, but you can do it right here and right now. It's immediately accessible. Just reframe!
How far away is gratitude? Impossibly far yet immediately accessible. Just reframe!
How far away is love? Impossibly far yet immediately accessible. Just reframe!
How far away is your reorientation as a speck within a vast universe, making petty concerns irrelevant? Impossibly far yet immediately accessible. Just reframe!
There used to be a saying, "You can't get there from here!" With shifts of perspective, this is literally true. You can't get there from here...yet it's immediately accessible. Just shift perspective. Just reframe.
It's not a question of "trying harder." It's a matter of viewing differently.
We've all experienced this. One day the world seems different — we're "inspired" or "in love" or "forgiving" or "appreciative" or "freshly determined" or "finally at peace". It all shifts, and things look different, so we figure the world must have changed out there.
But no. We did it — by shifting perspective in here. And this ability is always available, like a smartphone feature we've forgotten about.
A shift of perspective can bring us impossibly far. You can't even get there from here! Yet it's immediately accessible.
That's the simplest explanation. The "Explain it like I'm 10" version.
This series goes the other way, explaining how the entire multiverse hinges on this utterly simple flexion of subjectivity. I.e. this is how it all works.
Thursday, July 16, 2026
Recircumcision
A strange form of behavior is becoming more and more common. I've coined the term "recircumcision," which hopefully evokes a baby peering up from his crib in horror asking "Really? You're seriously going to cut me again?
The recircumcision phenomenon is best seen by examples:
Outdoing Your Self-Deprecation
You say something self-deprecating, and the other person one-ups you.
Congratulations on your recircumcision!
Apologies, My Ass
In one of the Slog's most popular postings, "Angel on a Bike", I tried to make hay out of the widespread reluctance to accept apologies:
Forgiving You For Their Mistake
In the posting "Correcting the Record?", I noted that you go on probation whenever someone realizes they've judged you wrongly.
Sue and the Speed Bump
Here's where I finally saw the heart of it. The kernel. The unseen flowing channels of ghastly glowing green ectoplasm beneath quiet city streets spurring all this ghoulish recircumcision.
I'm driving zippily through back roads with a passenger, Sue, a bitter elderly alcoholic who excels at the unique alcoholic skill of judging everyone and everything from atop a dizzyingly high perch and won't you please pass the wine BELLLLLCH thanks very much.
I hit a speed bump at speed. Jarring. I apologize profusely — at first, sincerely, but lapsing into more lavish and pathetic self-immolation as I try to delay and dispel the inevitable blast from Sue's loaded shotgun of verbal excoriation. However, my tongue lashing is not the least bit reduced by my profuse mea maxima culpa blame-taking. The doctor has slated you for recircumcision, so recircumcised you shall be.
But just before she emits her harangue, I notice something. Her jaw sets. She has perceived an obstacle. An impediment. And she's revving her engines to clear it.
I realize, with a sickening start, what happened. My apology had infuriated her, because it was taking away her big moment. Sue's big moment where she'd enjoy free reign to savage another human being without compunction.
There are precious few opportunities to really let loose and harangue, harass, attack, insult, deride, and generally consume fellow human beings while remaining more or less within the bounds of proper behavior. Such moments are golden. Golden moments! And my extended apology had been like stealing a toddler's sundae cherry. Which, naturally, only peaked her pique.
The horrifying truth is that the knives are never far from out, anything you do might precipitate the snip-snip-snip of greedy scissors, and they actually like it this way.
The recircumcision phenomenon is best seen by examples:
You say something self-deprecating, and the other person one-ups you.
You: "I'm a screwup"Your self-deprecation in no way immunizes you from my deprecation.
Them: "You're the biggest screwup who ever lived".
Congratulations on your recircumcision!
In one of the Slog's most popular postings, "Angel on a Bike", I tried to make hay out of the widespread reluctance to accept apologies:
I absentmindedly walked into a bike lane in Manhattan, forcing a biker to swerve around me. I recoiled in horrified shame, yelling "I'm so sorry! I'm an idiot! Are you okay?"Measure once, cut twice. Recircumcision!
