Larry Gibbons
  • About
  • Blog
  • Contact
  • Reviews

My Consciousness Hurts

9/3/2017

0 Comments

 
Picture
WINTRY VERTICALS
One snowy day, I was sitting on the couch watching television while Buster was sitting next to me chewing on his pork and chicken Oinkie. Suddenly, we were attacked by a public awareness health commercial.

Up to this point I was feeling calm. I wasn't worried about anything specific, although my brain was probably gnawing on some niggling non-specific thing. But I’ve learned to handle those, and besides, nowadays my mind is loaded with senior’s mental farts. So my worries don’t last long enough to get cemented into my brain, and I simply forget what I’m worrying about and move on to another amorphous concern.

As for the public awareness health commercial...its reason for existence? To remind me of a disease I might’ve otherwise forgotten. I certainly hadn’t been thinking about it while watching the CNN horror show.
But, they were right. I hadn’t been thinking about the dangers of hepatitis and the first question that came to my mind was, ‘Am I now better off, physically, mentally or spiritually by being reminded of this disease’?

Picture
No Worries
Because, you see, I have quite a list of ailments and diseases and other torments that I mentally chew on from time to time. You know: shingles, pneumonia, high blood pressure, low blood pressure, heart attacks, epilepsy, poison ivy, arthritis, sciatica pain, tumours - pick a spot:  need for knee and hip replacements, bronchitis, aids, herpes, gout, baldness, psychological malfunctions such as anxiety, panic attacks, depression, hallucinations, bi-polar disease, etc., etc., etc.

But, praise the Lord, I’d been freed from my ignorance. Seen the light.

“Here, boy. Yes, you. Catch this fifty-dollar bill and buy me the big turkey in the butcher shop’s window. And be quick about it. I’m so happy I don’t know what to do with myself. Oh my!”

And so on and so on.

Thank you, public awareness people. I will always be in your debt for my chronic low-grade anxiety.

Picture
FEEDING THE TREE NUTRITIOUS FOOD
Because of this consciousness-raising reminder, I can now sit in a canoe floating down a sleepy stream under a happy sun, cozied up to by a southern breeze and maybe even by a southern belle, and say to myself, “I’ve been notified. I now know of another disease I can worry over if I feel too happy and content with myself.”

Or when I’m sitting in a doctor’s office, feeling my blood pressure rising because I’m reading all the disease warnings and helpful tips which are pasted all over the waiting room walls, I can now look for the hepatitis one and say, “I know about you. I’ve been informed.”

Then the nurse will call me into the examining room, take my blood pressure, say, “Tsk tsk,” and put in an order for a new blood pressure monitor.

I sometimes wonder if too much public awareness isn’t more useful to and lucrative for the psycho-pharmacy industries’ investors? Just wondering.

There are so many things I already worry about. Aren’t we all surrounded by our own real life worries outside of the numerous public awareness commercials? Which I think have created in our society something I like to call the ‘Baby Seat Syndrome’. Which, in my mind, just means worrying to excess about dangers that statistically have less chance of happening to us than being hit by lightning.

Why, it’s hard to get through a day without my being aware that I’m doing wrong things all over the place. Let me give you an example. Let’s take a day from last week and discover how many times I did things that went against the consciousness-raising adverts.

Picture
BUSTER AFTER A ROLL IN SNOW
In this example morning, I ate breakfast. It consisted of boiled eggs. Oh gosh, but haven’t I heard that eggs tank up your cholesterol and that’s not good, right? But I’ve also seen recent reports that said eggs are good for you, at least a few per week.

I also drank orange juice and swallowed some supplements. Oh dear. Orange juice, I’ve been informed, contains the equivalent of a teaspoon of sugar or something ridiculous like that. And the supplements! Well, they’re not properly controlled, or may not have as much in them of what they say they have in them. Or they can cause all kinds of medical problems. Maybe hepatitis. Who knows?

But, I swallowed them anyway. The dangers be damned and the juice tasted delicious although I’ve heard that there may be less juice in the container than you think.

I ate toast which wasn’t gluten free and I put butter on it. Oh god, I’m going to get wheat belly, or already have it, or is that beer belly? What am I doing to myself? And butter! Well that’s almost a swear word for cholesterol and I drank tea, which we found out a few weeks ago is full of insecticides. However, we have switched to another kind of tea that is supposed to be insecticide free, but who knows?

