Two three times a week. What a relief it would be to just leave this mirage of a ”society” behind. Stop worrying about money, looking for jobs and always making a bad impression, endless family cluster-B dynamics not making any sense, endless punishment-reward shenanignans played out, endless misunderstandings in communication because of autism. Someone thinking I am arrogant because of they way I look. Finding myseld being played out because of my literalness. All the people drunk and high where I live, all kids looking up to Hollywood-crap.

Sounds like an alternate Eurojackpot/Powerball-dimension.

Just kidding. I love life seriously.

I too think of death constantly, but like you I am not suicidal. I absolutely don't believe in it.

But like you, I would like a different reality, because I don't like the reality I am forced to live, even tho I will be the first to admit, I have it better than most people. what kind of a person am I where I have it better than most people, and I still can't drag myself out of bed in the morning?

There must be some way out of this that doesn't involve suicide.

Somewhere there must be a place where life is beautiful.

Over the rainbow?

Yes loislane, I also have it very good. It is a paradox in a sense, in a contemporary way looking at things. I have Education possibilites at the University and wonderful food and drink. Imagine all the poor people who do not even have a single dime in the pocket? No place to stay tonight. Their kids are starving.

But I feel unhappy many times a week. Not in a sense that I think I deserve anything it is just that very many things do not make any sense. Yes, it forces me to turn ”away” fro, the world.

Ahh, expecting the world to make sense.

It doesn't make sense, and it never will.

I want it to make sense.

Let us all get together and only eat fruit from the allowed trees.

Not caring and getting away with it, and at the same time being catered to because you're an income stream...

That's the devil, doing his best work...


I'm looking at you, 12 afossils!!

The devil is a mean SOB. What a mean sulphur stinking bastard that is.

What have I done to have the devil around me? What do he hate about me?

Cauda and Lois, a good quality vitam B supplement can do wonders for how you are feeling. Good luck.

Thank you Kathleen. Will try it. Had some lasagna an hour ago. Missing meals, problem sleeping, getting no buzz out of my coffee.

Can be a deficiency.

but I have thoughts of death often and have for most of my life. I do think of suicide often, but I know I won't do it because I have my kids and they need me. I've stayed for over 25 years for them, so why not stay for a few more. Both my parents died at 76 and I'm 63, so I have 13 years. Some days are more than I can take. Most days are just so-so. I still work as it is one thing I actually do enjoy.

I look for the little things like my dogs. I'm even trying to stay longer than the 13 years for those kids. They are worth everything I've been through in my life.

I think we could all use a break from COVID and the insanity it has brought into our lives and the fears. I still turn on the TV every morning hoping to hear good news. I can't wait until everyone has had a chance to get immunized who would like to be. (I think they all should, but I know I don't get to determine that.)

At this moment I have been studying with much younger people for a year. The pandemic is tearing them apart. They can not handle this. Their worries are noticeable. Their view on the future is less bright at the moment. Elderly people and youths suffer.

I tend to believe that it's the young who are driving the behaviors that allow the continual spread of the Covid. It's pointed out in the media that they, the young, face much less risk should they 'catch' it. So for them, the equation, 'being numbingly bored or taking a small risk' has an acceptable outcome.

I don't know why any age group could be labeled as The Best Age Group To Be In For A Pandemic? Except that in this one, whatever parameters you set for the oldest age group, that's the one most at risk of dying from the Covid.

On one level I do care about the youth but on another I do not. They feel worries, that is ome thing that is certain. Their problem solving is not constructive in any sense. They drive the spreading of the virus. My 93 year old grandmother is nuts, she takes the cab to town and walk the stores. Her 96 or 98 year old husband (not my relative) is locked indoors at a care center. They do not get together. My contact with my older relatives are fewer, my grand mother is the only one left. She had s baby, my aunt, with a man she met, she never told about the real father so my aunt thought all here life who her father was. My cousine bought an online DNA genealogy test and discovered another story.

My family is ”funny”.

Au contraire, mon frere, your family sounds normal.

I think we all have 'family stories' that we label as >weird<, simply because we note that these types of stories don't get shared like other 'normal' family stories.

It's probably close to even money that we're entertainment for residents of some other world or worlds in our area of the Milky Way Galaxie 500.

Yes, stories not being told because of social conventions. My grand mother did not say anything because it was a shameful thing back in the days to have a kid out of wed lock. Who the man was did play in.

elderolddog Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I tend to believe that it's the young who are
> driving the behaviors that allow the continual
> spread of the Covid.

Yes, I see this here in BC too. And heard it again on the US news this a.m. about your country. Ages 20-49. That's the group that gets together en masse here to party. And then spread the virus to the most vulnerable, who suffer the highest morbidity and mortality rates from contracting it.

