I’m tired of everything being so difficult. Life doesn’t have to be this hard. We shouldn’t have to put up with all this unnecessary bullshit. We, as a society, should be so much further advanced than we currently are. If this all sounds vague, that’s because pretty much EVERYFUCKINGTHING is fucked up right now in the world. Everything is so goddamned backwards and counter-intuitive. I’d wonder how in the fuck we got here, but I’ve studied history and I see how we got here. It’s still difficult to believe that this is the world we are currently living in, contrasted with the way I know things should be.
And I feel robbed. I feel cheated. Not just for me, but, for all of us. We’re trapped inside this ridiculous society that we didn’t build, we didn’t craft, yet we perpetuate because — because that’s the way things are, of course. Things are the way they are because that’s the way they are, it seems. And most people are content to play their part and be the cog in the machine that they were meant to be …
I don’t know. In a way, that’s kind of how a society has to be, how it has to work. But ours is so fucked up. It’s tolerable, to most, to be a cog in a machine if all the pieces are valued, if there are none strewn about on the floor, discarded, forgotten, broken, if they’re all kept well-oiled, maintained, secure. If the cogs in the machine aren’t taken care of, the machine will stop working. Our machine is starting to shimmy and shake, I think.
I hope. I mean — things can’t go on like this. This fucking sucks, guys, seriously. What are we doing? Why do we put up with this Corporate Overlord bullshit we’re putting up with? They’re fucking robbing us all blind and paying us shit. How long are we all going to just keep doing this?
I don’t play tennis. I was about to declare that I know nothing about tennis, but then I stopped myself, because I’ve read Infinite Jest, by David Foster Wallace, and if I still knew nothing about tennis after reading Infinite Jest, I’d be an idiot.
I acquired my case of tennis elbow by way of gripping my steering wheel too tightly while fighting a fit of intense road rage — multiple days in a row. Oh, fuck it, let’s be honest — every damned day for multiple weeks in a row. The entire fucking city is under construction, it does no good to avoid the main route, because all the alternate routes are fucked up, too. It happened in my left arm, because that’s the arm gripping the steering wheel while my right hand shifts gears. I drive a manual, because that’s just one more thing I can have control of when I’m behind the wheel. But let’s move past that, because manual transmissions and my control issues are two things that could each have a series of blogs unto themselves.
So, the long and the short of it is, I let a bunch of idiots get me so very mad that I actually physically injured myself. It fucked up my push up challenge. It’s fucking up my fitness goals in general, and that’s just the one symptom, the tennis elbow. There are more serious symptoms. My blood pressure, my general heart health, and my state of mind, are three very important examples. These are all very good reasons to stop having road rage. These are good reasons to just relax when I drive, to not let stupid people get under my skin, because, fuck ,everyone knows, they are EVERYFUCKINGWHERE. So just relax, Guy, take it easy.
Sounds so easy. I know the anger hurts nobody but myself, and it does hurt me, obviously. Yet I still get triggered. I know, I know. I hate that fucking word, too. But it’s accurate, and valid. I have triggers, and when they are pulled, it is extremely difficult to stop the bullet from coming out of the gun. I literally have milliseconds to realize what’s about to happen and stop it when I get triggered. I usually fail. And once the bullet is out of the gun, it has to continue it’s trajectory until it loses steam and falls to earth — or collides with something, causing catastrophic damage.
So, I am actually something it is very dangerous to be right now. I am an angry white male with mental health issues who owns guns. Don’t worry, I’m not going to go shooting some place up. That would run directly counter to my two main life goals, freedom and longevity. I have no intention of going to jail or dying, and those are the only two outcomes of going on a shooting spree. Personally, I think that’s one too many options. I think all mass shooters should be killed on sight, it is the sole instance where I support unnecessary force by law enforcement. Take the shooter out, they don’t deserve to see their names in the paper.
Anyway, I don’t want to be angry. I am smart enough to know the nonsense of it. I want to be chill and easy going. I want to go with the flow, take life as it comes. I lived that way for a while. It was bliss. I don’t know what happened. I lost it somehow. But I’m trying to get back there. I’m trying to remember how to let go. Let go of my perceived control. Let go of trying to predict what’s next and just wait and see. Let go of expectations. Let go of worry. Let go of regret. Let go of the fucking steering wheel.
So I’ve been using a heating pad and doing some recommended stretches to try to heal up these tendons faster but it doesn’t seem to be working. I’m probably going to have to get either a wrist brace or an elbow brace. With tennis elbow, the problem starts with the wrist muscles and then damages the tendons in the elbow, so the treatment lies in the wrist. The elbow brace is weighted and is worn on the forearm. It takes the pressure off the tendons when the muscles are used.
For now, I’ve been trying to avoid using my left hand and arm. As a right-handed person, I sure use my left hand for a lot of things I need to avoid. Including: opening doors, pulling my car door shut, picking up my backpack, picking up bags of groceries, picking up anything, really, pulling up my jeans, taking off my jeans, putting sheets on the bed, and just about everything else. When I forget, and I grab a grip of something with my left hand, my elbow screams.
I just want this to heal so I can get back to my push ups. It will heal faster if I can stop clenching all my muscles every time I’m triggered. The anger is a part of my anxiety. I need to get a handle on my anxiety. I really don’t want to take pills …