Over his shoulder, he roared, "You fucking asshole, why don't you look where you're going?"
I quickly realized that this person was an angel, perhaps even a sort of messiah. If he'd gamely nodded at me in weary resignation, I'd have felt awful all day. But his reaction absolved me of all guilt. I felt light as a feather.
The unwillingness to accept sincere apology is a hallmark of lousy character, but it also affords the highest possible absolution. The biker had taken me utterly off the hook, leaving me completely unburdened.
In the posting "Correcting the Record?", I noted that you go on probation whenever someone realizes they've judged you wrongly.
If someone has a wrong idea about you—about something you said, did, or thought—you might, with effort, convince them otherwise. Maybe!Recircumcised again and again, 'til it's whittled down to a stub!
But here's the problem: we exalt our assumptions and opinions, even when they're whimsical. They outweigh provable truth (if this seems odd, imagine how different this world would be if it weren't so). So after all the explaining, you won't have cleared yourself. You'll have been given a reprieve. They'll frame it like forgiveness. They've forgiven your transgression...this time!
So the next time you offend, confuse, or simply trigger another wrong conclusion, you’ll be treated as a repeat offender. No more benefit of the doubt for you, mister.
Here's where I finally saw the heart of it. The kernel. The unseen flowing channels of ghastly glowing green ectoplasm beneath quiet city streets spurring all this ghoulish recircumcision.
I'm driving zippily through back roads with a passenger, Sue, a bitter elderly alcoholic who excels at the unique alcoholic skill of judging everyone and everything from atop a dizzyingly high perch and won't you please pass the wine BELLLLLCH thanks very much.
I hit a speed bump at speed. Jarring. I apologize profusely — at first, sincerely, but lapsing into more lavish and pathetic self-immolation as I try to delay and dispel the inevitable blast from Sue's loaded shotgun of verbal excoriation. However, my tongue lashing is not the least bit reduced by my profuse mea maxima culpa blame-taking. The doctor has slated you for recircumcision, so recircumcised you shall be.
But just before she emits her harangue, I notice something. Her jaw sets. She has perceived an obstacle. An impediment. And she's revving her engines to clear it.
I realize, with a sickening start, what happened. My apology had infuriated her, because it was taking away her big moment. Sue's big moment where she'd enjoy free reign to savage another human being without compunction.
There are precious few opportunities to really let loose and harangue, harass, attack, insult, deride, and generally consume fellow human beings while remaining more or less within the bounds of proper behavior. Such moments are golden. Golden moments! And my extended apology had been like stealing a toddler's sundae cherry. Which, naturally, only peaked her pique.
The horrifying truth is that the knives are never far from out, anything you do might precipitate the snip-snip-snip of greedy scissors, and they actually like it this way.
Tuesday, July 14, 2026
The Mundanity of Intuition
The problem with intuition is that it can be hard to distinguish useful intimations from suggestions of what you want to happen, or are afraid might happen. Or from random frothy mental noise. It's hard to winnow truth from slop.
I've written previously ("The Subtlety of Truth") that real intuition is quiet and doesn't nag, whereas emotion and froth holler on endless repeat. "God whispers while the Devil shouts" would be the cheesy storybook version. Real intuition feels like knowing.
I just thought of another hallmark. Real intuition feels obvious.
Often have I screeched my car to a halt in front of some seemingly generic noodle shop or bakery and eagerly polled passengers "doesn't that look fantastic?" while they squinted and shrugged. They don't see it. Which bedevils me. How can they not see it?
That's how real intuition feels: remarkably mundane. Obvious. Right there in front of you.
It's so banal that it might be flowing deeply without your ever realizing. Extraordinary ability feels flatly ordinary from the inside. My sister, a natural at drawing, spent years thinking the rest of us simply don't try hard enough.
If you imagine you've come up with something mysterious and magical, that invalidates the whole thing. Real intuition doesn't feel special or strange or uncanny. It arrives as information, no different from any other. Like noticing an open window or empty coffee mug. So I'll amend my previous aphorism: Real intuition feels merely like knowing.
