Answer to Pascal's Wager

This was written for my philosophy class, Knowledge and Reality, in November 2011.

Blaise Pascal, in his famous wager on the belief in God, gave credibility to the reasoning of a man pursuant of eternal happiness. However, in the centuries that followed the publication of Pensées, where the wager was explained, many philosophers have offered critiques of his reasoning. I have compiled some of these critiques and will organize these by asking some fundamental questions about Pascal’s Wager, of his argument’s validity and soundness. Of first concern however, is the actual wager.

The Wager explained

Pascal’s Wager is a common argument for belief in the existence of God. It is simply stated as the combination of two choices, one of belief in God and the other of possible afterlives. Pascal argues from his cultural heritage of Christianity, so the deity he speaks of is the Christian one and the afterlives he speaks of are also Christian. Pascal argues that, since reason cannot give a sure answer to the question of the existence of God, we are left with only the possibility of God existing and of God not existing. Since we cannot know anything about the probability of either outcome, we must give equal chance to both – a 50% chance to each. He further argues that if God exists, then there is a choice between believing and not believing, and the corresponding infinitely happy or infinitely unhappy afterlives. He describes the possible outcomes of our belief in God and of God’s actual existence, describing four possible situations which are as follows:

1. God exists and you believe in him and you are eternally happy in Heaven, 
2. God exists and you don’t believe in him and you are eternally unhappy in Hell, 
3. God does not exist but you do believe, and you lose some happiness to be gained in this life by unbelief but gained nothing in eternity, and 
4. God do not exist and you do not believe, in which case you’ve gained some happiness through a life of unbelief and lost nothing in eternity. 

Pascal goes on to defend his view against possible criticism. He says the choice is unavoidable, and must be made. There is no middle or other ground, there is only belief and unbelief. He exhorts the reader to believe because the consequences of disbelief have the potential to be so terrible and the consequences of belief have the potential to be so great.

Pascal concludes by saying that if one is naturally and through reason an opponent to belief, one should put all effort into belief. He says that the heart should be the source of belief, since reason cannot help us decide. He reiterates that reason cannot answer the question of belief, and that the heart should answer it using faith. Thus, Pascal lays out a claim that since we cannot know by reason, we should know by faith.

Is Pascal’s argument Valid and Sound?

Several answers have been given to Pascal’s argument over the centuries, most of which have attacked it’s soundness. Now, for an argument to be sound, the conclusion must follow from the premises and the premises must be true. Pascal’s argument is this:

1. God exists or does not exist,
2. You must believe either that God exists or that he does not,
3. The benefits of belief and being right outweigh the benefits of disbelief and being right, so
4. Therefore, believe that he exists – the potential for reward is infinitely greater. 

Does the conclusion follow from the premises? I believe so. But is this argument sound? Are the premises and conclusion true? Let us examine each premise.

Criticism has been made of the first premise, that God exists or does not. Pascal assumes that there can be only one god and that that god is the Christian one. He is really saying “if there is a god, it’s the Christian monotheistic one.” It is possible, however, that the Christian god does not exist but some other single deity does. It is also possible that multiple gods exist. Another of Pascal’s assumptions is that God and the afterlife are inseparably linked. However, there could be a god and no afterlife, and vice-versa. These seem to go together, but lacking any evidence of the supernatural, we cannot know.

The second premise is that we must make a choice. This is harder to question, but there is one situation, at least, where we may draw questions. Pascal, in this premise, is speaking to those who are conscious enough to know there is a choice. What is to be said of babies, who do not have the ability to consider this question? What is to be said of those ignorant of the idea of god? There do exist human beings who cannot make a choice, whether due to their ignorance of it or their inability to process it.

The third premise is that our choice should be made by a weighing of the benefits of each outcome This is, in my mind, near impossible to attack. Pascal argues that we cannot know one way or another that god exists, leaving us without an angle to work with. There is no knowledge possible, only belief. Therefore, we must choose whatever alternative is best. Pascal exhorts us to reason with our hearts rather than our logic, because the usual, logical approach to philosophical questions is useless here.

