Complex Numbers

I Want It Now

The short answer to today's prompt is: Nothing.

PROMPT November 27th

What do you want for Christmas? (Or for your next birthday if you don’t celebrate Christmas)

The long answer (face it, you knew there was going to be a long answer so I could say I wrote an actual blog entry) is that I have enough stuff, including everything I need and most of what I want, and while I appreciate tokens of friendship from people, there's nothing that I can say that I want that most people could afford.

"Stuff," of course, is only part of the big picture, but that's the form most holiday and birthday gifts take, so that's how I approach this.

Last year, the local movie theater / drafthouse was open on Christmas Day, so I decided to start a new Christmas tradition for myself: walk over to the theater, drink all the beer, stagger home. Didn't even see a movie, just drank beer. Then, of course, this happened, and while the theater has reopened, and the beer flows once more, the bar itself is unavailable. I don't know if it'll be open on Christmas Day this year or not.

So much for tradition.

What I want, of course, is what almost everybody wants: this to end. I'm way down on the list of people eligible to get a vaccine when it becomes available, but you can bet your last dollar I'll be getting the jab the moment I can. Am I concerned about them having rushed through the development process? Sure. Am I concerned about side effects? Sure; when I got the shingles vaccine I was useless for two days afterwards. You know what concerns me more than all that? Getting actually sick and possibly passing it on.

That's what a lot of people miss in all this, I think. Sure, you have the choice whether to expose yourself to illness, injury, whatever. Hell, I drink and I smoke cigars. Neither one of those things is going to increase my life expectancy. But when I drink, I don't do things to endanger others. There are laws about not smoking in public places so that secondhand smoke doesn't affect people who haven't made that choice for themselves. We have laws about drunk driving to discourage people from endangering others with the choices they make.

All these restrictions, masks, whatever: they're not just there to protect you from getting sick. They exist so that if you do, you don't pass the illness on to someone who has not made that choice for themselves. By being a selfish prick, you're not "exercising your rights;" you're depriving others of theirs.

Yesterday, I talked about my friend M, and in case you missed it, in the comments I provided an update: M is currently recovering from a stroke. This required hospitalization. Resources that could be used on him are sucked away by pandemic cases, in part because some people have been smug shitstains who absolutely won't be told what to do, and spread the fucking virus.

And this, folks, is why we're doomed. Not because of the pandemic; that will pass. But because of the "screw you I do what I want" mindset. This year has driven home to me that we have absolutely passed the point of no return on climate change. Too many people just will not do the right thing because it's inconvenient. Yes, the world will keep turning. Humanity as a species will survive. But things are going to get pretty rough for a whole lot of people. Displacement, water crises, food shortages, that sort of thing.

So I am working on not caring. I'm done. The assholes win. I can't beat them, so I'm going to join them, and just Do What I Want.

And what I want for Christmas is to drink. I'll manage to do that, whether the drafthouse is open or not.