This observation itself is recursive. It took me 63 goddamn years to notice. Why? It was too obvious.
I've written previously ("The Subtlety of Truth") that real intuition is quiet and doesn't nag, whereas emotion and froth holler on endless repeat. "God whispers while the Devil shouts" would be the cheesy storybook version. Real intuition feels like knowing.
I just thought of another hallmark. Real intuition feels obvious.
Often have I screeched my car to a halt in front of some seemingly generic noodle shop or bakery and eagerly polled passengers "doesn't that look fantastic?" while they squinted and shrugged. They don't see it. Which bedevils me. How can they not see it?
That's how real intuition feels: remarkably mundane. Obvious. Right there in front of you.
It's so banal that it might be flowing deeply without your ever realizing. Extraordinary ability feels flatly ordinary from the inside. My sister, a natural at drawing, spent years thinking the rest of us simply don't try hard enough.
If you imagine you've come up with something mysterious and magical, that invalidates the whole thing. Real intuition doesn't feel special or strange or uncanny. It arrives as information, no different from any other. Like noticing an open window or empty coffee mug. So I'll amend my previous aphorism: Real intuition feels merely like knowing.
This observation itself is recursive. It took me 63 goddamn years to notice. Why? It was too obvious.
Saturday, July 11, 2026
Thursday, July 9, 2026
My Brad Pitt Chronicles
My whole life, I've worked into a headwind because of my looks. It's not that I'm particularly horrible looking, but more than one woman has informed me that I'm not in "their league" (actually true, though not in the way they thought), and when I walk into a room of strangers, the energy, despite my upbeat attitude and witty repartee, sinks measurably. Ah, hell. Here comes Mr. Shloomphy.
The issue is that I'm really, really — no, really — not Brad Pitt, and just as I entered adulthood, that became the standard. I've failed the Brad Pitt standard miserably.
Which is fine! I'm not trying to look like much, or seem like much. My interest is in full-heartedly doing much. I don't mind standing back in the gloom as lowly Mr. Shloomphy while people enjoy my creations. I'd much rather be The Guy than seem like The Guy, even though this ensures that no one ever believes I'm really The Guy. Seemers always win!
It's not my ideal outcome, but I wouldn't switch. Even in a world that rewards pretense over substance, I'd rather Do than pretend to be a Doer.
There's also a moral component to beauty which always made me feel that it's not for me. I once noted that "Qualities such as kindness, intelligence, generosity, and a sense of humor are of service to others. Beauty, by contrast, serves only its possessor." I didn't say it with a bitter snort. In fact, the world probably needs beautiful people to spruce up the place and stoke whatever social energy we still have left as a species. In a world of Mr. Shloomphys, we'd all recede 100% into our screens rather than just 98%.
So perhaps beauty can be mildly generous, after all. But it's still not for me. There are specialists for that, so I amiably get out of the way and let folks preen while I do what I do, because that just seems more useful. I was raised on Richard Scarry. We each contribute what we have to contribute.
And it didn't work out so badly. I got a lot done, and a series of oddly glamorous girlfriends saw past Mr. Shloomphy's facade. I'm proud of my work, and would regret it if I'd ever shortchanged it by diverting energy to making myself seem shiny. I was famous for a moment and didn't like it. I walked away. So I'm not a victim of circumstance, or of genetic lottery. I've made choices for clear reasons, and I stand by them.
But the same world that always responded to me with a firm "Uh-uh!" — insisting that I don't look the part, make the grade, or pass the Brad Pitt test — is suddenly very upset about my looks.
I'm 63, and my genes are not optimized for graceful aging. Plus my health has been crap. Plus I was spookily aged by my ordeal with Chowhound, which I created at age 35 (looking 28) and escaped at age 43 (looking 60). And when I connect these days in-person with old friends — even ones who particularly admired and respected me — roughly half of them wince at first glance. Often, an overt sneer. They grudgingly chat with me, and I don't hear from them again. I'm more chill and droll than ever, so it's nothing I'm doing. It's how I'm looking.
