Some things never change, and some do. in Journal of life stuff

I have a flight tomorrow; er, later today. I should be asleep. But, I can’t sleep. When I was in college, the thing I hated most of all was flying home. I loved flying, I hated being at home. One year, I slept through my alarm and missed my flight. My parents got so mad that they demanded I spend $400 of my own money to buy a new plane ticket to come see them. The thought that I could just say no never crossed my mind. Ever since then, I have never managed to get good sleep the day before a flight unless I go to bed SUPER early (like, 8+ hours before I need to wake up). If I push it to even 7 hours before my flight, I get super anxious and can’t sleep because I’m terrified I’ll sleep through my flight again.

I’ve tried setting multiple alarms. In the case where I slept through the flight and had to pay; I slept through 3 different alarms that time. As in, 3 alarms, on 3 different devices, set for 3 different times. I woke up and turned off 2 of them without gaining consciousness and slept through the third.

Do I still like flying? No. Now that I’m not obese anymore, I don’t sleep on planes. When I was obese, we’d get above 10,000 feet and with the air pressure drop I was out like a light because I was just barely breathing enough to stay awake at sea level (or something like that; it couldn’t have been that bad, but…that’s the only thing that makes sense to me). Now? I have tried to sleep on planes. I can’t. Between the godaweful seats, being crammed into a full flight, and everything else, I can’t catch a wink. We’ll see if I can now that I’ll have been awake for something like 31 hours by the time I’m on the plane.

Moreover, the Terrorism Specialists of America also make me hate flying. They are security theater and nothing more. I wish the government shutdown had gone on longer so that ALL the TSA agents would have quit their jobs. Nothing would have made me happier than for that fucking organization to burn in hell, where it belongs.

No, I’ve never had them take anything from me, and no, none of them have ever cupped my balls. The sheer gall of those fuckers thinking that they can is insulting. The ridiculous rules that are more about creating market niches than about actual safety are irritating. I hate everything they stand for because it is the exact opposite of a good solution. I remember this world before it went fucking crazy and I miss that older version of the world.

Joe Rogan had a biology-type on his podcast recently (as in, last day or two). I haven’t listened to the full thing yet, but did catch a few clips on youtube. I will listen to it on the plane tomorrow, or more likely, as I drive in to the airport. I’ve been trying to decide if this whole COVID-19 thing is overblown or if I’ve been missing something. He reminded me of two facts I had been overlooking:

1. Even if the morality rate isn’t high, if enough people are incapacitated such that you stop being able to bury the bodies, then EVERYONE dies. This is a well documented fact.
2. ‘Capitalism’, as the world currently practices it, is so rife with greed that we have allowed single countries or factories to become the sole suppliers of many base goods. There are not enough redundancies built into the supply chain because redundancies cost money, and if you can’t cut costs, then your competitor will and then they undercut you, then your business dies.

This isn’t capitalism though. It’s greed. Capitalism requires a social contract or moral guide such that everyone involved in the entire system (so, worldwide, not just in a country – hence why it can’t be law-based and must be social based) has to agree that there are certain minimums or rules that everyone agrees not to violate, and violators of those social rules must be punished severely. Punished severely means not allowed to create another company and forced to be an individual contributor, not flayed alive.

The greed of the current world astounds me. That greed may doom us all. Not from COVID-19, but from a hundred other things. If you think I’m wrong about the social contract being needed, then listen to Papa John, on the h3h3 podcast, talk about his views on Obamacare (

). “…as long as everyone has to do it…” He’s saying the exact same thing I am. And the reason why? Because when he said it I realized the fundamental problem all these corporations struggle with in every sector. Not just pizza, not just retail…all of them! They all have to consider what corners their competitors are willing and able to cut, and play around that. “Oh, they’ll offer unlimited vacation so we have to as well!” “but that deprives workers of rights!” “I know, but it takes $400 million off our books as a liability, and it frees up $200 million for our competitor’s books, so we have to do this or they’ll pivot on us!”

This is greed. This is greed in its most perfect form. And nobody’s willing or able to actually take a stand against it. You can’t vote with your dollar anymore. We let that go away because we wanted everything cheaper. Some things you can still vote with your dollar on. But store brands? Naw. Internet? Naw. Phone service? Naw. Gasoline? HAH! You can think you are voting with you’re dollar because the brand name is different, but when you look up what factory that item was made in, or what company owns that brand name, or who the common supplier of the base goods are, you realize very quickly that the dollars always go into the same, tiny, set of pockets.

What a fucking mess.