Now what can be said about the conclusion? If the premises are unknowable, can the conclusion remain sound? It is not so. Pascal’s Wager is a very good way of explaining the merits of belief if only one faith is concerned – the Christian faith. But we face a more complicated decision. There is more than one god to choose to believe in, and belief in any one god makes belief in another impossible. Should the god most likely to exist be chosen? How are the religions to be judged for potential universal truth? Should the god who offers the happiest afterlife be chosen? How are we to know what will make us most happy? These questions touch on our hopeless ignorance on the possibility of a god’s existence as well as on our ignorance of the potential deity’s attributes.

Is manufactured belief better than none at all?

Robert Green Ingersol wrote another critical reply in Some Reasons Why (1881). He said “Belief is not a voluntary thing. A man believes or disbelieves in spite of himself, they tell us that to believe is the safe way; but I say, the safe way is to be honest. Nothing can be safer than that.” He promotes the idea that humans cannot change their minds to believe a thing they think unbelievable, and that it is better to be honest than dishonest, even for the sake of eternal personal gain. Extrapolated from here is the belief that a just god would more reward honesty than dishonesty, even if the dishonesty promoted belief. Pascal answers this to some extent by saying that one should, given the possible outcomes, pretend to believe and strive to believe, and by striving to believe, to eventually convince oneself. I have actually seen this in practice, at a church. In this church, I was told that one could know the truth by studying the truth, and that this was more effective a method than any method which studied falsehood. They likened this argument to the experience of a bank teller, who, after handling thousands of real, legitimate bills, could easily spot a counterfeit. By focusing on truth, they shunned alternatives and put blinders on their minds, seeing only what agreed with their values. The faith they had was great in direct proportion to their blindness to anything critical of their faith, and they succeeded in convincing themselves of the existence of God and Heaven. In this way they used Pascal’s method of creating genuine belief and were entirely honest in believing their belief to be true. They made no false claims, but they did fail to fully utilize their intelligence and so limited their ability to find truth.

We have explored Pascal’s Wager and the several answers which have been made to it. Some have indicated that the choice to believe in God or not to believe in God is a false dichotomy, that there is another option of multiple gods existing, not just one or none. Another criticism is that God and an afterlife do not need to coexist – there could be one without the other. These criticisms address the truth of Pascal’s premises and indicate more possibilities than Pascal anticipated. We have found that his argument, though valid, is not sound.

Flowery Language for Flowers

I wrote this piece for a horticulture class taught by Dr. Alex Niemiera in Fall 2011. I tried to be flowery in language. 

In a small town near Philadelphia I held a shrub trial of grand proportions. Or at least it started out that way. Fortune, for a shrub in my trial, was fickle, their most universal attribute being eventual death. My story is of the survivors, those hardy species which, though dealt the blows of capricious climate, were able to eke out a living under the vicissitudes of my premeditated culture. And all of this took place in that little town near Philadelphia, more known for the devourers of the dead[1] than horticulture village known as Kennett Square.

My intentions were admirable. Scientific progress would be made; the knowledge of mankind would be increased. The goal was simple – to determine the hardiness and ornamental performance of diverse shrubby plants. Hundreds were to be planted and observed, and manpower[2] was summoned. Into the deep my research subjects went, half-buried in the crumbly soil of an old cornfield, their verdant exterior at times muddied with that grime which makes agricultural livelihoods. ‘Twas no small task, my shovelbearers strained to thrust yet purer iron into the already iron-rich soil, pocking the ancient grounds with their implements. When all were planted, diverse species were arrayed in threes, huddled together, each with their own kind, each sharing the same future. As one entity the subjects of my noble experiment aspired to scientific relevance, and, unified, the toil of my project’s initiation was completed. 

The subjects were watered in for the first year, I looked kindly on them in their youth. After this first year, however, my compassion dried up. The flush of youthful vigor which had flown into each tenant seemed a dim memory of a vibrant past, and the field now slowed in phenological pace, stepping in time with the rain and sun nature saw fit. The peaks of color now segregated and the species emerged from deliberate cultivation distinct in form and seasonal pace. I now traversed the meadow regularly, no longer searching for the pangs of transplant stress, but for the seasonal vapors of botanical attraction. Initially I noticed an abundance of brightness, but with each passing season the remnant, incrementally weaned of runts, developed a habitual seasonality and consistent genetic identity. What had been a vast plain brimming with diversity was now a desolate desert lodged with the carcasses reaped of my insufficient care. The sole survivors were cultivars of Japanese Meadowsweet, Spiraea japonica, which hid in the crepuscular shadows of overgrown weeds. Spiraea japonica, with the hubris of a woody perennial, stood unrivaled in a field of invasive annuals. Some sixty individuals of indomitable spirit persisted, detailing the conclusion of my monument to horticultural trial. I remembered the dead properly, each memorialized in sporadic notations; each observed in the height of life and in the acme of vigor. My record, now and forever, details too the decline and demise of each individual, and of the unique struggles of each with the droughts and bracing winds of Kennett Square’s meteorological penury. 