I grabbed a bottle of water and felt guilty about the recycling thing and I’ve heard you can get cancer from the plastics they use. And I ate a banana, which I’ve heard is not as nutritious as you may think. I deliberately avoided looking into this claim, so I could remain comfortably uninformed.

I drove to town and polluted the atmosphere with non-carbon-taxed gasoline. Guilt! Guilt, because I believe we have to cut down on carbon.

I parked the truck and walked into an arena which had just had its ice flooded by an ice-making machine. Which apparently can leave residual gas fumes in the arena for a long time after it’s used. So I was skating to keep in shape, but maybe wrecking my lungs doing it. Oh, I forgot to mention asthma. I’ve heard tell about that too and I know it’s no fun.

Picture
FOREST CREATURE
In the grocery store I loaded up with a pile of poisons and poor dietary choices. For example: chocolate ice-cream. Oh help me, Lord! What am I doing to myself?  Too much salt, too much gluten, too much fat, too much sugar, etc., etc., etc., and that’s why I say the Lord’s Prayer before I grocery shop and will also, from time to time, sing a verse of ‘Nearer My God To Thee’.

I then had lunch at a tea shop. So many choices. All shouting, “Unhealthy! Unhealthy!”

“What would you like, sir?”

I whisper, “Our Father which art in Heaven——“I’ll have the ham and cheese sandwich.”

“On what kind of bun?”

I whisper, “...hallowed be thy name.”  I say, in a  trembling voice, “Sesame.” You see, I hadn’t heard anything bad about the actual sesame seeds although the buns are riddled with public health warnings.

“Would you like mayonnaise or butter or both?”

Oh god, not both for sure, but which one? Which one? I’m sure you see my predicament. I’m almost positive you’ve heard about Mr. Mayonnaise. Surely you have. What to do? What to do?  I chose butter. Why? It has fewer letters.

And I had another tea. Hoped it wasn’t the one with the bug killers in it.

“What size, sir?”

I ordered small. Paid for my lunch and then walked the tea cup over to the dispensary counter. I put a little milk in the tea, because, well, I’ll tell you in a minute, and I used milk because I thought cream was richer and therefore worse. And I used brown sugar instead of white sugar because white sugar has had the proverbial crap beaten out of it by public awareness officials.

Picture
MIDDLE RIVER SNOW TURTLE
And what about the milk I mentioned adding to my tea? Which I was brought up on and I thought was good and which my mommy and daddy and also my teachers told me was an excellent dietary choice.

“Drink up your milk. IT’S GOOD FOR YOU. BUILDS UP YOUR BONES.”

Well, that was, apparently, stupid advice. Because I’ll tell you what a very intelligent person told me. This person was so smart and intelligent that she had to toss two thousand words from her vocabulary so she could talk to a verbal wretch like me.

This educated hepatitis-informed person told me, in all sincerity and good faith, that milk has been the greatest food fraud ever perpetrated upon mankind. I looked up the word, ‘perpetrated’ and was devastated. Then I looked up the word, ‘devastated’ and was filled with great anxiety. My gosh, to think how long I’d been duped. Hoodwinked while standing in my mother’s kitchen, after a hard day of play, swallowing down an ice-cold glass of milk. Tasting so good, feeling no guilt. Just a little uninformed kid with chocolate chips smeared all over his lips and fingers. Lies! All lies!

I said, “Hallowed be thy name,” before I carried out my next task, which was booking an appointment for my truck to get a safety certificate so I could pollute more air.

Picture
SNOW-SHOER DRESSED FOR COLD
Then I bought beer. Which I’ve been publicly educated to believe might be good for you in moderation, but might be bad for you morally. Or it might not be good for you at all, or you might be able to drink as much as you like and then become or not become an alcoholic and get or not get throat cancer to boot.

I then crossed myself before walking into another coffee shop. I’m a fool and a masochist. At this coffee shop I bought an iced coffee drink. Even though I’d been warned by a person in the know, that the machines that make the drinks aren’t always well maintained and can be filled with bacteria and bug nests, and the soaps they use to clean the machines, to get rid of the bad boy bugs, are cancer-producing and she would never drink that stuff because the friend who gave her this information used to work at a coffee shop and so she’d know.

I then headed home. Sucking the toxic drink through a straw, merrily carbonizing the atmosphere and looking at the beautiful forests on the gorgeous mountains, worrying that I was as bad as the clear-cutters. The scars they had left were visible to my eyes.  And maybe, while driving home, I might be crushing bugs and tiny critters under my toxic rubber winter tires, which have studs, which, I have been informed, are destroying the concrete, which will increase our taxes.

