the fact that we only have “herculean task” and “sisyphean task” feels so limiting. so here’s a few more tasks for your repertoire
icarian task: when you have a task you know you’re going to fail at anyways, so why not have some fun with it before it all comes crashing down
cassandrean task: when you have to deal with people you KNOW won’t listen to you, despite having accurate information, and having to watch them fumble about when you told them the solution from the start (most often witnessed in customer service)
feel free to chime in i ran out of ideas much faster than i anticipated
Promethean task: opposite of a Cassandraean task. You have the right information, and SOMEONE has to share it. But it's all in the delivery and if you're the person to identify the problem you WILL be hated forever.
Oedipal Task: (1) Attempting to avoid an unspeakably awful outcome and in doing so creating the circumstances that will bring it about.
(2) Trying to solve an problem and discovering that you are in fact the problem you are trying to solve.
I think what's really compelling about House's absolute unwillingness to bow down to anything or anyone (the ethical board, the law, extra rich CEO, vindictive police officer, and even the patients themselves) regardless of how absolutely batshit and downright illegal his actions are, is because it's coming from a chronically disabled person, in more ways than one.
He cannot walk without agony or his cane. His chronic and severe pain led him down the path of deep Vicodin addiction until he also becomes psychologically dependent on it too (once, Dr Cuddy gives him saline placebo and it "works", in that he is not feeling his leg pain anymore for a few hours).
He understands it deeply just how desperate people can be when they're in pain and nobody can (or are willing to) help them—at least, so far, until they land on his doorstep. Which is canonically the most extreme step patients take when everything else fails—you don't just go straight to Plainsborough Teaching Hospital and to Dr Gregory House MD's office; you have to go through dozens of other doctors in various specialties and failed treatments too.
(Although that's a separate discussion about how doctors, particularly resident ones, are overworked and underpaid and redtaped by shithead insurance companies even if they do know how to treat a patient and want to).
He knows, from the bottom of his heart, that having such a painful and life-limitting debilitating condition is comparable to hell on earth, because he has one. He knows, that despite his disability being visible to everyone, yet no one wants to put an effort to help him deal with it—is also hell on earth.
Cuddy simply throws money at him and turns the other way to his Vicodin abuse, like she is saying, "I don't care if he takes 10 Vicodin pills a day or more, and I have to pay at least $1M every year for lawsuits, as long as he gets the job done," (and when they decide to go into relationship, she immediately drops him when he relapses, even if the reason for his relapse is her—although, yes, there is another discussion to be had about keeping yourself and your child(ren) safe being a priority compared to helping an addict, recovering or not). Wilson, as loyal as he is to House, simply either enables him or lectures him without going into the root of the issue and thoroughly help House that way. His subordinates, especially after the original trio, are simply too scared, too ignorant, or too ambitious to even approach the issue and choose to keep their job than help House (also another discussion to be had about how you can't help people who don't want to help themselves and so on).
So when he sees a patient who has gone through hell trying to get a correct diagnosis and treatment, he becomes laser-focused on doing everything under the sun to get to the bottom of it and cure the patient. He doesn't care if he has to break into countless of houses (haha pun) and collect insane and probably biohazard samples to do it—he absolutely will, no question.
Yes, hate-criming and being a bigot is his favorite hobby (still livid at the asexual ep and the production's choice for the resolution, let's just say I still have beef with Hugh Laurie and the entire production team for it), and so is insulting patients in so many ways that Shakespeare would personally fly to New Jersey and shake his hands if someone manage to successfully perform necromancy on ol' Billy boy. But House is no one if not dedicated. "Yes, my patient is an idiot, everyone is an idiot too, but I WILL cure their condition like my life depends on it," is basically his middle name.
Besides, you can make the argument that he is more compassionate than all the other doctors around him, because despite his absolute disdain towards some of his patients' beliefs and stupidity, he still works his ass off to treat them. He will call your god an idiot in 7 different languages while putting you in a diagnostic machine he manipulated the whole hospital into letting him use so that you could get a test which weren't available to you before. He will tell you that your currently-happy marriage will end in a bloody divorce and your ex will leave you penniless so love is not real while injecting you with a medication he had to hack the CDC's database for.
There are even episodes that show him being truly earnest, like the clinic duty scene where he is snarky as usual to a girl who seemingly stupidly had unprotected sex until she lashes out, and House is like, "Oh shit, this is above my paygrade", and immediately goes to Cuddy with a very serious expression and no sarcastic dilly-daliying, demanding her to transfer the patient to someone else because he is not good with "curing" rape case (interesting choice on the writers' part to make the patient insist to have therapy with House, though).
There is an episode about a very workaholic woman executive in a fashion company who has tremor and partial paralysis, and later on it's shown that she seems to tie her worth as a person to her corporate success while band-aiding her deep psychological issue like her suicidal ideation, and House genuinely asks her, "Do you want to live? I cannot help you unless you want me to," or something along the line.
