Well, It's Been a Pure Delight ...

[Path Maker]

being up since 3 a.m. with tinnitus. Just one of those nights (they're becoming less frequent, but still give me a "wake-up call" from time to time ... ).

Soooo ...

I ate a second dinner.

I hung out on Tinnitus Talk and communed with people who are SUPPOSED to be awake, on the flip side of the globe.

I woke my cats up for once, instead of the other way around ... heh, heh, heh (always dreamed of doing this to my adored-and-very-sleep-disruptive furry little wonders ).

Made a good strong cup of chamomile tea.

Tossed out some sunflower seeds for the cardinals waaaaaaaay earlier than usual (5:30 a.m. here, now).

And ...

I shall now attempt to get a couple of hours of SLEEP.

As a side effect of being awake from ear stuff, I will say that the dawn is very pretty. The silver lining. Which, actually, in the eastern skies this morning, is a muted peachy-pearl hue.

And the hungry birds are descending for their feast.

Good morning, Tinnitus Talk! And good evening, Tinnitus Talk! Wherever you are ...

 

[Sara_Bond]

Thank you @Path Maker !

Hope you'll have some sleep. It's noon and time to go to eat. Enjoy dawn time!

 

[IreneO]

I like your attitude, @Path Maker Enjoy your snooze!

 

[glynis]

@Path Maker,
Hope you got some sleep last night.
I ended up listening to sound therapy as could not sleep at all.....lots of love glynis

 

[Dana]

@Path Maker
Yeah, if you think about it a bit, tinnitus has silver linings, some of them not even discovered yet, delights in the purest form that only we, the T sufferers have, such as:
1) the regret that other people have, that "we will die one day": solved
2) the guilt of indulging in longer sleeps: solved
3) never being alone anymore ever: solved (T = the most faithful companion)
4) finding lots of interesting things about how the auditory system works, while others die in ignorance: solved
5) stop living like idiots, with the naive idea that the medical establishment and health organisations give a damn about the sufferers they are paid to take care of: solved
6) detecting in a flash which people in your entourage were faking to be your friends: solved
7) ceasing regarding erroneously the doctors like they are some all-knowing Gods and discovering how little they know, in reality: solved
Etc, etc, etc

 

[Path Maker]

@Dana Ah, the things tinnitus "solves"!

Of your entire list, the one that continues to spin my head is Number 4: I now have an advanced diploma from the Acme Home Study Course of Internet Neurotology!!!

See!!! Here it is ... hanging invisibly on the interior wall of my brain!!!

I can hear your applause ... or is that just ... tinnitus clapping???

Actually, I will put two things on a positive list:

1) I have discovered tai chi and I am loving it.

2) Although I've always been a compassionate person, having this has deepened and widened that enormously. Right now, at this very moment, there are people all over this earth posting in similar forums for medical conditions that are just awful. How can you live with tinnitus and not become a lot more aware of and compassionate for, all the people who suffer from so much in this life?

And be so grateful for the sharing and courage and strength we all give to each other?

 

[Path Maker]

@Sara_Bond Thanks! I did get some sleep, finally. Threw off the timing for today, but at least I was able to re-set, a bit. It's now 1:30 p.m. and I'm having a nice big bowl of ... BREAKFAST!

@IreneO Thank you, all the way over in Ireland! I came, I saw, (I rang), I snoozed. Feeling much better now!

@glynis I hope you finally got some sleep too???

@Dana It IS great to know who our real friends are.

 

[jeanoroid]

My ears blast sonic waves of shrill horror but I still manage to conk out in about 10 minutes.
Wasn't always that way though. What I've done in recent years is instead of thinking about this and that when the lights go off - I instead try to mentally write a continuing story.
It's distracting and incredibly boring. I've been writing the story mentally for years and probably have thought out 10 minutes worth of story. I start out by re-covering established ground. I rarely make it past that point.

And if I need to I'll take a Dramamine "less drowsy" OTC. It works pretty much every time..

 

[LadyDi]

Great post, @Path Maker. Made my day. I tend to get very panicky when I cant sleep (not sleeping, not sleeping, OMG how am I gonna work tomorrow NOT SLEEPING!!!). All of which makes it worse.

Next time, I intend to look at the positives.

 

[Dana]

I can hear your applause ... or is that just ... tinnitus clapping?

