strike while the iron's hot

In 1979, Jean Michel Basquiat, who at that time was pretty unknown in the art world, spotted Andy Warhol having lunch with Henry Geldzahler. He went up and introduced himself and offered to sell them some postcards he had painted. Geldzahler dismissed Basquiat, saying he was too young or something like that, but Warhol bought one of the postcards. 

Later, in 1982, after Basquiat had become a famous artist, they were more formally introduced and they had lunch together. After the lunch, Basquiat went home and painted a portrait of the two of them and delivered it to Warhol within a couple of hours after the lunch, with the paint still wet. Warhol confessed to Bruno Bischofberger, who was at the lunch with the two artists, that he was jealous because Basquiat worked so fast. 

surrender

When I first started reading Daniel Deronda by George Eliot, I didn't make it to the end. What I didn't like is that a really intriguing character is introduced at the start, but then they go away, and they stay away for hundreds of pages, while you're reading about some pretty unpleasant characters. I kept reading in the hope that the good part of the story would start, and I was just ploughing through this first part to get to the good part, and it really wasn't worth it, so I ended up giving up. 

Then I watched the BBC miniseries of Daniel Deronda and I loved it, so I returned to the book and this time I read through the whole thing. I suppose I just needed to see that it was a good story - that it really had something to offer. Reading it that second time, I was content to just let the book lead me and enjoy the journey. 

if alcohol is a depressant, why does it feel good?

'Depression' is probably the wrong word for depression. I always wondered why, if alcohol and Valium are both depressants, why does taking them make me feel better? Both of those assertions are true. Valium and alcohol are in fact depressants, and they do make you feel better, at least for a while, and I think that actually makes sense when you understand what is actually happening when you take those substances and what is happening with depression. 

Depression, at least for me, is about violently destructive thoughts and feelings. It's like being attacked by something. So, when a chemical slows that fight down, as a depressant does, it makes it a lot easier. It gives you some room to breathe and rest. So, we're talking about two different types of depression. 

update on Valium taper

I remember not that long ago pushing to reduce to .25 of a 2 mg tablet per day. It seemed impossible, but I did it one night, which showed me it was possible, and from there I just kept doing it more and more until it was the norm. So, most weeks for the last couple of months, my weekly dose has been 1.75 x 2 mg, which is .25 (1 quarter) each day/ night. 

From there, you can only really go to zero because it's not practical to break the tablets into smaller portions than a quarter. But as has often been the case in my journey with Valium, there's a psychological barrier here. The thought of taking no Valium at all at night before I sleep is daunting - never mind that I'm only taking half a mg most nights now anyway, which would have seemed impossible not that long ago, and the effects of half a mg are negligible. 

Something that helps is that, once I got down to around 2 x 2 mg a week, my sleep dramatically improved, and sleep has been one of the major issues with me for a long time. So, after I take my other meds in the evening, I usually feel pretty sleepy, but I've been taking a quarter of a tablet of Valium anyway. It probably has no effect, actually. Even if I take a whole 2 mg tablet, which I haven't done in a while but I did at times earlier this year and before that, I don't feel much, if any, difference. 

I was going to continue on .25 a night for a while longer and maybe have a go at reducing to 0 some nights in late October or November, but last night I just felt ready and didn't take the quarter tablet, and I slept as normal for me. So, with the beginning of September, I crossed that line. Now it's the new norm. The end. 

strength

Soundgarden's song Burden in my Hand begins, 'Follow me into the desert, as thirsty as you are.' 

It's about an act of will. It's the sort of thing where, at the time, you feel weak and needy - not strong at all - but you go ahead anyway and do something and then you realize your strength. You don't realize it because you saw or see yourself as strong - you realize it because you are being strong.

That's the irony: you're strongest when you don't feel strong, or as the apostle Paul put it: "...when I am weak, then I am strong..." (2 Corinthians 12:10)

strange warning

I bought a replacement cup for my Nutri bullet, and it had a sticker on the bottom which read, 'Caution: only remove once blades have stopped spinning', which means that the people who make the replacement cups have no idea how a Nutri bullet works. After you've blended up your smoothie, you remove the cup from the base, with the blade mechanism still attached to the cup, then you unscrew the blade mechanism, so it's impossible for the blades to still be spinning when you detach the blade mechanism from the cup. 

pov

History is written by the victors, as they say, but we tend not to see that. We read history as if it was an objective account, when it probably never is.

I've been thinking about this issue lately because I've been learning about the Third Reich and everyone involved, including Hitler, of course, Goebbels, Himmler, and others, and I was struck by the thought that, as much as I think the accounts I'm reading and watching are accurate and true, we're not getting the Nazi point of view. Don't get me wrong, I have no sympathy for the Nazi point of view, but as I was watching all of these videos about the Nuremberg Rallies and the war and Hitler's and Goebbel's speeches and so on, all presented as the evil enterprise that it was, and thinking about how this could happen, I realized that, to the people involved, it wasn't evil. They were proud and passionate. They thought they were doing something good. 

I did a search using AI and there are actually a lot of books about this issue, both specifically about the Nazis and also the psychology of fascism generally. I think the psychology of cults is also very relevant. So, I've added to my list of books I want to get and read.