I rambled through the grounds of the trial in recent months, touched by the utter absence of cultivation. All the unworthy plants, those whose independence from culture could not be maintained, expired long ago. Their skeletons litter the field in the rows they were confined to. Occasionally I chance upon a set of fresh dug holes, also in neat rows. These voids mark the absence of a survivor – a specimen which has been paroled from the yard, given to a friend. Each has a new master and a new purpose. Having paid its debt to me, each individual is now laid to rest in a more permanent and hospitable landscape. In this way the field becomes holey ground, a hazard for sandaled feet and weak ankles. Soon my plough with erase all memory of the trials, blotting out my toil of years forever. All that is left to me is the data, the ghost which haunts with tales of seasonal variation and growth. It will be sufficient.

[1] Mushrooms, of course.
[2] Just manpower. No women were tired in the production of this scientific study.

Urban Dictionary on Education

Everyday, millions of children march to school with drudgery and resistance. As young children, they go in open-hearted and free -- at night, they imagine that their tiny hands can reach up and touch the birds. The entire world is a new place and the fascination of beauty never subsides. But as older adolescents leaving their high school, they go close-minded and bondaged -- at night, they drink themselves into passing out and talk about the most popular thing to come, under obligation. The boys worry about their sexual conquests. The girls worry about their sexual appearance. Both worry about being social in a society that has made a weakness of kindness and an insult of emotion. Such a great change occurs between those who enter school and those who leave it. 

Just think of the sheer idiocy of compulsary education. We threaten these children with imprisonment if they do not appear in class. Once in class, they spend their time either sleeping or completing tasks that are completely irrelevant to them. By giving them no option in their schooling, what have we taught them? The first lesson they learn is to detest learning. Take any man, put him in chains, and force him to recite poetry, or force him to play an instrument, or force him to farm the land -- and once he becomes a free man, do you think he will want to engage in that activity that was forced upon him? The scars on a slaves hands from working the fields, the memories of abuse of a house servant; given the right to do as they wish in the world, is it likely to think that they will return to that work which they were forced to do? And then consider schools. We force children to sit and overfeed them erroneous facts, faulty logic, damaged reasoning, concealed under the guise of "schooling." Once the mental faculties of these children are damaged, their heart grows an animosity towards learning, towards books, towards facts and knowledge. It is the greatest folly to make children hate learning, and the greatest danger to a real, living Democracy in any nation.

Because when the Red Sox win a baseball game, five universities in the state of Massachussetts riot. But when the United States regime supports a South American dictator known for slaughtering his own people, it's a whisper lost in the wind.

Our ignorance is their power.

Real knowledge is acquired by learning what interests you, through reading, investigation, practice, or any other desirable method. To become intelligent, you must engage in activity with the idea that are you learning because you want to, because knowledge is a goal. The path to conformity varies greatly from this. First, you engage in nothing, but allow cultural standards and social obligations to control you. Second, the idea of learning is to memorize random, perhaps unrelated and blatant facts -- true or untrue -- so that they may be recited upon command. Third, the goal is not knowledge, but a passing grade; they learn to for the sake of knowledge, but rather for the sake of social acceptance.

