I tell many idiot stories but here’s one with a twist, an idiot story that turns into a genius story. Like everyone else I’ve been wearing nothing but pants with elastics waistbands and drawstrings. As I was getting out of a pair I somehow managed to get one end of the drawstring stuck in my underwear so when I pulled the pants off one end of the drawstring got pulled right past the whole and was stuck in the waistband. That’s the idiot part. I somehow don’t imagine most people have ever had their underwear pull out a drawstring. When I came out of the shower I had the problem of getting the string properly strung. Normally what I do in those situations is feel for the aglet or know at the end of the string and squeeze it through the slot. This happens with hoodies and that always works. The problem is this drawstring had no aglet. It had no not. It was nothing but a ribbon of fabric. I couldn’t even feel where it was in the waistband. I pulled the entire string out, so I’d at least know where the end was. Then came the genius part. I figured out how to thread it through the waistband. I took a small safety pin, the one I used to get the SIM card out of my phone and put it through one end of the string. I then squeezed that through the waistband. I made my own aglet. That’s the genius part. Now for the tragi-comedic element. I’m so proud of myself for this that I felt the need to tell you. I have forgotten for a few days but now that I remember I started writing so I wouldn’t forget again. This is important.
In the General Theory of Relativity an object’s gravity field has energy and therefor mass and so generates its on gravity field. That secondary gravity field has mass, so it generates its own field, and so on ad infinitum. Thoughts are the same way. We have our thoughts. We have our thoughts about our thoughts. We have our thoughts about our thoughts about our thoughts … . I say we but that’s an assumption. I have no direct knowledge that everybody’s brain works this way. I know Terry Pratchett’s did as he wrote about this quite a bit in the Tiffany Aching books. Terry wrote his books just for me so that doesn’t say much about the rest of the world. I’m working on the assumption that I physically appear to be the same species as everyone else so the null hypothesis should be that other people go through what I do.
I got that far, took a nap, and had therapy, then ate. Now I’m back. I actually remember something I wanted to write. Last night I had my first lockdown dinner; I ate one of the cans of chili I bought for an emergency. The emergency was that my roommate was watching TV in room connected to the kitchen and I didn’t want to start hunting for the flour which I needed to make white sauce. I should look today so I can make gnocchi tonight.
I usually have an agenda for therapy sessions. I might forget what it is, but I always have something planned out. I didn’t today. She said that might be because I’m getting better. That gave me anxiety. I need to tell her that next time. Complex systems are complex because they are filled with feedback loops. People’s minds are extraordinarily complex systems.
I decided on not giving the science lesson I was considering so that means this is finished. Today I make an expedition to Stop & Shop so I can get the beef gravy to make poutine. I’ll stock up.
Wise Madness 