Day 2

Today is Day 2. The second day following the last outbreak. I decided I should begin to track the course of the illness around 6 PM today. I had no problem at all on Day 1. Yesterday. I passed the day working and doing errands. I work where I live. So I didn’t have any contact with people while I was working. I had the piano music on in the background. A YouTube video of piano music. Melancholy Piano For Old Souls. Very nice.  I like it.  When I went to the store to get items to eat and drink, I saw people who would be. . .I was going to say victims. . .but that’s not correct.  I was going to say people who would be victims when my illness was in full flower.  But no, victims is not correct. When my illness is in full flower I don’t victimize people.  No, people enable me. So when I was in the store buying the food and beverage items, I saw people who would be very fine enablers had the illness been in full flower. But I did not give these people a second thought. A second thought in terms of the acts of indecencies. I just had my usual healthy contempt for them.  Stupid people.  Shallow thinkers.  Bestial, really.  Look at the rinds and husks in their carts, LOL. Anyway, Day 1 went without a hint of the illness. A boring day of full health. I slept like a baby. When I woke up today on Day 2 I felt confident the illness would not flower. Then around about 6 pm my mind started wandering. That’s not good. I put on ABC World News Tonight with David Muir for a distraction. There was a story about an earthquake off the coast of Alaska, a story about Jews bombing Syria, the usual trivialities of our world.  David Muir is a very good presenter of news.  Flawless articulation with just enough humanity to convince you he really gives a shit about this stuff.  I watched for 10 or 15 minutes, then stopped. The distraction was losing its potency. That’s when I decided. Decided I should begin to track the illness. Isn’t it amazing? I am (X) years old and had never bothered to track it before! Why not try to learn about it?  Study it.  Surprised I’ve never tried a detailed investigation of the illness. It could be because of my age. Because of my old age, that is why I decided to try to track the illness now. I am probably close to death. When you die, you want to face Jesus with as few delusions about yourself as possible. You want to know yourself as well as you possibly can.  As well as you can possibly stand to know yourself. You don’t want to have the slightest air of merit about you when you stand before the Lord. You don’t want to be like Donald Trump, mad as a hatter with delusions of grandeur, blind with pride, waiting for a reward, waiting for a prize.  Donald Trump always expects some prize, LOL. Can you imagine? Can you imagine standing before the Lord Jesus Christ thinking you’re going to be given a prize? Anyway, I want to know how sick I truly am or at least as much as a person can know how sick they are.  Obviously none of us can bear to be absolutely truthful about ourselves.  It's going to be hard to appear before the Lord.  It's 8:17 pm now.  Day 2.  I should try to quantify, day by day, the illness.  I just googled how do you track the progress of an illness?  It responded: several methods can be employed. Symptom tracking involves documenting the type, intensity, frequency, and duration of symptoms, along with factors that affect them. This can be done using a symptom diary, either in paper form or through a digital app.  Seems like I intuitively knew what to do already.

Intensity: very mild *fever* broke out around 6 pm.  First symptom since last flowering of illness.  [Should I call it illness or disease?  I just googled are illness and disease the same thing?  Response: While the terms "illness" and "disease" are often used interchangeably, they have distinct meanings. Disease refers to a specific, medically diagnosed condition with identifiable causes and symptoms, like diabetes or a bacterial infection. Illness, on the other hand, is a broader term encompassing the individual's subjective experience of being unwell, including symptoms, feelings, and how it impacts their life.  Unquestionably I should call it illness.]

Frequency: The mild 6 pm outbreak was the only occurrence in these last 2 days.  Or these first 2 days, however I would decide to view them.  It was easily suppressed with a dose of David Muir and the beginning of this scientific examination of the illness.

Factors: Do we, LOL, I mean, do I have any insight into what triggered very mild 6 pm *fever?*  My best guess here on Day 2 is that it was triggered by the ill thoughts of the last flowering of the illness.  After the full bloom of the illness, the illness wilts completely away on Day 1.  No thought is given it.  The mind is only concerned with the trivialities of the returning *normal* or *healthy* life.  But it seems about 36 hours into the recovery, if it is a recovery, that has yet to be validated, the first moments of *boredom* (meaning nothing more to think about in the resumption of *normal* or *healthy* life) return.  The mind then, being conditioned by the thoughts that dominated the flowering stage of the illness, returns first to those thoughts, the last most entrained thoughts, the ill thoughts. These ill thoughts were easily chased away before turning into a full blown fever delirium.  What we, LOL, what I will have to do in the following days is measure the frequency and duration of the boredom, the strength of the boredom (i.e., how easily can I depart from boredom) and the techniques that are most useful in putting down the boredom. 

Well, this is a good start, I believe.