Self-care

There are some terms that you simply cannot help but chuckle when you hear them. Innocent terms like ‘pulled pork’, or common phrases like ‘polishing the Kaiser’s helmet’ contain sublimated double entendres which the brain cannot ignore.  Such is the case with the term ‘self-care’. In fact the first few times I heard the term, I thought the person saying it was literally referring to the onanistic arts without even the smokescreen of a euphemism.  Of course, self-care is only partly about rubbing one off, and or out.

In order to understand the full girth of what self-care is, we must first take a look at where it came from.  Millennials, defined by science as the generation born after drugs became harmful and before computers became cool, are the tallest generation in history.  With all this height comes a lot of stress.  Millennials are thus, not only the tallest generation they are also the most anxious.

Unlike their parents, millennials are raised to see their towering stature as a ‘privilege’ which is why you don’t ever hear millennials complain. So, where as their parents’ generation might have used complaining, alongside ‘buying rental properties’ and ‘The Beatles’ as an outlet to relieve stress, Millennials prefer other outlets.

These outlets might include ‘making short and pointless ‘Vines”, ‘growing a beard’, or ‘talking about being a vegan’.  Stress relief might also might involve doing little things for one’s self that makes one’s day a little bit brighter and thus releases a little of that pent up tension.

Drinking and taking drugs

Beer.

The most common form of self-care is still ‘getting wasted by yourself.’  Alcohol is probably the most convenient and accessible way to do this, but pretty much any intoxicating substance will do.  As long as said intoxicant moves you from the state of ‘being anxious and/or stressed’ to the state of ‘closing off, or befuddling, the parts of the brain which generate these responses to the point where the brain no longer remembers to be anxious and/or stressed’ it will enable you to do self-care.

I like to incorporate drinking into other activities to enhance the self-care capabilities of alcohol, so I sit in the dark sending cryptic text messages to people.   The sensory deprivation of the darkness, the intoxicating effects of the alcohol, and the delicate mental gymnastics of coming up with bizarre non sequiturs to text to people is like a massage for the soul.

Now, I know what you’re saying “But doesn’t this encourage dangerous behaviour?”

To this I answer: “yes”

I also hear you saying, this time in a silly high-pitched whinny: “But I get high on life”.  Well my answer to this is “No you don’t; that’s not a thing.”

So go ahead and sooth your soul and expand your mind. Expand it so widely that it expands all the way out your mouth and all over the table in KFC.

Irritating people

They say that a trouble shared is a trouble halved. Well, the same Dearest Reader, applies to anxiety and irritation.  What you’ll find is, if you are feeling a bit annoyed yourself, annoying someone will make you feel a bit better and annoying everyone will make you feel great.

Irritating people is actually very easy.  This is because most people have very thin-skins and are basically powder-kegs of explosive rage. This of course, makes it all the more fun.  The best kind of ‘irritating people’ is the sort where it isn’t instantly obvious that it is intentional.  This way, people can’t rage at you and must simply turn the rage in on themselves, seething until they develop an ulcer.  This is the best outcome because no-one punches you.

Try ‘whistling tunelessly’ – whistling is basically the most casually irritating thing you can do without props.

Try ‘making clicking sounds with your tongue on the bus’

If you live in a flat with somewhat priggish house-mates, try ‘going to the toilet with the door open’.

You could even try ‘replying to everything someone says with “really?” but in a funny voice so the person you are speaking to can’t quite work out if you’re mocking them or not’.

Twitter

We’ve already talked about masturbation, but there is actually more than one way to ‘grease the family pig’. Obviously, sexually gratifying oneself manually is a good time and all, but what about the Choking the Chicken…of the mind?

We have discussed Twitter, or ‘cheep-cheep’ as it is often known, in a previous weblog bulletin but not in depth and we didn’t discuss strategies for using it.

Rather than using Twitter to read about important things babyboomers are doing, or keeping abreast of the latest pop music, Millennials seldom look at the ‘timeline’ area of Twitter at all; instead they simply stare at their own profiles while posting things as they come to mind.    This release acts as a type of self-care in both the double and single entendre senses of the term.  These are the three main ways to use Twitter for self care:

Non-specifically Positive Tweets referring to real, imagined or anticipated but equally non-specific achievements. Such as finding a sex partner or swimming with dolphins

Equally non-specific vague and cryptic Tweets designed to hint at menace but not really . Designed to make real or imagined enemies or people who corrected your grammar ask “was it something *I* did?”

Tweets telling everyone still up that you are going to quit Twitter. You have better things to do. Etc. And you’ll really do it this time.

Go to the gym

It’s 4AM, everything is shut, but there’s a vending machine at the gym.  They have those weird biscuits you like. Well, you don’t like them per se, but you will eat them.