So I suppose this means that they'd mostly liked me for my fantastic good looks all along. Who knew??? This beautiful, beautiful man longer radiates PIZZAZZ! How the mighty have fallen!
It's the strangest strangeness of my long, estranged life. I don't get it. But I keep doing my thing. I'm a diligently purposeful ant, striving to be a generous earthworm (shitting out ever-so-slightly more nutritious earth as he goes), all with the blitheness of a reed (with no reason to object to the battering wind). Everything else is a kaleidescope, which I try to marvel at but more often just eye-roll — giving me frown lines compounding my tragic loss of visual magnificence.
When this bizarre ride is over, and I'm handed a user survey card to rate my experience, I'll hand it back, blank, with an affable shrug. I'm not sure anyone has ever worked more industriously to understand this world, but much of it remains absolutely bewildering. This place truly defies all understanding.
The issue is that I'm really, really — no, really — not Brad Pitt, and just as I entered adulthood, that became the standard. I've failed the Brad Pitt standard miserably.
Which is fine! I'm not trying to look like much, or seem like much. My interest is in full-heartedly doing much. I don't mind standing back in the gloom as lowly Mr. Shloomphy while people enjoy my creations. I'd much rather be The Guy than seem like The Guy, even though this ensures that no one ever believes I'm really The Guy. Seemers always win!
It's not my ideal outcome, but I wouldn't switch. Even in a world that rewards pretense over substance, I'd rather Do than pretend to be a Doer.
There's also a moral component to beauty which always made me feel that it's not for me. I once noted that "Qualities such as kindness, intelligence, generosity, and a sense of humor are of service to others. Beauty, by contrast, serves only its possessor." I didn't say it with a bitter snort. In fact, the world probably needs beautiful people to spruce up the place and stoke whatever social energy we still have left as a species. In a world of Mr. Shloomphys, we'd all recede 100% into our screens rather than just 98%.
So perhaps beauty can be mildly generous, after all. But it's still not for me. There are specialists for that, so I amiably get out of the way and let folks preen while I do what I do, because that just seems more useful. I was raised on Richard Scarry. We each contribute what we have to contribute.
And it didn't work out so badly. I got a lot done, and a series of oddly glamorous girlfriends saw past Mr. Shloomphy's facade. I'm proud of my work, and would regret it if I'd ever shortchanged it by diverting energy to making myself seem shiny. I was famous for a moment and didn't like it. I walked away. So I'm not a victim of circumstance, or of genetic lottery. I've made choices for clear reasons, and I stand by them.
But the same world that always responded to me with a firm "Uh-uh!" — insisting that I don't look the part, make the grade, or pass the Brad Pitt test — is suddenly very upset about my looks.
I'm 63, and my genes are not optimized for graceful aging. Plus my health has been crap. Plus I was spookily aged by my ordeal with Chowhound, which I created at age 35 (looking 28) and escaped at age 43 (looking 60). And when I connect these days in-person with old friends — even ones who particularly admired and respected me — roughly half of them wince at first glance. Often, an overt sneer. They grudgingly chat with me, and I don't hear from them again. I'm more chill and droll than ever, so it's nothing I'm doing. It's how I'm looking.
So I suppose this means that they'd mostly liked me for my fantastic good looks all along. Who knew??? This beautiful, beautiful man longer radiates PIZZAZZ! How the mighty have fallen!
It's the strangest strangeness of my long, estranged life. I don't get it. But I keep doing my thing. I'm a diligently purposeful ant, striving to be a generous earthworm (shitting out ever-so-slightly more nutritious earth as he goes), all with the blitheness of a reed (with no reason to object to the battering wind). Everything else is a kaleidescope, which I try to marvel at but more often just eye-roll — giving me frown lines compounding my tragic loss of visual magnificence.
When this bizarre ride is over, and I'm handed a user survey card to rate my experience, I'll hand it back, blank, with an affable shrug. I'm not sure anyone has ever worked more industriously to understand this world, but much of it remains absolutely bewildering. This place truly defies all understanding.
