I Am Obviously Writing from Beyond the Grave

because i took a walk

I’ve been thinking about this headline from the New York Times all day, for very personal reasons:

It lives in my head next to this now-deleted-but-infinitely-screencapped tweet from a former naval aviator (whose career ended poorly), who killed this tweet but saved the rest of the insane thread if you want to go watch someone have a mental health crisis:

“Anything above 90 degrees F means that outdoor activity is likely to be deadly.” See, I just started laughing again. I was in Palo Duro Canyon State Park, this afternoon, and took this picture at a closed trailhead:

But the rangers only closed the most strenuous trails, so a few seconds after I took this picture, a family came climbing out of the bush on another trail a few feet away from me, a mom and a dad and two children, laughing and having a good time. AND I JUST STARTED SCREAMING AT THEM, because didn’t they even realize that you can’t survive outdoors at that temperature!?!?!?!? eVeN iF yOU’rE iN thE sHAdE dOInG nOThInGGGGGG!!G!G!G!G!G!G!G!G

They wore hats and carried water. And, um. So that’s how they navigated this cruel summer.

A little later, when the sun started to travel to its secret home behind the earth, the temperature on the Texas Panhandle plummeted…

…and I wandered out to take a walk, on a beautiful evening, feeling so incredibly grateful:

I feel like I survived, but I obviously must be mistaken. In any case, I am now drinking a can of special survival fluid, so maybe. Just maybe.

My conclusion is nothing I haven’t said a thousand times. There’s a war underway for your mind. It’s dumb and it sucks. You should ignore it. Most people do. The desperation for desperation, the need for crisis, is destroying people for no actual reason. It’s like you pass some guy on the street who’s writhing and screaming OH GOD I’M BURNING ALIVE, and you can tell he’s…actually fine? And you try to tell him, but he gets really mad about it. Because he has decided, for whatever reason, to pretend to be in agony. Please imagine me shrugging, with an awkward facial expression.

We have a culture of desired crisis. You can just opt out, pretty easily.