Solipsism

Sometimes, particularly now I've left the laboratory and spend a lot of time on my own, I get the feeling that the rest of the world doesn't exist. There's only me, and everything that appears to be the rest of the universe is in fact something I'm dreaming or creating for some reason I've forgotten.

Now obviously if this is true, I'm heading for a failing grade. When I get back to being Buddha or Brahman or whomever, I'll tell myself that it ought to be a good long while before I'm incarnated again. I seem to be getting failing grades. I mean, I'm heading for another war in the Middle East – and if I avoid that, it'll be by not punishing someone who gasses little kids. Twitter has turned into an engine that produces more written rape threats against women per second than any other technology. Britain's turned into Nineteen Eighty-Four and Russia is giving Americans asylum.

But today a phildickian hole appeared in the solipsism.  I slipped into something more comfortable so that I could have a good, thorough laundry session including today's street clothes and to do so I unhooked my bra. Half way through that I thought, "Wait, I'm unhooking my bra. I have never done this before in my life." See, about a year ago, I got a frozen left shoulder and had to take a bunch of physiotherapy. The shoulder would hardly rotate at all, and I had to practice stretching my arm in various directions. One of the moves involved bending my left arm as far up my back as possible, which wasn't very far and hurt like hell. The physiotherapist said several times, "Haha, we have to do this one for women because we have to get you able to fasten your bra normally as soon as possible." And I thought, "No, the last laugh's on you, matey, because ever since I was teenage, I fasten my bra in front, then wriggle it around and put up the shoulder straps. I don't need to be able to put my arm up my back."

And now, I find that I UNhook my bra at the back, by putting my left hand high up my back and unhooking. Now, you might think I could have just forgotten that fact…BUT then clearly it would seem logical I was doing this all during the time I was on physio, when he was counting the vertebrae I could reach and saying, "You're not quite there yet."  Unhooking during that time period would have hurt.  So I must have never actually unhooked my bra before and only did it today for the first time.

So there's a hole in this weird world – a thing I've never thought about before has never happened before. Still, it possibly means I have a chance to avoid another war in the Middle East. I'll let me know how that turns out.