Take two children. Give the first freedom and liberty, give him a wealth of books and movies, give him teachers to aid him upon his request and a place that encourages art, creativity, and independence. Then take away the freedom and liberty of the second, require his presence in a classroom in front of a teacher, threaten him with a jail sentence if he does not go to his school. Give each of them ten or fifteen years, and check the development of each of them after this amount of time. The only forced to endure slavery may be able to stand in a lecture hall and he might be able to say to you, "George Washington was born in 1732 and died in 1799. In 1776, the Revolutionary War began where he acted as general. In 1783, it ended. In 1789, he was elected president a first time, and in 1792, he was elected president a second time." You are given dates and events, surely, it is true history. But take the child who was given freedom to do as he pleased, and he might be able to stand in a lecture hall and tell you, "In the sixteenth century, in Europe, a Spanish physician by the name of Michael Servetus was convicted of heresy by the Roman Catholic Church. Fleeing from his oppressors, he made it to Geneva, where the vindictive John Calvin had absolute authority. In earlier years, Servetus expressed his doubt on Calvin's protestant religion. Once captured by the authorities, Servetus was burned to death at the orders of John Calvin in 1533. They had him wear a hat of sulphur and used slow-burning wood, that the crowd could listen to screams for mercy for the duration of a half hour. One year after the death of this man, Calvin published a list of insults of his former enemy."

Be a rebel. Because being a conformist means admitting that the parts of you that matter are already dead.

But if that's the case, what does matter? The emotions that run rampant through our head, the thoughts that we tumble and toss over in our minds constantly -- sexual fantasies to memories of our friends and family, thoughts and ideas about our future, wishes and desires for our current life with those who are close to us. The idea of a living freedom, knowing that what you wish to do believe with your mind is unrestricted and what you wish to do with your body, so long as you harm none, is unlimited. Life matters to us because we make it matter; if we never told a lover we would miss them upon our departure for a long voyage, if we never told a family member that we dream of a time when oppression ended, if we never wrote a poem and hoped to give it to a friend whose face we haven't seen in years -- if we never cared about life, then life wouldn't matter. What matters is what we make matter. So in a few years, all the kids who graduate from high school will know that their grades never mattered, because even though so young, they already know that it won't be the grades they got that they think about upon their death bed.

Twenty years ago the textbooks used in history class just began to cover some of the issues of the four hundred years of oppression of the African race in this country.

Children who are forced into a school and forced to complete erroneous assignments learn only one thing: to hate education. I clearly demonstrated this truth earlier, but there is more to be learned from it. Take a slave. It could be a slave from any society, whether an African in colonial America or a Plebeian in the Roman Empire. For the entirety of their life, they labor. Their sweat, their tears, their blood, the biproducts of their toil seep into the ground and their garments. All they produce goes to the one who did not labor. Inside every slave, there will be a growing hatred of their activity as a servant, a farmer, a manufacturer -- they will learn to hate what has been forced upon them without their consent. But inside some of them, there will be the kindling of hope for a dream. One day, they will hope to produce for themselves, knowing that what their hands reap will be what fills their stomach, and not the stomach belonging to idle hands. So, too, it is with our compulsary education. The more we are forced into schools and our minds filled with useless facts, the stronger our thirst grows for real education, for real knowledge. Few are like this, but we exist. Others simply remain politically and emotionally sedated, as the focus of their mind is the next test or the next prom, and not children enslaved in southeast asia or the meaning of life.

To every student who must endure the excuse of an education system that we have, I can only offer these words of hope... Educate yourself, not with school teachers, but with the books they wanted to ban. Teach yourself, learn, grow, and develop. Learn that the greatest asset education can offer is that of independence.

"If the teacher happens to be a man of sense, it must be an unpleasant thing to him to be conscious, while he is lecturing his students, that he is either speaking or reading nonsense, or what is very little better than nonsense.

A Quote:

"The discipline of colleges and universities is in general contrived, not for the benefit of the students, but for the interest, or more properly speaking, for the ease of the masters. Its object is, in all cases, to maintain the authority of the master, and whether he neglects or performs his duty, to oblige the students in all cases to behave to him, as if he performed it with the greatest diligence and ability. It seems to presume perfect wisdom and virtue in the one order, and the greatest weakness and folly in the other."

-- Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations, Book 5, Chapter I, Part 3, Article II.

So proud...

...but look at my membership number...

Plagarism, Part 2

I received an email from the director today, and met with him this afternoon. He's always friendly, I've taken two of his classes and I've yet to see a bad bone in his body. His streak of civility stands unbroken, the meeting was great. I was very nervous, though.

He is going to talk to the professor, not mention me by name, and hopefully salvage the rest of the class. Maybe the professor will bring something new to the table in class, perhaps he will start his own research in the field he teaches. There's hope.

I don't know why I was so nervous. I like the guy, he's a great professor and director. I suppose I just don't want to fall in his opinion via obnoxious complaining.

