One big lowest common denominator

Monday 6/8/26

Today is the anniversary of the day (in 2012) I once would have thought would always be the worst of my life, and/or the hardest, and which has since been proven not that because of the days that have followed and keep coming. Which doesn't diminish the sheer terror and pain of that day. It would have hurt me less if someone reached into my chest with their bare hand and pulled out my heart. Only for me not to die, but rather sit there indefinitely in agony. A Molly thing. And a Rockport thing. That someone I trusted could do what they did.

I can't imagine many people sweat more than I do. I don't mean that I'm a sweaty person who just sweats. I mean because of the stair running. Like if you weighed the total amount of it.

Drinking makes you sweat without doing anything or too much. The body is trying to get rid of the poison. I mention this because not being a sweaty person is one of the nice things about not drinking. It impacts one's self-esteem.

Doesn't take long at all to get a good sweat going running stairs. A half hour will see your shirt soaked through. Keep going and you'll sweat through your shorts. Anything in your pockets will be wet.

Parts of my stair game right now are better than they've been in times past, other parts are worse than they've been in times past. The goal is to have all the parts be at their best concurrently and keep it that way. Or get it back to that way.

I figure I can achieve this with hard work and consistency and pushing myself to get there.

Went to Haymarket. Got strawberries, red peppers, red grapes, lemons. Acquired kale at Trader Joe's. Also had to replenish the pickle juice. I always like to have some on hand just in case with cramping from crazy Monument days. I don't want to drink too much, though, and avoid if I can, given how high pickle juice is in sodium. Salt is the enemy of one who wishes to be heart smart.

As I also got some Swiss cheese--being the rare cheese low in sodium, as I've said--over the weekend, there were all these pizzas on racks in front of me at the deli counter. Inches away behind glass. You order by the slice, they heat them up for you. I just walked away from that back when I did and stuck to it. Someone said to me, "Just have a slice," and I said no, I'd prefer not to. This would have once seemed unthinkable. Not that I couldn't make up my mind and stick to what I'd decided to do. But that this wouldn't be part of my diet. It was such a regular and favored thing. I have nothing to live for. You'd think I'd want to eat things I like at least. But no.

I read about this thing called the thumb test. Sounds legit. That is, based in studies and science. I don't go the yahoo route in medical matters. Or any. What it tests for is aortic aneurysms. Your chances of. You simply open your hand and extend your thumb sideways towards your palm, as if you were making a line across your hand with it. You don't want your thumb to extend over the edge of your hand. Mine gets slightly more than halfway across.

Yesterday marked 3612 days, or 516 weeks, without a drink.

I got some lapsang souchong tea and have been drinking it. It's the best tea I've ever had. It's smoked over pinewood and pine resin and tastes and smells like it. Extremely smoky. Has a smell like bandages as well. Clean bandages. The Boston colonialists were drinkers of it.

I can't wear a baseball hat forwards. I look silly. I'm unsure why this is so but I know it to be true.

Businesses that promote weight loss products make this big thing about how you, the customer, will get the full benefits without ever having to exercise. This is clearly a leading aspect of the sales pitch, and there's a reason for it: this is what people want pitched to them. This is how they want it to be. I can lose weight and I don't have to move a muscle.

It's almost this essential aspect of both the product and for the person. Why is it so awful to these people to exercise? There's a difference between exercising and training for a marathon, is there not?

Is it that unpleasant to people? That tedious? That awful?

Isn't it tedious to scroll through endless posts of vapidity and trite-isms on social media? Isn't it tedious to watch another Netflix show like all the other Netflix shows with the same production values and look and feel and script-writing hallmarks of all the other Netflix shows? Is it physically painful to exercise?

I'm sure it is for some people, but not for most. They could go for a walk. Get on a treadmill. Lift some light weights. Build up to more.

Why are so many people loath to exercise?

I don't believe there are many people who do exercise who then say afterwards, "I wish I hadn't done that" or "I feel worse about life now."

People really watch something called Love Island and then they all post about it. The world is nothing but one big lowest common denominator.

I saw a post from a woman in which she complained that if you have to pay all this money for all these different streaming services, then there should at least always be something worth watching.

People talk as if they have no choice but to all do the same thing. Isn't that amazing? It's as if they're programmed, and then they reinforce their own programming.

This is how you're controlled. This is why you live a life without purpose, value, and connection. It's because you can't think. Everything you do is to avoid thinking. We seek this this opiated effect. We want the mental fog. Smokescreen.

You can do something else. You can learn something. You could read a story. You could seek out new interests. You could explore and see what you might be interested in.

These shows are the same, too. They're scripted the same way, shot the same way, lit the same way. You know something they all have in common? They do your thinking for you. There's nothing for you to think through in modern "entertainment." You're spoon fed everything. And what you're spoon fed is so very basic.

But you are just spoon fed the gruel once. You've given the same spoonful again and again. These shows keep telling you their own plots. Not only are you too dumb and lazy to think anything through, you're too dumb to remember what just happened twenty minutes ago, so they tell you--like they're talking to you, rather than going about the business of being a show or a film--what happened.

This is what you have to pay all of these various services/outlets for? One is the same as any other anyway. You need a multiplicity? You need the full set? The full set of...sameness?

It's like having twenty copies of the same junk wax baseball card common. And then you just...stare at your twenty copies? Every day of your life? Like you're not free to do anything else? There is no other option? You can't even check to see if there might be?

Similarly, I'll see posts from people asking what they should watch tonight. As bad as that is, think about how bad it is that this person couldn't even figure this out for themselves and had to crowd source the information. And that this person thinks that crowd--the lowest common denominator people who can't think and who are all alike--have a worthy answer for them.

Think of how non-existent your thinking capabilities have to be for you to be like this. If you're this way, what can you figure out? What can you think through? What can you piece together through logic and deduction? What can you get to the bottom of? What can you understand for what it is? What can you challenge? What can you see as false? What can you see as unlikely? Fishy?

The only videos I can stand on social media are those involving animals, or this guy who repairs historic headstones, or those of this landscaper who clears overgrown spots and makes them look nice again, or this person who goes to the beach with a hammer looking for fossils. I'll watch videos of birds doing what they do or a beaver. I don't know how you look at a beaver and not have the utmost respect for that animal. They aren't to be denied in their purpose. They live these remarkable lives.

I'm not of the belief--I've been disabused of it--that humans are this higher form of intelligence compared to the other animals. We look at them that way--or us in relation to them that way--but I really wonder how they look at us. They might think we're the inferiors.