Some Call It Insanity.

This was written a few days ago for AC, but we both knew it wasn't exclusive going into it. My mum's leg--if anyone other than the people who love her care--is doing better.

The idea that anyone learns from experience what not to do is a common mistake among people who are too busy with their own lives to notice what is going on around them.

For instance, as a child I was always walking into doorknobs. My mother was concerned that perhaps I might be damaging the fragile egg that is my brain and mentioned it to my doctor. My doctor, who was maybe more than a little responsible for my habit of bluntly saying how I see things, told her that I would stop walking into doorknobs when I found out it hurt. This anecdote is pulled out by my family at random times, and only as I lay on the kitchen floor last week, after recovering the consciousness lost when I smashed my left temple into the metal doorknob that leads to the happiness and freedom known as my backyard, did I realize what utter twaddle he was talking.

I'm descended from people who continue to lift things like books, vacuums, dogs, and appliances despite having numerous hernias--the most recent of which is really, really making a lot of problems. I have a few ways I keep my hernias from acting up, and one involves taking a trip to the bathroom before I lift something. There, I said it. It's okay, just keep reading. Of course in the time it takes me to do this (98 seconds), one of the psychos I live with have gone and lifted The Thing I Knew Was Heavy because I took too long (90 seconds, on a good day). Later, they will comment on some odd ache in their body, which I know well because I get it too if I go lifting things like I'm in an Ironman competition. I will mention they lifted The Heavy Thing. No, I'm told, that's crap. These people, they are older than me. These are people who are not dumb by any means. These are people who know better than to bend over when a doorknob is in the path of their head.

People have the idea that some kids learn better the hard way, by falling off stuff, by getting hungry if they don't eat, or by getting arrested if they keep playing with the damn matches, but no, sometimes it doesn't work that way. Sometimes, even if they have a hen nested in their hair, pecking incessantly at them to not do things they know they shouldn't do, they will continue to go ahead and do it, for decades, even if that means somewhere down the line they will influence, piss off, or otherwise affect a future generation.

I stopped walking into doorknobs as a child because I got taller than the doorknobs. I always knew it hurt. And man, does it still hurt.

Some Call It Insanity.