There is also the cursed 9-year-old terminal brain cancer episode where Chase kissed the patient (ew), where at first it shows House being a usual misanthophe to Wilson and saying, "She is not brave, it's the brain tumor clot talking because it must be near the amygdala." Later in the episode, House sits near the patient alone, and compassionately asks her if she even wants to live, going through the rest of her short-lived but horrible agony, even if they catch the clot. The surgery to find and get rid of the clot is risky and can debilitate her even more, and this is why House is laying the decision to her hands. That she gets to choose. This is what truly reveals to him that she is genuinely brave (aside from the scan showing the clot to be so far away from her amygdala), but for the wrong reason. She is brave for her mom, willing to go through horrible surgery and drag out her already painful cancer-ridden life because, "My mom needs me". When everyone is congratulating her in the end, you can tell House has a bittersweet expression of both awe towards her bravery, and sadness that this 9-year-old sick girl has to bear the brunt of her horrible pain just so that her mother is not sad. That he couldn't convince her to be a child until the nearing end of her life.
The most interesting evidence of his compassion to me is the gunman hostage episode. It might sound weird because in the whole episode, he is depicted to first want to outsmart the gunman patient, then becomes laser-focused but only because he sees it as a puzzle, then absolutely selfish and dangerous because he volunteers himself as the last hostage and gives the gun back to the guy after the MRI. I do think it's true that his dedication to solving patients-are-just-puzzle-to-me conditions shines through in the episode, especially the scene of him returning his gun, but there is something else I catch when I rewatched it before.
When the gunman patient is put in the MRI because Cameron tells him a theory through the hostage call, the remaining doctors in the room including House are wary at the gunman but also hopeful. Yet, when the result shows up on the screen, he realizes that the theory is wrong and the guy let go his only bargaining chip for nothing. If you watch this part carefully, you'll notice that House actually looks pitying and sad at the gunman's disappointed demeanor and expression. He realizes he is going to be another notch in the guy's failed doctors list, and at this point (with the gun given away and even the best, most talented doctor also not finding out what's wrong with him), the guy has given up hope that he will ever see the day he will be cured, certainly not behind the bars.
Yes, his thirst for puzzle is House's big driving force in giving back the gun, but you'll be lying to yourself if you don't notice House's compassion for the guy because he doesn't want the guy to go out empty-handed, with absolutely no more hope because House knows once they step out of the door, this guy will never, ever be allowed to be in the vicinity of any hospital or doctor ever again in his life, aside from jail's bare-minimum exams and medications. House can't handle the thought of putting someone else through his own disappointment—that nothing works to help his leg pain. He especially doesn't want to be the cause for this gunman guy's case either. Even in the end when House realizes the guy is a fucking moron because he doesn't know that Florida is, in fact, in earthwide-horizontal tropical zone and this is what stumps most of the guy's previous doctors—House still gives him a subtle salute to the guy while being handcuffed and led away, almost to say, "Enjoy your healing and the defeat of your arch nemesis The Sickness™, glad to be part of it."
Majority of his drive to stop at nothing until his patient is cured is definitely thanks to his own fucked-up leg, even if there are some dialogues with Cuddy and Stacy Warner (House's ex wife) that seem to imply he has always been a misanthrophe whose hobby is getting into malpractice (or general) lawsuits. I wholeheartedly believe that after his leg clot rendered him disabled and with chronic pain, he became much more dedicated and obsessed with getting to the bottom of a patient's medical information, even for info that seems innocuous or irrelevant that always turn out to be important (probably more like a plot armor than established characterization, to be honest), almost like this is his method of relating to the patients in his own weirdly human way, and maybe a little bit (actually, a lot) of projecting.
This is why I always admired him as a chronically ill kid and later a cane user in academia and professional situations. He demands respect because he is the best and unapologetic about it. He is not sorry that accommodations must be made by the world around him when they want his skills. He says "if you want my skills I will not apologize for the space I take up"
Local PSA: invisible disability does NOT mean you can live your life like a "normal person" invisible disability meant that if a stranger looks at you in public they wouldn't know what's going on.
Like if a wheelchair user were to decide to run into a corner store to grab a candy bar because they know that their legs can last that long without, the cashier wouldn't know.
Or someone with "mild" scoliosis walking upright through their shoulder leans slightly to the left. Maybe they just have bad posture. The lady in the next isle thinks to herself.
The person with EDS or POTS or whatever sort of condition wearing compression gloves out and about. Perhaps it's a fashion statement?
Or what about the people with intestinal issues? They can look like "normal people" too.
You never know what someone is going through.
You never know what they might need to survive or if they're on the edge of a flare up or even if they are currently going through one just by one look.
