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Dec. 5th, 2021 11:35 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
brin_bellway[cw: illness]
While I am pretty suspicious about the bullshit levels of this guy in general, I thought this bit was interesting:
(emphasis original, but its formatting has been adjusted for better rendering in the quote)
I notice that he is by no means the first person I've heard talk about this sort of thing (for example): only the framing in terms of homeostasis is new. This suggested to me that it may actually be worth following the instruction to introspect on this.
So I thought about it. And I think, strictly speaking, the times I have felt most vibrant were not especially actively dangerous. *But*, they were *passively* dangerous: they consumed time and other resources that could instead have been spent on improving safety.
And I don't mean this as a technicality! The process of deciding to do these things very often *explicitly acknowledges* that those resources could be spent more practically, that I am setting aside practical matters for a while in favour of something fun.
I think the implication here is that the homeostasis framework is potentially reasonable, but that I have a very high setpoint. I may occasionally *reach* it, but I don't think I've ever *surpassed* it to the point where I needed more than entropy to bring me back down.
---
It isn't just that post that's making me contemplate this: it's also the pair of goggles I received as a birthday gift a couple weeks ago. I have placed them gently in a ziploc bag in the upper pouch of my bug-out bag, where they wait for a time that I need them, whether for plague or for wildfire or simply for chopping onions.
Let me say that again: I *have* anti-disease gear that I'm *not currently using*. I'm comfortable going to work or stores in what I already have: a P100, a pair of large but certainly not sealed glasses, a pair of slightly faded Pfizer doses (it's been over four months since my second, though the 10-week spacing may help longevity: the data on how long Pfizer lasts is mostly from places that dosed three or four weeks apart). I can *think* of situations in which I would want more than this, and I expect to be in some of those situations at some point (I would be *extremely* surprised if this is the last novel plague I live through, and even without that I would likely break out the goggles for particularly high-risk environments such as conventions and long-distance transit hubs), but I am not *currently* in any such situations.
Also, I *did* succeed in ceasing to shower after every shift. I do wash my hands twice now--once before taking my uniform off and once after, to help limit cross-contamination--and I'll generally wash my glasses if I touched them, but that's about it.
---
It's possible to have enough. To feel *safe*, as an ongoing baseline state rather than something rare and precious.
I often worry that it's like...like body dysmorphic disorder. That the amount of subjective *wrongness* is fixed, that any ""successful"" attempt to close the gap between the way the world is and the way the world should be will only end up raising my standards, or causing me to fixate on something that never bothered me before.
Substitution effects could still be a problem, I'm not sure. But in one area, at least, it's possible to have enough. Maybe in all of them, someday.
---
(edit: postscript)
While I am pretty suspicious about the bullshit levels of this guy in general, I thought this bit was interesting:
(emphasis original, but its formatting has been adjusted for better rendering in the quote)
This could be summarized with a general principle I call Health Homeostasis, which posits that among sexually-reproducing species who engage in fitness displays, we can expect that individuals will have a “desired level of health”. If they notice that they are below that level of health, they will increase the time and resources focused on regenerating health. And if they notice that they are above that level of health, they will instead reduce the time and resources focused on regenerating health, and engage in costly genetic fitness signaling displays. Perhaps events like Burning Man and Ephemerisle have an element of this going on. They are appealing to people who have *too much health* and for whom the standard ways of signaling fitness simply won’t cut it. They need health-diminishing activities in bulk. They need challenges where they can display physical endurance while exercising their powers of creativity. And this is why, all considered, these events are so *sexy*.
I should add here that I am not suggesting that this explanation implies that participants are doing this consciously. Executing an adaption rarely involves conscious planning and strategizing. All it requires is following the gradient of what *feels right and good*.
Introspect, dear reader, about the times where you have felt the most alive. Have you, perhaps, not experienced them during risky situations? When you felt that “this could be a real danger to other people”? When by luck or grace you happened to be willing and able to do something few others could have done? This is what I am talking about. This feeling of *reality and authenticity* may very well be a good proxy for the process of down-regulating your health. And this is what it looks like for health homeostasis to be at play.
I notice that he is by no means the first person I've heard talk about this sort of thing (for example): only the framing in terms of homeostasis is new. This suggested to me that it may actually be worth following the instruction to introspect on this.
So I thought about it. And I think, strictly speaking, the times I have felt most vibrant were not especially actively dangerous. *But*, they were *passively* dangerous: they consumed time and other resources that could instead have been spent on improving safety.
And I don't mean this as a technicality! The process of deciding to do these things very often *explicitly acknowledges* that those resources could be spent more practically, that I am setting aside practical matters for a while in favour of something fun.
I think the implication here is that the homeostasis framework is potentially reasonable, but that I have a very high setpoint. I may occasionally *reach* it, but I don't think I've ever *surpassed* it to the point where I needed more than entropy to bring me back down.
---
It isn't just that post that's making me contemplate this: it's also the pair of goggles I received as a birthday gift a couple weeks ago. I have placed them gently in a ziploc bag in the upper pouch of my bug-out bag, where they wait for a time that I need them, whether for plague or for wildfire or simply for chopping onions.
Let me say that again: I *have* anti-disease gear that I'm *not currently using*. I'm comfortable going to work or stores in what I already have: a P100, a pair of large but certainly not sealed glasses, a pair of slightly faded Pfizer doses (it's been over four months since my second, though the 10-week spacing may help longevity: the data on how long Pfizer lasts is mostly from places that dosed three or four weeks apart). I can *think* of situations in which I would want more than this, and I expect to be in some of those situations at some point (I would be *extremely* surprised if this is the last novel plague I live through, and even without that I would likely break out the goggles for particularly high-risk environments such as conventions and long-distance transit hubs), but I am not *currently* in any such situations.
Also, I *did* succeed in ceasing to shower after every shift. I do wash my hands twice now--once before taking my uniform off and once after, to help limit cross-contamination--and I'll generally wash my glasses if I touched them, but that's about it.
---
It's possible to have enough. To feel *safe*, as an ongoing baseline state rather than something rare and precious.
I often worry that it's like...like body dysmorphic disorder. That the amount of subjective *wrongness* is fixed, that any ""successful"" attempt to close the gap between the way the world is and the way the world should be will only end up raising my standards, or causing me to fixate on something that never bothered me before.
Substitution effects could still be a problem, I'm not sure. But in one area, at least, it's possible to have enough. Maybe in all of them, someday.
---
(edit: postscript)
no subject
Date: 2021-12-05 04:36 pm (UTC)