Monday, July 6, 2026
Sharpening
Many people can guess the current time to the minute whenever they pop awake in the middle of the night. It feels like a superpower, but it's not.
Whenever a cashier adds you up, flash a total. Don't calculate. Don't try to be right. Just quietly flash a number, with zero effort. Pretty soon you'll get super good at it.
Whenever you check anything, flash a result. Nothing obsessive or emotionally fraught. Don't be like a daft compulsive gambler trying to game absolutely everything. Just flash a result, calmly, and see how you do. Then don't give it another thought. Let subconscious calibration happen.
Keep this up as a long game, and you'll get like Nostradamus.
This seems like kid's stuff. Unserious. But kids internalize all of human civilization in a few short years, while adults can hardly read a book. Maybe it's time to stop deprecating childhood tactics?
Whenever a cashier adds you up, flash a total. Don't calculate. Don't try to be right. Just quietly flash a number, with zero effort. Pretty soon you'll get super good at it.
Whenever you check anything, flash a result. Nothing obsessive or emotionally fraught. Don't be like a daft compulsive gambler trying to game absolutely everything. Just flash a result, calmly, and see how you do. Then don't give it another thought. Let subconscious calibration happen.
Keep this up as a long game, and you'll get like Nostradamus.
This seems like kid's stuff. Unserious. But kids internalize all of human civilization in a few short years, while adults can hardly read a book. Maybe it's time to stop deprecating childhood tactics?
Sunday, July 5, 2026
How to be Healthy While Sick
Last week I presented my ludicrously long list of ailments. I've been coping with them far better than I'd expected, and feeling pretty healthy, having baked a little limping, a little pain, and a little vigilance into my expectations. I've accepted a few limitations while happily doing the myriad things I can still do. Since medical issues have been flowing at wholesale levels, I've developed a procedure, which I'll share.
Really, we're all (per the title) "healthy while sick". Even if you have a clean bill of health, you most likely have a few issues back-burnered — plantar fasciitis, hay fever,, myopia, tennis elbow, lower back pain, ad infinitum. And since you've already learned to back-burner them (even though they present as very real and needful issues), then, great! You don't have to learn new tricks! Just use that same function for literally anything that comes up. Even if it's scary-sounding.
None of us drives a gleaming perfect car off the dealer lot. You carry undiagnosed defects and malformations, plus a wide portfolio of dormant propensities. You, my friend, are an absolute mess. But if you're having a perfectly nice time in your fantasy of excellent health, I won't disturb that. In fact, I'm urging the opposite. Learn from how great you feel despite how bad it is! That's solid gold!
The mechanics of coming to feel like a “Sick Person” are far more complicated — and fluffy — than we imagine. We feel compelled to inhabit the role circumstance seems to suggest. But should a medical issue have the power to alter our sense of identity? Circumstance can't force us into role-play. We can choose our framing — it's volitional! As the Buddhists say, "pain is inevitable, but suffering is by choice", and we have ample unrealized freedom to tinker with parameters.
But even if you can't escape the urge to respond to circumstance by playing some new role, the remarkable thing about circumstance is its extreme richness. It can support a vast range of role-playing options. Ample reasons to feel sick or healthy. To paint ourselves as tragic or triumphant; victimized or unduly blessed. No matter how we slice it, it's all about pretending. So why not pretend better?
Enough philosophy. Here's the gritty how-to for making yourself a factory for the conversion of medical bad news into a sensation of wellness and balance.
And other than that, enjoy your life without footnotes or asterisks. Even if you're limping, drooling, and/or wheezing. Put away your cosplay props for playing "The Sufferer" and be stubbornly yourself, regardless of how it looks. Every human has that right! For me, to be out there tearing down sidewalks, regardless of stride elegance, is a badge of honor, regardless of how others view it. Work within limits. That's what life is. That's what they're all doing, and you can boast of working at a higher difficulty rating!