I have thought it's too bad they said very early on that young people don't have the high rates of illness and death as other groups so that gave them a pass to carry on as if Covid doesn't exist. I guess I was too naive in thinking that everyone would want to strive to avoid being a carrier and taking a risk on harming the health of others more vulnerable.

I've heard often that if everyone masked up we could eradicate the thing. That was before all the variants. So who knows now what's up. Seems likely to get worse before better. Depressing. It's already been a long haul, unprecedented in our lifetimes (most of us) and likely to carry on through 2021. We're struggling here in Canada to obtain the quantity of vaccine we pre-ordered from other countries' suppliers and even then the promised supply is limited. We have to go by age (oldest to youngest) so some of us aren't in line until the fall, earliest. My sister had her first vaccination over the weekend as she works on a risky front line. I'm glad for her. But I can't follow until end of summer, earliest. Unless something drastically changes. Could turn into a hot election issue, our lack of sufficient supply. Meanwhile, I see masks and distancing and even partial or total lockdowns in our immediate future.

I can see how it can get totally depressing for many folks. Fortunately, for me at least, the sun is shining this a.m. and that always cheers me up. The constant dark skies and pounding rain of the past week were hard to take, although I usually like the rain. Not this year.

As for families: I doubt there is such a thing as 'normal'. If there is, I'm jealous.

Hope everybody's OK out there.

Nightingale replied, before I had a chance to. What she writes is true: "Ages 20-49. That's the group that gets together en masse here to party. And then spread the virus to the most vulnerable, who suffer the highest morbidity and mortality rates from contracting it."

Last spring, I had a breakdown.

I had a cancer scare, and hospital tests. Good medical care was hard to find at that time, and no one was allowed to go to the hospital with me.

I was in bad pain, and didn't sleep for many weeks, and stopped eating. I lost 25 pounds in 6 weeks. I had bad panic attacks all day and night. I cried for all the people who were dying. I finally got an appointment with a psychiatrist, because my family didn't want to talk to me. I took Lexapro for a few months, and now I'm doing better than most people I know.

See a psychiatrist or phychologist, if you can!

Having people gas-light me because I listened to the facts and science, and disrespect my medical knowledge and experience--put me over the edge--where the fear of death was already pushing me.

My own children got angry at me for not visiting them more often, and said that I didn't love the grandchildren, because I wouldn't hug them or eat with them in their house, like their anti-mask anti-vax grandparents did. My son who lives nearby didn't speak to me for two months. My children who lived with me refused to wear masks at first, and kept socializing in groups, playing basketball and football, going on vacation trips. If I tried to warn them, they would blow up at me. Most of the neighbors and people in the stores were NOT wearing masks. I'm over 70 with underlying conditions.

I had to face the fact that my survival was up to me, alone. I felt that no one cared.

Here in Salt Lake City, I have been attacked for being overly cautious, for wearing a mask, for not going to weddings, and for not going to parties or out to restaurants with my friends. I felt so picked-on, that I stopped talking to my friends. Even the president of the US made fun of "covid-covid-covid" and refused to to anything to help Americans. People lied on the news that masks were no help at all, and even said they made the contagion worse.

One motivation to not get sick is that if any of my kids do give me the virus and I died, whoever felt responsible would feel horrible! Horrible! Another motivation I have now is that I don't want to occupy a much-needed hospital bed.

I got a cold, too, so I had to became even more strict with the precautions. Luckily, I haven't had to go into doctors' offices as much. I have my groceries delivered, which my kids think is crazy.

Getting my last will and testament and trust up-to-date helped.

Once the doctor convinced me that my negative responses to the Covid pandemic and the state of the government were pretty normal, I got well. I haven't had any panic attacks since last April.

I hope that we never have to go through this again!

Hopefully, America will be equipped to handle any distributions of new vaccines for new variants, and monitor future epidemics more efficiently, and thus prevent such an outrageous number of cases and unnecessary deaths. If only people will wear masks. If only we have intelligent, honest, humane leaders, in the future.

I think the young people feel that if they get Covid, it will only be a mild to moderate case, and the chances are overwhelming that they will survive it. Which will be true for most. What is unknown is whether there will be lasting lung damage. It's also a roll of the dice because some young people, are in fact, dying from it.

The big gamble is whether they will spread it to their elders, who are more at risk. I know there has been some talk about vaccinating younger people, who are the spreaders. But I feel that we should stick with vaccinating older people, who have a greater chance of dying, and a whole lot less say in the spread.

Yes, summer, that's it. I think either people don't realize they are potential or actual spreaders or, worse, they figure they will survive and stop thinking at that point. That whole part about infecting others who may contract severe disease, or even die, or who may end up living with significant chronic disease for the rest of their lives, seems unknown or under-appreciated by many.