No, no, do not worry, you did not get another T sound. It was a real external noise this time, me clapping for your acquiring of that diploma, as a member of the Academy of Tinnitus Sufferers, the only Academy that acknowledges and truly knows how to appreciate your research/studies.

 

[Path Maker]

@jeanoroid I like the idea of the unending boring story. Wish I could get my rambling mind to do that! I'll have to invent one ...

@LadyDi I love the kitty with the quill pen! And today, I was lucky, as I didn't have work. The days with work are harder ones. Still, even before tinnitus, when I sometimes had trouble with waking and getting back to sleep, there was always a point at which giving up and getting up, to read, have tea, etc., just made better sense and MIGHT get me relaxed enough to lay down again. So yeah, next time it happens to you, just make a little party for yourself.

 

[Path Maker]

@Dana Why, thank you for your real (externally located) clapping.

It sounds so much better than the non-stop car alarm that just went off in my neighborhood (I don't have to get up and look out the window to predict that there are NOT ten concerned neighbors all rushing to the aid of said "car about to be NOT stolen, with its peace-disturbing 'theft-deterrent' blaring away);

it sounds so much better than the gas-powered leaf blowers (I thought there was WIND for that) that erupt all over the neighborhood each spring like psychotic locusts of compulsive cleanliness;

it sounds SO SO SO much better than "subjective amygdala-generated fight-or-flight clapping" mixed with illusory crickets, invisible ocean tides, truly no-see-um no-see-ums, and other assorted tinnitical wonders.

And now, back to the internet

Well, no, not really. It's a beautiful day out, and I intend to go submerse myself in it. You all have a great day too.

 

[Mario martz]

PathMaker!
im glad you were able to enjoy your night!!
sorry for not reply your last message, i felt asleep!
hahaha

 

[Path Maker]

@Mario martz Hey!! Are you the famous Sleep Thief, who flies by night, soaking up the hours from poor fools like me?!?!

 

[Andunwoody]

@jeanoroid I thought it was just me that 'wrote' a story to get off to sleep. In the hope that I might having a bestseller on my hands I tried to commit mine to paper......turns out it really is a boring story .

 

[jeanoroid]

@jeanoroid I thought it was just me that 'wrote' a story to get off to sleep. In the hope that I might having a bestseller on my hands I tried to commit mine to paper......turns out it really is a boring story .

I'm sure it's not so boring... Fleshing out details is the hardest part I think. Especially when I keep falling asleep while doing it.
I'll spare the details but my story is about a guy names Ptam who has lived for 4000 years and cannot die. He can be awake for thirty years in a row but must sleep for ten so he can regenerate. He spends a lot of his waking time finding a safe place to hibernate undisturbed. He had a female companion who was the same but her "schedule" got out sync with his and they lost each other for the last 1000 years.
He reaches a point in the future where humanity is disappearing because the maximum age any person can live to is 18 - rendering humans into unspeaking savages and eventually the end of the human race - but of course we find out the reason Ptam and his partner ever existed was to reboot humanity after such an event.
Will he ever find her?
Who knows...

 

[Path Maker]

Um, @jeanoroid ??? As a writer, I can tell you that you have a first-rate concept there. Write it while you're awake and get it published!!!

 

[Cillian]

@Path Maker i bet your cats help you when struggling with T id be lost without my two dogs

 

[Path Maker]

@Cillian They sure do! Animals are the best! I can't imagine life without them. So much love and joy both ways!! I love dogs too. Glad you've got yours! (But I do admit - my cats wake me up more than the tinnitus ).

 

[Cillian]

@Path Maker I've always wanted a cat but I think my dogs would go nuts haha

Here is my Japanese spitz it's late in Ireland so she is a sleep but she's loves being next to me

 

[Path Maker]

@Cillian Wow, she's so beautiful!! THAT is the definition of FLUFFY!!!

 

[Cillian]

@Path Maker she is a ball of fluff she sheads her fur a lot and the house is destroyed and your clothes are covered but it's worth it

 

[jeanoroid]

Um, @jeanoroid ??? As a writer, I can tell you that you have a first-rate concept there. Write it while you're awake and get it published!!!

If my book could be four pages I think might be able to get it done!
Seriously though, it's presenting dialog and thoughts in comprehensive, understandable fashion that has always eluded me. I've read a few books that had good stories, but didn't have that part correct and made it difficult to read..

 

[Dana]

@jeanoroid

...Will he ever find her?
Who knows...