Every moment of your life has been lived within innumerable limitations. You've always played an imperfect hand. We can't fly, or run time backwards, or pass more than a couple of days without fainting for umpteen unproductive hours into snoozy oblivion.
So you've added another one to the zillions of limitations you were scarcely aware of because you'd settled into them so smoothly. So settle smoothly into this one! The only obstacle is the temptation to welp about it, or to weave dramatic narratives around it. You don't need to laboriously trek through all the Kübler-Ross levels. You can skip right to "blithe." Opt out of juicy potential attention or sympathy, and short-cut straight to a sensation of health and balance. Come on in, the water's fine!
Every word of this has been obvious common sense. Yet the number of people I've seen follow this course is approximately zero. I, myself, spent decades not doing it. But after being pummeled by a crazy profusion of maladies, I had to find higher perceptual ground. And now I'm virtually untouchable.
Ironically, I feel more stable now than ever before, at least in the current moment. It occurs to me as I write this that it comes at the expense of any expectation of ongoing stability. In the next moment, anything's possible. I've traded an illusion of ongoing stability for the reality of present stability. Which is actually the good stuff.
So while I'm not in perfect health, I do have perfect framing. And this leaves me with an impression of great health...at least during the long stretches where nothing's beeping or throbbing! :)
Really, we're all (per the title) "healthy while sick". Even if you have a clean bill of health, you most likely have a few issues back-burnered — plantar fasciitis, hay fever,, myopia, tennis elbow, lower back pain, ad infinitum. And since you've already learned to back-burner them (even though they present as very real and needful issues), then, great! You don't have to learn new tricks! Just use that same function for literally anything that comes up. Even if it's scary-sounding.
All your issues were scary at first, though you've forgotten, having handled, normalized and back-burnered them. So I'm suggesting you consciously keep that same process up and running, despite the 20th/21st century conviction that we must constantly torture ourselves over every suboptimal circumstance until we've thoroughly and maturely accepted it, lest we (yeegads)If you're in such perfect health that you can't name any back-burnered condition, good news! You're actually a wreck! If you had the cash to image and test every part of you, you'd see a frightful array of worrisome problems.repress .
Acceptance doesn't require you to be thrilled with the situation. That will never happen, nor does it need to. Acceptance is an easy toggle. "Ok, that happened!" is all that's needed to proceed blithely.
None of us drives a gleaming perfect car off the dealer lot. You carry undiagnosed defects and malformations, plus a wide portfolio of dormant propensities. You, my friend, are an absolute mess. But if you're having a perfectly nice time in your fantasy of excellent health, I won't disturb that. In fact, I'm urging the opposite. Learn from how great you feel despite how bad it is! That's solid gold!
The mechanics of coming to feel like a “Sick Person” are far more complicated — and fluffy — than we imagine. We feel compelled to inhabit the role circumstance seems to suggest. But should a medical issue have the power to alter our sense of identity? Circumstance can't force us into role-play. We can choose our framing — it's volitional! As the Buddhists say, "pain is inevitable, but suffering is by choice", and we have ample unrealized freedom to tinker with parameters.
But even if you can't escape the urge to respond to circumstance by playing some new role, the remarkable thing about circumstance is its extreme richness. It can support a vast range of role-playing options. Ample reasons to feel sick or healthy. To paint ourselves as tragic or triumphant; victimized or unduly blessed. No matter how we slice it, it's all about pretending. So why not pretend better?
Enough philosophy. Here's the gritty how-to for making yourself a factory for the conversion of medical bad news into a sensation of wellness and balance.
Something new is happening, health-wise, that's strange and/or scary. Here's my flowchart, refined from a bewildering amount of experience:Notice what's absent: Absolutely everything else. All the gratuitous fuss. Cut that stuff to the bone and be like a jet pilot. Flinty, frosty, efficient. Just work the checklist.
Is this an emergency? If yes, handle it. If not, move to next question.