Tomorrow I will see how the class has changed, if it is so soon.

Plagarism

On Monday I discovered that a professor of mine takes the content of his lectures from wikipedia.
Hmm...
No, that can't be right, he must be the author of these pages.
(after checking) Nope, he's not, apparently.
Sigh...

ANGER...

Let's kill him. Not so directly as to stab or to shoot, but more indirect; let's get him fired. Put the bum on his bum in the street. Let's rid him of his livelihood and destroy his credibility as a professional. I'll start at the Director's office.

Damn. He's an assistant director, not just some lowly adjunct. Heck, the numbskull has frickin' tenure.
No sweat, I'll just send a soft, non-inflammatory email to the director and have HIM ask my professor about it.

Done. Awaiting reply. Keeping cool, not killing anyone yet. More updates to follow.

Quotes on Education

Some goodies I found recently.

"When we adults think of children there is a simple truth that we ignore: childhood is not preparation for life; childhood is life.
A child isn't getting ready to live; a child is living. No child will miss the zest and joy of living unless these are denied by adults who have convinced themselves that childhood is a period of preparation.
How much heartache we would save ourselves if we would recognize children as partners with adults in the process of living, rather than always viewing them as apprentices. How much we could teach each other; we have the experience and they have the freshness. How full both our lives could be."
John A. Taylor

"I suppose it is because nearly all children go to school nowadays, and have things arranged for them, that they seem so forlornly unable to produce their own ideas."
Agatha Christie

It is, in fact, nothing short of a miracle that the modern methods of education have not yet entirely strangled the holy curiosity of inquiry; for this delicate little plant, aside from stimulation, stands mainly in need of freedom; without this it goes to wrack and ruin without fail. It is a very grave mistake to think that the enjoyment of seeing and searching can be promoted by means of coercion and a sense of duty. To the contrary, I believe that it would be possible to rob even a healthy beast of prey of its voraciousness, if it were possible, with the aid of a whip, to force the beast to devour continuously, even when not hungry, especially if the food, handed out under such coercion, were to be selected accordingly.
Albert Einstein

The whole theory of modern education is radically unsound. Fortunately... education produces no effect whatsoever. If it did, it would prove a serious danger to the upper classes, and probably lead to acts of violence in Grosvenor Square.
Oscar Wilde

To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.
Thomas Jefferson

My schooling not only failed to teach me what it professed to be teaching, but prevented me from being educated to an extent which infuriates me when I think of all I might have learned at home by myself.
George Bernard Shaw

The aim of public education is not to spread enlightenment at all; it is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed a standard citizenry, to put down dissent and originality.
Whenever is found what is called a paternal government, there is found state education. It has been discovered that the best way to insure implicit obedience is to commence tyranny in the nursery.
Benjamin Disraeli

Good intentions will always be pleaded for every assumption of authority. It is hardly too strong to say that the constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions. There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters.
Noah Webster

In my opinion the prevailing systems of education are all wrong, from the first stage to the last stage. Eduation begins where it should terminate, and youth, instead of being led to the development of their faculties by the use of their senses, are made to acquire a great quantity of words, expressing the ideas of other men instead of comprehending their own faculties, or becoming acquainted with the words they are taught or the ideas the words should convey.
William Duane

There are only two places in the world where time takes precedence over the job to be done. School and prison.
William Glasser

Education rears disciples, imitators, and routinists, not pioneers of new ideas and creative geniuses. The schools are not nurseries of progress and improvement, but conservatories of tradition and unvarying modes of thought.
Ludwig von Mises

Intelligence appears to be the thing that enables a man to get along without education. Education enables a man to get along without the use of his intelligence.
Albert Edward Wiggam

No use to shout at them to pay attention. If the situations, the materials, the problems before the child do not interest him, his attention will slip off to what does interest him, and no amount of exhortation of threats will bring it back.
John Holt

The End of Entomological Aspiration

This was written for extra credit in my Insects and Human Society Class. It is mostly fiction.

My brother Joel began collecting insects as soon as he could capture them. He sought after every kind, but was especially fascinated by the beautiful and colorful ones. His packed his insectile assortment with vibrant and peculiar specimens, the sparkling filigree of the natural world.

