I tested how long you can ignore an itch until it goes away.

50 minutes of intense I need to itch it now discomfort. After that there was some throbbing but enough to ignore.

I have an itchy foot, at least that is how I refer to it. I first noticed the itchyness after a week at the lake summer 2012. I was positive that I had athletes foot and went to the doctor insisting to be treated for athletes foot. The doctor sent me to the drugstore to buy Eucerine cream and Cortisone cream and make a 50/50 mixture to apply when my foot felt itchy. I also used a foot spray designed for athletes foot and bought new shoes.

5 years later, summer 2017 and I still have an itchy foot. A doctor once told me it was foot eczema and that isthe most reasonable explanation I have. All I know is that it doesn’t feel better unless I itch it.

And I have itched between my toes until they become raw. It feels so good in the moment but as soon as I stop once I’ve itched too much it stings. I have taken off my shoes in the most inconvenient times just to satisfy the itch like in the bathroom, while driving, while walking, while exercising, really whenever I have the urge to itch and it can come on at any moment of the day. My favorite technique to itch is to take off my sock and rub between my toes like flossing teeth and it feels heavenly. It also gives me rug burn between my toes which is not heavenly.

I tried not itching today because I rubbed my feet raw earlier in the week and I was at work, in the middle of a task and thought how absurd it was that I felt the need to stop everything (doing my job) to itch my foot. I also don’t have anti itch creams available while I’m on my feet at work not to mention taking off my shoe is unsanitary. So I waited it out. After 5 minutes I was ready to give up but I’ve been working on self control lately and I made the decision not to itch so I was going to stick it out. Here I am 3 hours later feeling perfectly fine because I resisted the urge to itch.

In the future will I stop itching? No way I’m going to stop itching my foot because it feels so good but I’m going to try to itch less and hope that I don’t go crazy in the process.

Solipsism

Today I want to write about solipsism. The official definition of solipsism is “the view or theory that the self is all that can be known to exist”.

I was on YouTube looking at trending videos to watch and saw these two

https://youtu.be/tlTKTTt47WE

https://youtu.be/3d9i_0Ty7Cg

Which reignites a question I’ve asked myself since I can remember. How do I know what someone else’s world looks like through their eyes?

Short answer: I don’t.

It started with my brother. The first time I can remember asking this question was when I was in elementary school. It was an evening where I was playing with my brother on the swingset in the backyard. I had no idea how to formulate this question into words. I remember asking “What is it like to be a boy?” and he answered something generic like about his feelings. I don’t remember his answer exactly because it wasn’t an answer I was looking for.

I have been scared to ask anyone to their face because I’m afraid of the possibility that the answer I fear actually exists.

As a young kid, the closest thing that I got to an answer was an episode of Arthur where the entire viewpoint of the episode is through Arthur’s eyes. That was the first hint that someone else looks at the world similar to me.

I’ve always had issues with the phrase “the world doesn’t revolve around you”. For all I know it does. For all I know, the people around me and that have relationships with me were brought to me for a reason. For all I know, entertainment is created for my pleasure only. For all I know, current events and world disasters never existed, I am only made to believe that they did.

Where did I event get the thought of solipsism?

There has always been authority figures in my life giving me rules and monitoring my actions, especially as a young kid. Growing up I have lost some of that authority as I take it on myself. It is a scary thing to be in charge but what if I never was in charge. That there is always a higher authority monitoring my actions.

For all I know I’m living in a game where I’m waiting for the moment when I make the right decision and win. The moment where I am removed from this reality and brought into another. The moment where the higher authority is revealed.

The higher authority sounds familiar to a God and where my concious thoughts blur into my Christianity practices.

I was born and raised a Christian in the United Methodist church. I grew up in Sunday school classrooms where I was taught to love one another and the golden rule “do unto others as you wish others do unto you”. These are things that I believe because I was told that they are fact. The bible is a word I believe because I was told to believe and everyone around me believed. That doesn’t mean it’s true.

The concept of heaven as an afterlife is similar to my game theory. I you are a moral, God abiding citizen you will gain access to heaven in the afterlife. If you are a bad person on earth your acceptance to heaven will be denied and you will be sent to hell. If I win I will go to heaven as the church says. If I lose I will go to hell. I want to win, I believe in the church, and I will follow their path to heaven.

I’m also shown the people that don’t believe in the church or an afterlife. The people that joke that they are going to hell not that they believe that they will but because others believe it to be fact. I’m shown other religions that believe different things. I am given the option to convert religions and believe what I want to believe. I am told that I have the option to treat others any way I want and I have a number of people sampling that in my life through my relationships to them and their relationships to others. For all I know, my feelings are the only feelings that exist.

Watching these videos today reignited the question of what I have been feeling since I can remember and put words to express my feelings aloud. It gave me the urge to write it down not that someone else will read but to form cohesive thoughts and put my questions into words.

This is probably a jumbled mess of ideas and thoughts that I may revisit and organize in the future but nonetheless thoughts I want to send into the world that I have not had the courage to speak aloud.