Does it require medical attention? IYHI;INMTNQ
Does anything need doing right now? IYHI;INMTNQ
Does anything need doing soon? IYHI;INMTNQ
Is there anything I can do to relieve symptoms? IYHI;INMTNQ
Is there anything I can do to hasten recovery? IYHI;INMTNQ
If I'm stuck with this long-term, can I do anything to shave off some pain and symptoms? IYHI;INMTNQ
If doctors have little to suggest, are there any self-healing moves I can try? IYHI;INMTNQ
Can I rearrange aspects of my life so the condition affects me less? IYHI;INMTNQ
Can I change my framing so the condition affects me less? IYHI;INMTNQ
What do I need to vigilantly watch for? Loop this one, and back-burner it, and enjoy your life. Seriously.
And other than that, enjoy your life without footnotes or asterisks. Even if you're limping, drooling, and/or wheezing. Put away your cosplay props for playing "The Sufferer" and be stubbornly yourself, regardless of how it looks. Every human has that right! For me, to be out there tearing down sidewalks, regardless of stride elegance, is a badge of honor, regardless of how others view it. Work within limits. That's what life is. That's what they're all doing, and you can boast of working at a higher difficulty rating!
Every moment of your life has been lived within innumerable limitations. You've always played an imperfect hand. We can't fly, or run time backwards, or pass more than a couple of days without fainting for umpteen unproductive hours into snoozy oblivion.
So you've added another one to the zillions of limitations you were scarcely aware of because you'd settled into them so smoothly. So settle smoothly into this one! The only obstacle is the temptation to welp about it, or to weave dramatic narratives around it. You don't need to laboriously trek through all the Kübler-Ross levels. You can skip right to "blithe." Opt out of juicy potential attention or sympathy, and short-cut straight to a sensation of health and balance. Come on in, the water's fine!
Every word of this has been obvious common sense. Yet the number of people I've seen follow this course is approximately zero. I, myself, spent decades not doing it. But after being pummeled by a crazy profusion of maladies, I had to find higher perceptual ground. And now I'm virtually untouchable.
Ironically, I feel more stable now than ever before, at least in the current moment. It occurs to me as I write this that it comes at the expense of any expectation of ongoing stability. In the next moment, anything's possible. I've traded an illusion of ongoing stability for the reality of present stability. Which is actually the good stuff.
So while I'm not in perfect health, I do have perfect framing. And this leaves me with an impression of great health...at least during the long stretches where nothing's beeping or throbbing! :)
Saturday, July 4, 2026
Trump and Putin: A Spiritual Take
Everyone’s trying to understand Trump’s mysterious bond with Putin. There may indeed be kompromat, but I propose that the following is equally significant:
Trump lived in a realm of comparatively modest transgression. Petty extortion, fraud, sexual coercion. As a psychopath, he was always capable of far worse, but in his world, deeper evil wasn’t part of his in-game experience. By thinking too small — by needlessly narrowing himself — he’d been leaving money on the table.
Then he met Putin, who murders flagrantly and shamelessly to secure his position, and has bankrupted his own nation via unbridled banditry.
Having never considered how far his own “gloves off” approach might go, this must have struck Trump as revelation. Putin made him see how much larger he could be, how much more space he could fill, how needlessly narrow his previous approach was.
Putin was like Trump’s guru, helping him achieve something like self-actualization, by modeling the way to a vastly enhanced sense of enlargement (all Trump ever sought).
Trump lived in a realm of comparatively modest transgression. Petty extortion, fraud, sexual coercion. As a psychopath, he was always capable of far worse, but in his world, deeper evil wasn’t part of his in-game experience. By thinking too small — by needlessly narrowing himself — he’d been leaving money on the table.
Then he met Putin, who murders flagrantly and shamelessly to secure his position, and has bankrupted his own nation via unbridled banditry.
Having never considered how far his own “gloves off” approach might go, this must have struck Trump as revelation. Putin made him see how much larger he could be, how much more space he could fill, how needlessly narrow his previous approach was.
Putin was like Trump’s guru, helping him achieve something like self-actualization, by modeling the way to a vastly enhanced sense of enlargement (all Trump ever sought).
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