INDIGNITY VOL. 3, NO. 88: What are you worried about?

MR WRONG: The Plan for Beating Anxiety

IT SEEMS LIKE there’s all kinds of things to worry about right now, eh? It’s not good to worry! It’s OK to think about stuff, and then figure out what you’re gonna do, but if all you do is worry about the Bad Things, it’s not going to be good for you, you know? It will be Bad for your Mental Health, and that’s part of your Physical Health, so you need to not worry, you need to find strategies and force yourself to not worry. Maybe go talk to somebody, some sort of Therapy, it’s good to talk about things even if it means you gotta pay somebody so you can do it. It’s actually better than talking to a friend or a family member, because a Professional talk-to person doesn’t really give a shit about what you think about them, so they’ll tell you how fucked up you are with all your worrying. I’m not saying that you need to somehow be Happy all the time, because that would mean you are a dipshit, oblivious to the World’s problems. Of course there are all kinds of Bad Things, you just need to stop worrying about them. I didn’t say stop thinking about them, but that works for some people, to not think about a thing, but that can lead you to being a fucking dipshit who just wants to be Happy all the time. Don’t do that. Think.

It’s important to be a good citizen of the Earth and pay attention to the Bad Things, and think about them. There’s the Weather, or more scientifically, I guess, the Climate, which is bad, because the planet is getting hotter, so the icebergs are melting and that means there will be more water, the liquid kind, which takes up more space on the planet, so it will creep up on the land and people’s Real Estate will get fucked up and also stuff like tunnels will be flooded and then where will the cars go, which is funny, like, not ha-ha funny, but funny because they started it, the cars, with the Emissions doing Chemistry to the very air we breathe, making things hotter, and now the air is so screwed up that it’s turned against the cars by raising up the water to destroy the bridges and tunnels.

Supposedly, the cars thing, with the emissions, will be solved, because we now have the miracle of Electric Car, so there’s no pollution coming out of a lotta car tailpipes anymore, and there’s gonna be less and less gas-burners, but then I think, where does the power come from to fill up all the electric car batteries? I think many people think it will come from the wind propeller-things that create electricity, or from the solar panels, but right now a lot of it’s coming from burning coal and oil and gas, so the air is still getting fucked up.

In 2022, about 4,243 billion kilowatthours (kWh) (or about 4.24 trillion kWh) of electricity were generated at utility-scale electricity generation facilities in the United States.1 About 60% of this electricity generation was from fossil fuels—coal, natural gas, petroleum, and other gases. About 18% was from nuclear energy, and about 22% was from renewable energy sources. The U.S. Energy Information Administration estimates that an additional 58 billion kWh of electricity generation was from small-scale solar photovoltaic systems in 2022.

Personally I think we should go Nuclear, yeah, Atomic Power, and then take all the radioactive poison from that and put it in rockets and shoot it into the Sun (along with all the used car batteries), but I think there are some flaws in my plan, so maybe if we could take one of the big square states out in the desert and cover it with solar panels, I bet we’d get a lot of electricity for the cars, but again, there are some flaws in that plan also.

Anyway, look, I don’t lie awake at night worrying about the air and the Climate and the rain and the wind and Sun and stuff, because I have thought about this chain of potential worrying topics a lot, and I am satisfied that my tiny brain has done the best it could, and I just need to be receptive to some thoughts by others on this disaster. I’m full. I thought all about it, pretty hard, I think, and now I’m pretty much done unless I hear about some good ideas on this matter. No worrying! I have excellent Mental Health, I think, from my Process. I use my brain, and when that doesn’t work, which is most of the time, I listen to somebody smarter than me, and then I feel good about how much thought I gave everything and I have good self-esteem and I am able to sleep at night without envisioning a giant red Sun burning all the icebergs into water and flooding the lowlands and ruining our Real Estate and everything else. Also I don’t own any Real Estate that could be flooded by the icebergs, and I’d recommend the same to anybody, because I think the water’s gonna rise a whole bunch before we get our arms around this Problem.

So don’t worry, OK? Bad Things exist. You’re fucking outnumbered. Use your brain. Maybe it’ll help. If it doesn’t, you could try and use somebody else’s brain and come up with a Plan. How about this one: What are you gonna do for money when you retire, so that you can have money and be Retired until you die? Personally, I’m not worried about retirement, because I think I will pretty much have to work for money forever, and then I’ll croak, so my plan is: The Lottery. See? I thought about it, then me and my brain pretty much hit the wall, and now I have a solution and a Plan. No worrying!

SHAMELESS SELF-PROMOTION DEP’T.: I didn’t worry about going on a TV game show to try and win a pile of money. I thought about it a long time and I made a Plan. If you get your money up, you can read the complete account of that in this publication on offer at Shopula. Thank you.

The MR. WRONG COLUMN is a general-interest column appearing weekly wherever it can appear. No refunds. Write Wrong: wrongcolumn@gmail.com

WEATHER REVIEWS

New York City, May 31, 2023

★★★★ The sunlight landed on people's brows like a universal benediction. Cool unhurried breeze moved through the shade on Central Park West. The warmth radiating into the body on the bench inside the park gate felt therapeutic. "Cold bottled water, cold water," a man chanted, pushing a cooler up the little rise. Tourists were touring, in matching Beauty and the Beast t-shirts or with physical printed guidebook open in hand. Up in Morningside Park, on the new asphalt, a little puddle sat within the dried outline of a much larger version of itself. Raspberries lay in the dust under the drinking fountain. At the bottom of the park, the air was getting thick and hot. Music came booming from the street—out of a Camry, specifically, the 11-year-old reported.

EASY LISTENING DEP’T.

INDIGNITY MORNING PODCAST

Indignity Morning Podcast No. 79: The same story Hamilton had two days ago.

Tom Scocca • Jun 1, 2023

Listen now (7 min) | The Indignity Morning Podcast is also available via the Apple and Spotify platforms.

Read full story →

SANDWICH RECIPES DEP’T.

WE PRESENT INSTRUCTIONS for the assembly of sandwiches from One Thousand Favorite Recipes, by Seattle, Washington’s Congregation Temple de Hirsch, Ladies' Auxiliary, compiled by Mrs. Sigismund Aronson and Mrs. William Gottstein, published in 1908, found in the public domain and available at archive.org for the delectation of all.

SANDWICHES — PÂTÉ DE FOIS GRAS. Spread white bread with pate and cut in wide strips. Put three pieces of pimola on top and a row of chopped olives around outside. Cut bread round if preferred, instead of strips.
—MRS. E. MICHAEL, Spokane, Wash.

LIVER PÂTÉ. Cook calves liver in chicken fat and butter and a little water, to which slices of onion, a little parsley, a little celery, salt and pepper have been added. When tender run liver through meat grinder; add strained stock, which should be boiled down very short. Add also half an onion grated very fine, and some finely minced parsley. Mash all smooth with spoon and add two or three tablespoons of chicken or goose fat, salt and pepper to taste.
—MRS. S. ARONSON.

SCRAPED MEAT SANDWICH. Scrape raw beef, mix with salt and pepper, spread between two slices of bread and toast on toaster until heated through.
—MRS. S. ARONSON.

If you decide to prepare and attempt to enjoy a sandwich inspired by this offering, kindly send a picture to us at indignity@indignity.net.

MARKETING DEP'T.

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