I think both disabled and non disabled need to realize this. You're not "no longer disabled" because you can "live without" disability aids. They're there to help you. To make your life easier. If living without a cane is going to make it more likely you'll fall over and hurt yourself, use the cane.
If you need to sit down to do dishes or cut vegetables because you need to save your legs for taking out the trash, sit down.
If you need a shower chair because you don't know if you'll pass out, use the shower chair.
People are going to judge you regardless for multiple reasons out of your control.
I'd rather they judge you while you're being safe.
"But why do you let your disability stop you?" Because that's.... what disabilities... do. That's... literally the basic definition... of being disabled... A disability impairs your ability to function. That's what the term means. That's the main thing
I, THE DRIVER BEHIND YOU AT THIS STOPLIGHT, HAVE DEDUCED THAT YOU COULD HAVE THREADED THAT LEFT TURN BETWEEN THOSE TWO CARS IF YOU FLOORED IT BEARING 92° SOUTH AND CAUGHT THE WIND.
Little things I don't think non-cane users would know cause Issues™, for reference in writing!
- gusty wind not only throws personal centre of balance off but if you've got a lightweight metal cane it will throw your placement of the cane off
- same goes for being driven past by busses or lorries
- uneven pavements can suck my ass the cane is meant to be parallel to your leg and this is very hard to do when the pavement isn't level
- same goes for cobbled streets, brick paved streets tend to be smoother so I love them <3
- some paving slabs get really slippy when they're wet! This often means that I lean on my cane much heavier bc I can't rely as much on even my good leg to stay stable
- yes cane height should be adjusted to account for heels/ wedged shoes it's a bit of a bastard if you used a fixed length cane
- using a cane for the first few days/weeks hurts! If u only use it irregularly/ on bad days it can hurt every time! Wrists aren't used to taking weight in this way.
there’s obviously a lot of nuance to to this conversation, but I feel like the way that people nowadays talk about friendships is so cold and devoid of love or empathy. like you aren’t allowed to complain or be sad, ur burdening ur friends with ur problems, helping someone through a hard time is ‘emotional labour’ and ‘you don’t owe anyone anything’ and I’m just thinking what does friendship even mean to you then? like honestly? people say ‘I’m not your therapist’ as if therapy is the answer to everything. what a sad world where a paid clinician is the only person you’re allowed to be emotionally vulnerable with. this ultra individualistic mindset leads to everyone feeling alone and isolated and we’ve lost all concept of community and support systems
To all the people in the notes wondering how we got anywhere before GPS: we got lost a lot. Like a lot. If it was a new place we would pull out the maps, we all had local maps in the car and then these huge huge huge books of maps called atlases and we'd have one for every state we'd be driving through
And before a trip we would plot our whole entire route, and go back over it every night at the hotel, and we would write all the directions down on a little note and someone would be in charge of navigation and making sure we didn't miss any turns.
For local stuff all directions would be described in reference to other things. You still see this when older folks give directions. Do you ever get the "do you know where the ruby Tuesday is? No? How about the Buffalo wild wings? Yeah okay so from there go down til you see a Wendy's and turn left..." instead of them just telling u the address so u can plug it into ur GPS? That's why.
I have fond memories of getting helaciously lost in Kentucky because we had to go around a bad accident, and we didn't have a Kentucky map because we hadn't planned on going thru Kentucky and we stopped at a gas station to get a map but they didn't have any and my dad came back to the car swearing up and down about these goddamn Kentucky communists who didn't even sell maps in their gas stations,
This sort of language is still preserved in some backpacking communities, as well. I can’t count the number of times I’ve said something like “yeah, just head bayward until you hit the giant sequoia, and it’s the building with the ionic columns” and been told that my directions are utterly insane
Also the city of there's a lot of sky scrapers that mess with everyone's signal or a lot of streets with recently changed names. I've told many people "go straight till you see the neon sign of a flamingo and a boot, then turn at the corner toward the giant purple building and keep walking till you see the statue of a faceless kid"
The purpose of child hero stories is not "this universe is abusive toward children and no one has child age labor laws" it is that they are stories written for children so that they can see themselves overcoming challenges and defeating monsters.
Since it is so likely that (children) will meet cruel enemies, let them at least have heard of brave knights and heroic courage. Otherwise you are making their destiny not brighter but darker.
“Fairy tales, then, are not responsible for producing in children fear, or any of the shapes of fear; fairy tales do not give the child the idea of the evil or the ugly; that is in the child already, because it is in the world already. Fairy tales do not give the child his first idea of bogey. What fairy tales give the child is his first clear idea of the possible defeat of bogey. The baby has known the dragon intimately ever since he had an imagination. What the fairy tale provides for him is a St. George to kill the dragon.”
its so shiddy when u have to convince yourself to do your hobbies. like, its fun, you like it, why cant you just do it. do it. do it. but what if.... mindless media consumption instead....