Joel’s collection was more than doubled when a formerly insect-collecting uncle made Joel a gift of his insect collection. This one had masses of insects, all carefully pinned to a Styrofoam pad and organized in a neat cardboard box. Joel loved it. He even reorganized his collection of beauties with our uncle’s. There was only one goal in his mind: to collect insects like these forever. He set out to be an entomologist the day he first received this magnificent collection.

A little while after, a blazing summer day came, one in which our vegetable garden wilted as if in the throes of death itself. Joel, with water hose in hand, was rescuing our mother’s vegetables from certain scorching demise when he found something. It was a whopper of an addition to his insect museum; a gigantic, brilliantly green grasshopper. There was no trouble in catching it and it was soon pinned in his orderly collection. Joel’s collection reached critical mass that day, the addition of this magnificent insect was the beginning of the end of his entomological ambition.

To be frank, this insect was ugly. In all the ways an insect of Joel’s could be truly ugly and detestable, it was. It wouldn’t die. There is nothing less attractive to the collector of dead insects than a live insect, especially one which had the strength and motivation to wreak havoc inside a box of neatly organized, gorgeous miscellany.

Some say that Beauty is only skin deep, but I’m certain it is in the eye of the beholder. This wretched grasshopper had many eyes to behold the necropolis' many desiccated inhabitants, but it perceived no beauty in them. My brother’s collection of nature’s art was laid waste, every piece torn apart.

Joel kept but one specimen, the one insect that was left still whole. No box was needed, he pinned this verdant symbol of disaster to the cover of his insect guidebook. This minute pin nailed secured the cover permanently, and closed it forever. The destroyer of worlds couldn’t have done more harm to Joel's aspirations than this hideous grasshopper did. What once was vibrant and colorful was now pale and wizened, a symbol of the devastation of joy. Insects were no longer beautiful to him; they became uglier every time he looked at the cursed remnant of his collection.

Our joys are precious, and it is a terrible act to undo them. Every joy has a beginning, but sadly, some joys have ends.

First Day at Virginia Tech, Fall 2009

The journey of a thousand miles begins badly

I didn’t do so well on Monday. I blame Friday. That’s when I played Ultimate Frisbee on the Drillfield. I played barefoot, stupidly, and wore my feet out. After almost two months of full time work and wearing of work shoes it seems my feet have weakened. It’s Monday night, almost eleven, and I can barely hobble around. I can’t stand without pain. I’ve taken 1200 milligrams of Ibuprofen today and I’ve not felt the slightest effect. I’ve taken more over the weekend, plus a variation of aspirin, and not once was there the least respite from the pain. I hobbled around at work, probably making everything worse. I hobbled around everywhere today, no doubt doing the same. Agh!

 Today was a bad day all around. I didn’t sleep long last night, or well. I had a bloody nose during the night and woke up to blood streaming from me into the crease my face made on the pillow. Somehow I shrugged this off; I was in a slumbering stupor evidently. I woke up to dried blood everywhere. It’s still on the pillow. Not a good start for the day.

 I made $100 and discovered that my work shoes were injurious to me at work yesterday. Today I bought new shoes (luckily I could return the bad shoes, they were only a month old). The old ones had a bar sticking up right in front of the heel, which evidently stressed the fascia there and all around the arch of my left and right feet. It felt terrible, but for some dumb reason I finished the last half of my double shift instead of going home. When I visited the Schiffert Health Center on Monday the doctor told me I have Plantar Fasciitis. I probably set the healing time back a week just by finishing my shift on Sunday. I won’t be able to work, I don’t think, for a week or two while I heal. I wonder what will happen. Money's a concern for the first time in a long time. I need to get to school, and I need to walk. I can’t make money at my present job. I need to inform my managers tomorrow that I’ll probably not be working on Wednesday or any of the other days this week and maybe next. I need a freaking wheelchair.

Today I spent fifty on gas, sixty on a textbook, and another ten or twenty on odds and ends. I drove Tan to Wal-Mart, something he’d needed to do for a few days. I’m helping him move furniture tomorrow. I hope I can have someone else move it, I can’t stand without pain. I can’t even push the freaking gas pedal without pain. I can’t end this pain, either. I’m going to down some more Ibuprofen and go to bed. Today was a disaster.

I was late for my first class today. I left early to find parking and was late because not only could I find none on campus, but I had to hobble across campus to get to class. Today was a disaster.