Later on, I sat down in the woodshed and drank some beer, while trying to ignore the fact that the woodshed was built with green pressed lumber, which apparently is toxic.

However, I’ve found if I have enough beer, I stop thinking about these public awareness things and begin to enjoy the world I was lucky enough to be born into. Won the lottery, so to speak. And I watch the birds, who seem to be unworried about the toxins in the sunflower seeds.  And I realize that the wasps, who are gone now, were the very least of my worries, unless, of course, I raise my public awareness about them, but I have no intention of doing that.

In summary, I realize that many of the awareness issues are important and all of them can affect the lives of some people. Sometimes in very tragic ways.

So, you can look at this blog in the spirit in which it was written, or as alternative news.

Picture
TWO CROWS AND FREE SPEECH

***

“Nothing awakens and improves men so much as free communication of thoughts and feelings--If nothing reaches the people but what would lend support to men in power, farewell to liberty. The form of a free government may remain, but the life, the soul, the substance is fled.”
                                                                                                  William Ellery Channing

Picture
SUNDAY BLIZZARD SNOW-SHOEING
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Recent Posts

    Archives

    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    January 2022
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013

    Categories

    All
    Aaron Schneider
    Abigail Thomas
    Aboriginal Culture
    Aldon Nowlan
    Alistair MacLeod
    Amos R. Wells
    Answering Machines
    Antigonish
    Antigonish Harbour
    Authors
    Autumn Beauty
    Baddeck
    Ballad Of Winky
    Bats
    Beer
    Bible Reading
    Bible Verses
    Bikes
    Bird Feeders
    Birds
    Black And Decker Tools
    Black Flies
    ‘Black Water’
    Blizzards
    Blogging
    Blue Jay
    Boarding Kennel
    Book Launch
    Book Review
    Books
    Brown Bat
    Building Bookshelves
    Bullfrog
    Buster
    Buster Wear
    Cabot Trail
    Cameras
    Canso Causeway
    Cape Breton
    Cape Breton Beauty
    Cape Breton Books
    Cape Breton Highlands
    Cape Breton Highlands National Park
    Cape Breton Music
    Cape Breton Trails
    Cats
    CBC Interview
    Cell Phones
    Chain Saw
    Chaos
    Charles Hanson Towne
    Chief Seattle
    Clarence Barrett
    Clear-cut Recovery
    Climate Change
    Coltsfoot
    Computer Frustrations
    Computer Jargon
    Confucious
    Consumers
    Cottage Activities
    Country Life
    Coyotes
    Creativity
    Crocs
    Crows
    C.S. Lewis
    Customer Service
    Cycling
    Dancing Goat Coffee Shop
    David Boyd
    David Woods
    Deer
    Denise Aucoin
    Dentist
    Dentists
    D.H. Thoreau
    Dog Food
    Dogs
    Dog Training
    Dog Walking
    Dog Whisperer
    Driving In Blizzards
    Druids
    Dry Rot
    Earwig
    Eastern Coyotes
    Economists
    Editor
    Editors
    ED’S BOOKS AND MORE
    E.J. Pratt
    Election ID
    Elpenor
    Enerson
    Evening Grosbeaks
    Exercise
    Extractions
    Ezra Pound
    Fall Colours
    Family Holiday
    Family Life
    Farley Mowat
    Field Mouse
    Finite Vs Infinite
    Firewood
    Fishing
    Flood Plain
    Floods
    Flower Gardens
    Flying Squirrel
    Fog
    Forest
    Fox
    Freddy The Pig
    Freedom
    Friends
    Friendship
    Frontenac Provincial Park Ontario
    Fundamentalists
    Fungus
    Gamay Wine
    Gazebo
    George Eliot
    George Horace Lorimer
    Glotheri
    Goats
    Gold Brook Road
    Goldfish
    Grandchildren
    Green Cove
    Grocery Shopping
    Grosbeaks
    Halifax
    Halloween
    Hawks
    High Junction Gymnastics
    Hiking
    Hiking Boots
    Hiking Trails
    Hildegarde Of Bingen
    Hints Of Winter
    Hornets
    Horses
    Houdini
    Human Capital
    Humes Falls Hike
    Hummingbirds
