“We suffer more in imagination than in reality.” — Seneca

We suffer more in imagination than in reality.

That’s a quote I knew I’d come back to, and will come back to, over and over again.

We suffer more in imagination than in reality.

At least that’s what I gotta believe. Suffering more in reality than in imagination seems like it’d be a pretty questionable place to be for any sort of extended period of time.

I recently had to speak with a lawyer about a personal issue. Fortunately, I am lucky enough (and grateful) to have the ability to do so, through the organization I work withs compensation package, for pretty much next to nothing.

Some people call them benefits. I call them compensation. A benefit package would include a health insurance provider that isn’t the OceanGate Spirit Southwest Airline of the insurance industry. Fucking Cigna. As I expected, fucking Cigna thinks that they know what’s better for me than my doctor. Mother. Fucking. Cigna.

Fucking Cigna.

When I spoke with the lawyer I started up by saying, “I can speak really, really quick. So, if at any point you need me to slow down or stop just say so.”

To which he agrees.

I speak really, really, fast, and am able to share the synopsis of the situation within about 5 minutes.

Fucking hell. I’m writing this. At the end of the month. Last thing. Even though I have a post I started writing earlier. And didn’t finish. This feels more like suffering in reality than in my imagination. Probably something to do with that whole ADHD. And I still keep getting distracted by myself.

He cuts me off and then begins to speak. Fast. Really, really fast. It was so fucking refreshing.

Most people speak at a normal pace. Some people slower. Some people faster. But most people speak at a relatively similar speed.

Some people can talk really fast though. And those are the people I love to speak with the most. As long as it’s a reciprocal conversation in which we both agree that we’re in a positive state of communication.

If someone talks fast and they never let you speak then I kinda feel like I’m being talked “at” rather than “with.” Some people really just need to be heard though, I guess.

He shares quite a few details that were pertinent to my problem and provides me with just enough advice to figure things out from there. All shared with at the pace of a gatling gun.

It was fantastic.

At the end of the conversation, I say, “You know what I really appreciate about lawyers? You’re like the programmers of the law. And I appreciate the use of language to mold reality.”

He replies, “You know, Mr. Perkins. It’s just like any other profession. Your medical providers have their words to describe what they do quickly. Your athletes have their language. Your politicians theirs. And lawyers. And I’m sure engineers do as well. We’re able to use our words to quickly communicate.”

At least that’s my interpretation of the sentiment of the words that he shared. I am certain that quote is wildly inaccurate.

We suffer more in imagination than in reality.

Is what this lawyer so expeditiously shared. I’ve been suffering much more in my imagination than in reality. Which has been an interesting place to be.

Interestingly terrible.

He also had me more consciously remember something again though. Something that I keep forgetting to remember.

Within the industry I work in there is a bit of a lot of jargon. And certain words and symbols have a lot of meaning behind them in terms of what the concepts or processes are that they represent.

I keep getting distracted from writing this last minute post by the work I’m working on right now,. It has managed to captivate me just enough that I’m glued to it. Fucking ADHD. Deep breaths. Supposed to recognize or remember something then get back to it or something. Which is exactly what I’m doing by continuing to write this right now, I guess.

“Instead of completely changing our infrastructure deployment tooling, we must take the time to evaluate how best to migrate from our current fleet and configuration management tools to new ones that are cloud-native. One of the challenges we’ve run into is being required to address years of technical debt in order to make the transition to a cloud-based platform that is at feature parity with our current co-located one. Blah blah blah.”

I’m at the point in my career, and in my life, where what I wrote means nothing to me. Which is kind of a weird thing to say. Or to write, I guess.

When I write, “means nothing to me,” I don’t mean as in that I don’t care. Which, I don’t. I really don’t. But, I think maybe a better way to word it might be, “… where what I wrote flows from me so rapidly that I find myself surprised that I was able to spew such filth forth faster than a fowl fart.”

Fowl. As in chicken. It is chicken with intention, ya got me?

I find it weird knowing those words when I didn’t mean to learn any of them intentionally. I just kinda did. I frequently find myself feeling like I’m using some of the words inaccurately. Like I’m pretty sure I’m using them wrong.

So I googol them just to make sure I’m still accurate.

I hate using the word googol for search. But “I search for them” just… sigh.

I often find that I have indeed used a word accurately. Which just feels great immediately after that moment of uncertainty.

There are those moments though, where damn I feel the fool. Those moments where I missed something that I might not have years upon years ago. Those moments where I said something with such confidence, but such inaccuracy, that it was a bit like watching some dude on a bike hitting a deer stunned in the headlights of another person driving a scooter with a broken bright white LED light.

Those are the moments that I have to think are the funniest ones of all.

The spectacular fuckups.

It’s not that they’re funny. Not at all. But whatever had happened was so emotionally charged that the only way I could process it was by laughing at the absurdity of everything.

But even if I do do that. Heh. Do do. I still do make an effort to relay accurate information as fast as I possibly fucking can.

Which sometimes means fact checking myself in real time if I’m feeling uncertain.

Which is really easy to do in this new teleconference first world.