Monday, June 09, 2008
One nation under Prozac
Kind of a theory in progress of mine but seems to me in my day-to-day dealings with people in general and even through just plain observation, couldn't put my finger on it right away but it seems like there's this vast fog out there. People have lost the art of communicating clearly, people drive funny, nobody's coherent, there's some kind of a funk thing going on out there. The conclusion of my theory, most everybody is on something these days and if you're one of the few who isn't and you're totally clear-headed it's like a feeling of being, well, stranded. You have some of the same problems they do but you don't take anything. You can look at the sit'ation rationally, from many different angles, you've been buffeted by Life for sure like everybody else and have the bruises to show for it but you can still drive a car without farting along and drifting totally oblivious to the fact that you've just created a minor traffic jam behind you, you can still clearly communicate your desires to the waiter at your favorite restaurant without your mental fog making his job that much harder, you pay your bills on time and don't whip out your credit card just to pay for some Double 1/4 pounder with cheese at Mickie D's. Dunno, just might want to deal with the Amish these days.
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Seems like a plausible explanation to me!
ReplyDeleteDo you think Eurpoeans are under the same influence?
ReplyDeleteEurpoeans yes but Europeans definitely not.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of Europeans I never understood the whole Roman Polanski thing, like why can't they just extradite him back here to face justice? France has some sort of treaty that they can't do this, there's some HBO special on it tonite, but maybe it has to do with this fog thing I'm talking about only it's gotten worse.
ReplyDeleteHey, everyone makes typos! I am not in a fog!
ReplyDelete(unless you count Advil PM from last night a fogger)
Or a couple of glasses of cognac should do the trick most of the time. I still say drinking plenty of water helps alot, there are people who drink everything else but water but your brain needs hydration. You know, as I've already mentioned about the work of the late doctor Abraham Low, I've had those nights too when you'd swear you were awake all the time but then you'll remember the snatch of some dream and you'll go through the next day not perfectly but able to function better than you thought you would which means maybe you had poor sleep but not nothing at all. It ain't perfect but we need to build on that. You don't hear Dr. Low mentioned much anymore, it's all pills now and not much money in his work, but I think the good doctor had much to offer and we shouldn't forget his contribution either. The only reason I lowball the figures for how many hours you need to sleep is that otherwise we put pressure on ourselves, it's alarmism in the media, and when the stress of trying to sleep is taken away you usually get more sleep anyway. So you get a bad night's sleep one or two nights, the next night you'll recover anyway and make up for it. I don't get my wisdom from the Teshman anyway.
ReplyDeleteI try to use the Advil PM as a last resort. I did forget your suggestion for hydration, especially with the heat we've been having. Storms today are cooling it down for a day, but I will go get a drink of water right now, thanks.
ReplyDeleteToday we're having a tornado watch until 6PM for Dutchess, Orange and Ulster counties in upstate New York. It's a brave thing indeed to not have any sleep-aids in the house but there's nothing like water and I mean don't have it at night so it'll make you get up and use the bathroom but during the day. Have any interesting dreams lately?
ReplyDeleteFunny you should ask, I think I dreamed last night of meeting you!
ReplyDeletewhat did I look like?
ReplyDeleteJust like you described yourself to me.
ReplyDeleteI was mad when I woke up, btw.
It's always a bummer waking up from a nice dream, if you can manage to fall back to sleep you never pick up where you left off, either.
ReplyDeleteI think the things we read about and see on the tv enter our dreamworld. Just bought a field guide to the mammals and last night I dreamt we were all in the yard together, Dad, my nephew, my brother and some black bear cub climbed to the top of some tree and the mother bear comes right through the yard after her cub! She was friendly though and kept going but it was so real right down to the smallest detail like her big black wet snout.
ReplyDeleteYou have got quite a vivid memory of your dreams. Mine was very vague, but I think you were in my dream because I was having trouble falling asleep, and as I told you I always think of you when I do have trouble sleeping, recalling your advice and reassurance not to worry about not getting enough sleep.
