Time, Well, Wasted

A 'short' visit to the hospital (I'm fine, for the most part) yesterday, and then another today for follow-up, made me realize two things. First: nobody wins with public health care. Now, before you jump to conclusions and accuse me of bashing the system, I have nothing against it. I just feel sorry for everyone involved in the process.

Nurses and doctors are overworked and constantly berated with questions from impatient patients (who, to be fair, have likely been sitting and waiting patiently for hours), and injured and elderly patients wait like everyone else to be seen briefly and then told to move on to another waiting area, where this process is repeated (potentially several times) until a doctor can see you to tell you that you need to come back tomorrow.

At least it appeals to a wide audience.

There are brief intermissions where the nurses collect various bodily fluids from you, but aside from that, you're left with uncomfortable chairs, the smell of antiseptic, and HGTV. Why anyone finds it entertaining to watch couples decide which island they'd like to spend their excess ten million dollars on is beyond me.

Second: I like being healthy. This should probably be obvious, but I think a lot of us take our health for granted. Don't get me wrong; I'm not about to make grand changes to my lifestyle any time soon, but maybe I'll linger a little longer by the produce aisle before moving on to the frozen dinners.

Introductions and whatnot

As this is my first ever blog post, hopefully the one or two (I can dream) people reading this will forgive any internet conventions I fail to follow or unwritten taboos I break. Everybody has to start somewhere.

The obvious question - why choose to document my life and experiences and inner mind on the internet? - has a fairly simple answer: because I'm bored. I find myself having far too much time on my hands and far too little to do with it.

The irony here, I suppose, is all of this free time leaves little time for activities which may merit actual blog material. Luckily enough, I - and knowing the internet I am by no means the only person afflicted with this - live almost exclusively inside my own head.

Note also that having too much free time does not exclude one from having meaningful or thought-provoking experiences; I find that, to the contrary, the internet provides me with constant fodder for thought and, generally, head-shaking bemusement.

Why should you be interested in anything I have to say, you may ask. Why is anyone interested in anything?

I don't presume to have the answer to this question, in fact I often wonder what makes blogging so popular; what it is about other people's lives that brings us to read about, with wide-eyed fascination, the things that we find boring about our own lives.

Perhaps we want to be reminded, on occasion, that there are people out there in the world thinking thoughts like the thoughts that we're thinking, having experiences similar to the experiences we have, dreaming and hoping about the same things we dream and hope about.

Maybe we're all just looking to find people more messed up than we are.

Whatever the case, I hope you find what you're looking for, be it here or elsewhere.

Cheers,

Duncan Sommerville