This week I’ve found myself noticing the ways my curiosity makes my life harder. Perhaps it’s not my curiosity overall that’s the issue. I usually consider it one of my better traits, one that brings me a lot of joy. It’s how I use my curiosity that’s the trouble. There’s an aspect of my personality that demands things make sense.
There have been so many times I’ve gotten stuck on something because I’ve refused to accept the reality I’m in until I understand it well enough to make a How Stuff Works episode about it. Unfortunately, life doesn’t pause until things make sense to me. There are so many things I can never understand. Often, my having a deep understanding of the situation is irrelevant to my ability to deal with it.
Maybe it’s because I spent so much time as a kid reading books with omniscient narrators, rather than interacting with other kids. I want to be the narrator, but I’m just a character in this story.
Instead of accepting reality and dealing with it, I keep investigating it. I subject my friends to analysis of minute details. I get stacks of books from the library. It feels like I’m working so hard to make things better. Really, it’s all a stalling tactic. Nothing gets done until I stop asking “why” and instead ask “what now?”
The New Yorker covers the shift of the AMA’s opinion on single-payer medical insurance.
Psyche has a guide to being a supportive friend.
Futurity highlights the roles enslaved disabled people held in the history of the US.
Sara Campbell introduces us to the joy of underthinking.
Helena Fitzgerald captures a familiar sentiment:
My eighty-one year old neighbor calls Thomas and then calls me. When we text her to ask if everything is ok she texts back “no,” and as I am walking out of the gym into the early morning city I think just one day can’t I just have one day. I’m awake, and I’m out of the house, and it’s fake spring and the weather is beautiful and nothing has happened yet and then there’s this phone call and now I am waiting for her to answer thinking just one day, why not just one fucking day where nothing happens. My heart stops and starts over like a runner at a gunshot. I walk outside, I call back, I wait for the news. Just one day. Just one day where nothing happens. Just one hour where everything stops.
Triage Cancer is having a virtual conference on May 21st. They'll cover navigating insurance coverage, dealing with not being able to work, and other financial issues. There's no cost to register.