I've heard MDs say wear a mask for you and me. I think that's the simple, and entire, message that hopefully most will respond positively to.

And do it.

The earlier message where MDs were specifically stating "it's not to protect you but to protect others" wasn't enough incentive for some to adopt the unfamiliar habit of masking up.

The paper masks make me cough (little fibres seem to get stuck in my throat) so I use cloth ones but that's a hassle as I have to wash them every day. Now our MDs are saying wear three layers and preferably an N-95-like mask with a cloth layer over that! (We can obtain KN-95s here in BC and it's OK to wear them - not taking away from medical personnel). I've got a few. Finding them tight! But tight is good - I guess (hope) I will get used to them soon. Some of the paper ones gape at the sides, which is counterproductive.

My renewed motivation to follow the best recommendations is that I've had a cold this week. As I go nowhere without a mask on and am fairly isolated (follow all guidelines, don't visit or party and only shop in one store with good distancing, once a week) it worried me that I managed to catch a URI germ. How did that happen? (The old side-gape, I figure).

And if the URI bug can connect, so can the dreaded Covid virus. Scary. A big motivator to not take chances. I hope that most people feel the same way.

The medics' rallying cry that we're all in this together is getting old. But they are correct. What you do affects me (if you're in my vicinity) and vice versa. Also, if we all rigorously follow guidelines maybe we can get out of this confinement sometime in 2021.

It is to be hoped.

One problem is my alienation. It gets worse every year. In Sweden we had our first financial deregulation in the year of 1985. It took about six years until the swedes had wrecked the financial economy by pumping up a real estate bubble. Before that the private sector had almost no access to credit. The welfare state was large and the government wanted no competition when it came to credit. They used it to invest in the industrial sector. We lost our competetive edge because the government devalued the currency instead of helping the economy modernize. The credit de regulation was a emergency action. It failed.

That was the country I grew up in. We had two tv channels, two radio channels. Pirate radio because private radio was forbidden. There was a man and women. Everybody was the same. Thought the same. I Did not miss it for years.

Except now.

Sitting in an online class room with young people who seem to be from another planet. They never reply to feedback or questions. We were three in the group this week. Had almost no conversation. We shared some links that was it. Had some qualified questions. The just ignored it. I was pissed. The language is not refering to concrete things any longer, the language is reflexive, people make things up as they go along.

I have experienced a bit of a turn in my view point on life. Gone more from symbolicaly waving the Gadsden Flag to the Soviet flag. These times do not make any sense. If people say open up, deregulate, I say, why? Start to close it down, regulate more. We had a leftist intellectual, Jan Myrdal, in Sweden who died of old age last year. His parents were the Myrdals. They won the Nobel prize. Jan Myrdal had it ”wrong” all his life. When everybody defended the students at the Tianamen square he went 180 degrees and said that the regime did a job of great utility protecting China from a civil war. He had takes on the Khmers that made peoples head spin. It was awful. This past summer I googled on the question, what do you chinese people think we westerners go wrong? An answer was, you use your democracy as and end in itself, we use our politics to reach common goals. You westerns fight over everything. Some truth in it.

I will never be a communist. I know the flaws. Most plannes economies end up in double binds. They prove themself wrong all the time. But I will use the rest of my life investing my intellect in modernism and religion that makes life more referential than self-reflexive. Because this metaphysical chaos is just useless.

Look at the pandemic. We westerners do not think. America seem to do a bad job right now. Even if the country have more nobel prize winners than anyone else.

I am punchy. Think I am going straight into a burnout.

A year or so ago I befriended a young man (around 50 and young to me) who is a paranoid schizophrenic. He has no family and lives on disability in a small apartment. I had given him my phone number when he expressed in a class I was teaching that he had suicidal thoughts. In a down spell he called me and I was able to spend some time with him just talking and giving him some time. We have gone to lunch and drives into the mountains (he has never driven) and such and I have tried to do something weekly with him. Sadly, with Covid my contacts have been less for obvious reason. I am not sure what this has to do with the original post but it is a reminder that not everyone sees the world through the same window and Cauda has reminded me.

I think about it too. Maybe it is my age. Sometimes I feel like the days are passing by quickly and I’m here on this earth just waiting for my last day.

At 85 I am probably closer to it than most of you B U T
We all have a limited amount of time here on earth.
If you are born you are going to die.
WHY WORRY ABOUT IT?
Just be happy to be alive now and try to do no harm

Wise words.

Thank you for your feedback. Yes, life is to short to worry.

I have been in contact with a doctor lately. Got a pack of sleeping pills and had a week of good sleep. Things feel better now even if I struggle with a punchy trait in my personality.

Will try to be more constructive in my thinking.