    Humour
    Huron-philosophy
    Hurricane-arthur
    Ingonish
    Inspiration
    Interviews
    Invasive Plants
    Inverness
    Inverness Trail
    James Joyce
    James Thurber
    Jealousy
    Jennifer Bain
    Jesus The Carpenter
    J.K. Rowling
    Joachim-Ernst Berendt
    John Martin
    John Muir
    John O'Donohue
    John Oxenham
    John Updike
    Joy Of Spring
    K-50 Pentax Camera
    Karen Shepard
    Kingston
    Knotty Pines Cottages
    Lake O' Law
    Language And Politics
    Larry Sez Again
    Lego Toys
    Lewis Carrol
    Life Cycles
    Lily Tuck
    Lion
    Literary Magazines
    Little Clear Lake
    "Local Hero"
    Lord Alfred Tennyson
    "Lord Of The Flies"
    Love
    Lynda Barry
    Mabou
    Mabou Shrine
    MacBook Pro
    Machines
    Magic Realism
    Margaree
    Margaree Forks
    Margaret Fuller
    Marion Bridge
    Marion Zimmer Bradley
    Maritime Mac
    Marketing
    Mary Tallmountain
    Merrill Markoe
    Mica Mountain
    Mice
    Microphones
    Middle River
    Middle River Wilderness
    Mike Youds
    Mi'kmaq
    Mini-homes
    Mobile Homes
    Moose
    Morris Mandel
    Mosquitoes
    Mother
    "Mother Canada"
    Mother Mary
    Moths
    Mountain Climbing
    Mountains
    Mouse
    Mouse Traps
    Muse
    Nature
    Neighbours
    No Great Mischief
    NS
    NS Library
    Ocean Waves
    Old Trailers
    Omnibus Bill
    ON
    Ontario
    Orwellian Language
    Oscar Wilde
    Panhandlers
    PeachTree Inn
    Pentax K50 Camera
    Perversion Of Language
    Pet Dog
    Pileated Woodpecker
    Pine Siskins
    Playing Poker
    Poems
    Poetry
    Political Power
    Port Hood
    Privy / Outhouse
    Profanity In Fiction
    Promoting Books
    Punctuation
    Purple Finches
    Qur'an
    Raven
    Red-wing Blackbirds
    Rejection
    Remembrance
    Renovations
    Reviews
    Rita Joe
    River Lessons
    Rivers
    Robert Frost
    Roethke
    Rules
    Salman Rusdie
    Satellite Dish
    Sharon Butala
    Sherry D. Ramsey
    Short Stories
    Short Story Anthologies
    Short Story Contests
    Short Story Tips
    Skiing
    Skyline Trail
    Skyway Trail
    Snow
    Snow And More Snow
    Snow Belt
    Snowblower
    Snow Blower
    Snowshoeing
    Snowshoes
    Social Media
    SPCA
    Speculative Fiction
    Spiders
    Spirituality
    Spring Peepers
    Squirrels
    Sri Chinmoy
    Stations Of The Cross
    Stephen King
    Storms
    Storytelling
    Stoves
    Stress
    Subjectivity
    Sukie Colgrave
    Summer Activities
    Sunday Breakfasts
    Susan Zettell
    Suzi Hubler
    Swarms Of Mosquitoes
    Sydney
    Sydney Cox
    Technology
    Texting
    "The Great Gatsby"
    "The Murder Prophet"
    Theodore Roethke
    The Saga Of The Renunciates
    “The Subtlety Of Land”
    Third Person Press
    Thoreau
    Titles
    Tolstoy
    Tomas Transtromer
    Toothaches
    Totalitarian Regimes
    Tradesmen
    Trailer
    Trail Guide
    Tree Planting
    Trucks
    Trump's Foreign Workers
    Truro Train Station
    T. S. Eliot
    T.S. Eliot
    Twitter
    Uisgeban Falls
    Used Bookstores
    Veterinary
    Victoria County
    Victoria Standard
    Vincent Scully
    Virtual World
    Vocabulary
    Wabi Sabi
    Wallace Stevens
    Walter Brookes
    Walter Whitman
    Walt Whitman
    War Memorials
    Warren Lake Cape Breton
    W.H. Auden
    "White Eyes"
    Wildlife
    William Blake
    William Carlos Williams
    William Noble
    Wills
    Wind
    Winter Beauty
    Wood Stoves
    Wreck Cove
    Writers
    Writing
    Writing And Playing
    Writing And Soul
    Writing Business
    Writing Contests
    Writing Drafts
    Writing Fiction
    Writing Tips
    Yearbook
    Yeast Infection
    Yellow Jackets
    Zen

    Archives

    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    January 2022
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013

    Subscribe to Larry Gibbons - Blog by Email
Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.