03 november 2025
Recovering in a sick world
I used to think of recovering from a debilitating illness as a highly individualistic period defined by isolation and the necessity of becoming as self-sufficient as possible. Often the advice given to me was to focus on myself and not worry about the things outside of my control. I wouldn't accomplish anything by learning about climate science or politics I was told, "it'll just stress you out", but it was too late. What little I did know was enough to make it obvious that everything is trending in the wrong direction. My obsession came from a place of seeking overlooked solutions, but what I've come to accept can be summed up in the hopeless quote "we can more easily imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism"
Now that I can leave my bed and do much more than I'm used to I'm forced to confront the pressure of needing to find a "real job" even though getting out of bed and taking a very long time to string some slap-dash sentences together would not be considered well by anyone who started from healthy and declined to this. I still feel itchy most of the day, I get very little sleep, and my executive function seems to have lost their job too. I think knowing that reward for healing won't be a chance to enjoy my life, it'll be more of the same stress that made me sick in the first place, is becoming the elephant in the room.
Reclaiming my cognitive abilities so I can make another mini-Theil rich or simply adding more noise to the signal hurts to consider. Hard to get well under the constant threat of poverty. It's even harder when the man holding the gun of social murder insists you betray your values while everyone else shrugs and say's "whatever man, that's the world we live in, you just gotta do what you gotta do". Isn't that the same rationale ICE agents use to get their student loans forgiven? The truth is if other people didn't depend on me I would have called in quits during covid.
I think that's why there is so much pressure on people to have children. Even the most hedonistic person would eventually need a better carrot on the stick of "do your part in killing the biosphere, OR ELSE".
To finally get my chronic health problems under control (to the degree it's possible) requires the radical acceptance that the world I used to care about so much doesn't exist anymore. Maybe it never did. Even my highly eccentric version of the "middle class dream" wasn't really an option. My senseless dream of something better must be completely free of the notion sold to me of having anything resembling a computer job that pays enough to enjoy the world and feel secure. The people who care a lot about what I do for a living may be most people, but they're not everyone. Sleeping indoors, eating daily, and being able to take care of people I care about isn't strictly marked by $75k a year job and home ownership.
getting itchy now. here's to another pin in that that may never be unpinned.