ReplyDeleteOnly reason I say that is that people usually recover the next night or two and get back what they missed out on. Occasional poor sleep is simply a fact of life with everything else but the Lunesta people act like we're entitled to everything including a good refreshing John Tesh 8 hours + of pure unconscious bliss.
ReplyDeleteWell I don't recall my dreams very often, but if I did and they were interesting then maybe I'd have an incentive to get 8 hours of sleep.
ReplyDeleteI really don't get 8 hours of sleep that much, I tend to average anywhere from 6-7 which falls into the Dr. Daniel Amen/Leslie Stahl range for ok sleep but not the Teshman (lol). Not to knock the work of these people too much though but if the problem is chronic and persistent then I can see more of their point, otherwise it tends to be alarmism.
ReplyDeleteI'd say I avg. about the same, and it's just an occasional bout of insomnia that bothers me.
ReplyDeleteOkay so last night I was dreaming about starting to eat a worm but then I felt bad and let it go, but I still feel sick when I recall it. Sometimes not remembering dreams is a very good thing!
You really have no control over your dreams, some of them don't even make sense, but when you get that real insomnia my theory is you're not really that tired to begin with, not that good tired bored feeling you get when you watch Charlie Rose anyway, and you can't really do anything 'cept lie there with your eyes closed. Anytime I got up and did things through the night I felt like pure crap the next day so the next best thing is just to meditate
ReplyDeleteand think of the z-man!
sounds like in your dream you were on Fear Factor or something, lol.
ReplyDeleteIt wasn't Fear Factor, but I think it was some kind of dare. I hope next dream like that I pick "truth"!
ReplyDeleteI already told you about when I had a dream I couldn't sleep, it was so real, but when I woke up I was like I was sleeping the whole time. Ever have a dream where you're somehow conscious that you're dreaming? It's weird but it happens once in a blue moon.
ReplyDeleteSo you have a dream and in your dream you wake up from that dream only this is a dream too, you waking up in your bed...ok, this is getting way too complicated.
ReplyDeleteSo, like, if you dream about yourself sleeping, does that make you more rested because it's like you are sleeping twice as hard at once?!?
ReplyDeleteDunno but I think if you start having more and more work-related dreams and they're pushing out the romantic ones you should definitely be compensated. Sometimes I even dream about blogging, imagine that!
ReplyDeleteYeah, compensated at time and a half for working extra hours in your dreams!
ReplyDeleteThank you, I'm making you my shop steward. Let's see, the last romantic dream I had,
ReplyDeleteDo tell!
ReplyDeleteYou know I haven't had that many over the years and you always hear about people having them. I guess that 6 day a week grind does something to you. Hell, make it triple time Beth.
ReplyDeleteIt's like with my friend, he has only one day off a week too. So he has this digital camera that he likes to play around with and we went here and we went there the other day but you can only fit so much into one day. It's a shame when you think about it, that we have to wait at least another week to do the things we couldn't cram into that one day and yet there's no guarantee we'll even have the same day off next time. I think Rand would've agreed with me on this, as important as work is it wasn't meant to be this way, there's no balance. Work should be a means to enjoy your life better, the joy of existence principle in the novel that makes Life worth living. The whole philosophy is off, it shouldn't have to be waiting to have another vacation to do everything you want to do.
ReplyDeleteYou know as you mentioned Z that we have no control over our dreams, well at least that is true for the nighttime dreams, but we can have our daydreams, too, and nobody can control them. We can even try to make those dreams come true. But alas some dreams we have may never come true. Still, they are nice to think about.
ReplyDeleteThat's my whole point about one of my recurring blogging themes here, that Life should imitate Art more often, us dreamers need to get together more and make it happen like in the movies. Not that it's gonna happen all the time, you have to be a realist too not just an idealist, but it should happen more than it does.
ReplyDeleteCase in point, that girl you loved in high school or college whom you never had the courage to ask out, now why can't she show up in your life 20 years later? happens in the movies all the time but Life is sorely lacking a poetic script. The main bane of Life it seems to me is boredom, say chicks with rings who aren't really married but don't want men to bother them, these gals are in a rut.
ReplyDelete