Now you do have to finish it! To hell with "the dialogue", especially that Ptam is either sleeping or too tired to speak intelligibly, you can lose his female companion on page one, and the rest of the humans become gradually unspeaking savages, so you have an excuse for it not being so "comprehensive", but i just have to find out how it ends, man: you left me breathless (now i remained in apnea...that on top of my T condition).

 

[Dana]

Awesome picture. The captured concentration, the tension...especially at the one in the middle. I bet it was taken right after a car alarm went off. Unlike you, they did not become as blasé as you re alarms and they look for the car stealer. Hey, you never know!

 

[jeanoroid]

@jeanoroid

Now you do have to finish it! To hell with the dialogue, especially that the characters (the rest of the humans) become gradually unspeaking savages, so you have an excuse for it not being so comprehensive, but i just have to find out how it ends: you left me breathless (now I remained in apnea...on top of my T condition).

Haha thanks!
I got infatuated with the idea of Ptam recognizing the beginnings of the apocalyptic end as out of nowhere the world realized there were no people older than 80, and in a couple of years nobody older than 65. That's when calamity takes hold. Within a decade nobody can live past 18. The age decline stops there - but at 18 how fast does the population practically dwindle to nothing?
You assume at best a person can only be a parent for maybe 6 years - and pretty quick you'd have generation turnover where cumulative human knowledge is completely forgotten. I'd have to assume humanity itself couldn't survive for more than a couple decades.
Ptam would then travel the dead world in hopes of finding the only other undying person. TV tells me roadways and cars etc are no longer viable a couple years after humanity ends. The world eventually returns to unnavigable maze of jungles, desert and rust. Bound to a single continent.
Ptam is bound to the idea that he only exists for this one purpose of reviving humanity and without his predestined parter - who may or may not be accessible or even alive how will he achieve salvation?
I have envisioned that he goes some dark places in his mind as to how to achieve this.

 

[Dana]

I got infatuated with the idea of Ptam recognizing the beginnings of the apocalyptic end as out of nowhere the world realized there were no people older than 80, and in a couple of years nobody older than 65. That's when calamity takes hold. Within a decade nobody can live past 18. The age decline stops there - but at 18 how fast does the population practically dwindle to nothing?
You assume at best a person can only be a parent for maybe 6 years - and pretty quick you'd have generation turnover where cumulative human knowledge is completely forgotten. I'd have to assume humanity itself couldn't survive for more than a couple decades.
Ptam would then travel the dead world in hopes of finding the only other undying person. TV tells me roadways and cars etc are no longer viable a couple years after humanity ends. The world eventually returns to unnavigable maze of jungles, desert and rust. Bound to a single continent.
Ptam is bound to the idea that he only exists for this one purpose of reviving humanity and without his predestined parter - who may or may not be accessible or even alive how will he achieve salvation?
I have envisioned that he goes some dark places in his mind as to how to achieve this.

Now that's what I call a good science fiction book. I have resumed my breathing now, but I remained with some palpitations.
I so relate to the main character, Ptam, going to some dark places in his mind as to how to achieve salvation. That's what I do daily in my mind hoping to find my salvation from my tinnitus.
A best-seller, I'm telling ya!

 

[Mario martz]

hahhaa i like this thread, we have some many things in common when i cant sleep i start to make up stories of my friends, and my beautiful dog is always by my side.
great post path maker

 

[jeanoroid]

Now that's what I call a good science fiction book. I have resumed my breathing now, but I remained with some palpitations.
I so relate to the main character, Ptam, going to some dark places in his mind as to how to achieve salvation. That's what I do daily in my mind hoping to find my salvation from my tinnitus.
A best-seller, I'm telling ya!

Don't tell anyone but the "P" is silent. Pronounced "Tom". This gets him out of a jam at some point because in this world there is a famous book ancient called The Unending Lives of Ptam and Ptula.. The world thinks its a fable - and only a select few know the truth and how to pronounce the names should it become essential to give up the jig..

So silly, I know.. My "headbook"

 

[Dana]

@jeanoroid

Ptam is bound to the idea that he only exists for this one purpose of reviving humanity

And I am bound to the idea that I only existed to save humanity from the horrible condition called "tinnitus", finding a cure for it. Getting tinnitus myself, I believe, happened to stay motivated!

So silly, I know.. My "headbook"

Do not laugh at Ptam! You laugh at him, you laugh at me!