Overload

Wow.  Sorry about the lack of posts this week, but it's been pretty much non-stop for the crisis team. I hear the emergency pagers for hours after leaving work and a few of my co-workers admit to having strange dreams about work.  My theory is that people in the NW cannot handle the massive dose of sunshine we got all last week.  Vitamin D toxicity or something.

Gah!  Make it stop! Bring back the rain!

There area lot of theories abounding the office regarding why this is the case. While it is only an urban legend that things get worse on a full moon, it is pretty reliable that sunshine brings out the mania. Winter has its own defense mechanism really. Depressed people have no energy, and all but the most psychotic recognize the wisdom of maintaining shelter. An uptick in energy with an unstable mental state is dangerous. The depressed have energy to act on dangerous thoughts and those who live only in the present moment have no external reminders to keep them grounded to the more practical needs of life.


Honestly, who knows if any of these theories are real though. One of the flaws of advanced human existence is ascribing meaning to things that have none. Cognitive biases are the shortcuts that allow us to worry about things like tax season rather than food and shelter. In many ways, it's what makes us human.  We try to find patterns in life since once one is identified, life becomes more manageable.  The calendar is a great example of this.  On the flip side, we have the Gambler's Fallacy, a phenomenon where people will attempt to ascribe a pattern to a random system, ultimately resulting in failure.

One way or another, that pager has to slow down soon, since I'm to the point that sacrificing a chicken to Imbroglio, the balding and panic ridden God of Crises is looking pretty appealing now. (Thankfully Imbroglio is almost always distracted and won't notice if you eat the chicken later.)