FOMO years
The midafternoon temperature was projected to be 65 degrees, and I was feeling my oats, so I got myself out the door for my first walk around Oakland’s Lake Merritt (an estuary off San Francisco Bay) in some time. This 3.4 mile jaunt has been a frequent pleasure ever since I moved to the East Bay from San Francisco a long time ago, but it fell out of regular rotation for a year or so thanks to some knee trouble. When it reached the point that it was time to get it looked at, the orthopedist looking at it said I’d worn down the cartilage from a lifetime of doing things like walking around Lake Merritt. Between a new treatment (glucosamine gel injections into the joint) and physical therapy that’s changed my walking mechanics, I’m good to go … and go and go … if not back to youthful form.
I’d been back for a while for walking to and from my BART train station to get into San Francisco, usually logging five miles in the process, so it was time to reclaim this pleasure. So, with headphones on and a bit of Blue Dream tincture ingested, out the door I went. My listening choice was the new quarterly Dave’s Picks release of a remastered classic Grateful Dead show, this one from Eugene, Oregon in 1990. There was something of a dark mood to the first two tracks, but no matter. Whether or not that affected my mood, there was a point halfway around at which I realized I was enjoying the walk but not having my usual happy walk around the Lake feeling. I found myself thinking, “I enjoyed this a lot more when I had FOMO.”
That was a weird thought! I don’t miss at all the wistful melancholy that could come over me when I did have Fear Of Missing Out, the cumulative effect of several triggers. Worse, though, was the Voice Crying in the Wilderness syndrome. I actually had some major achievements as a lesbian activist as a young adult, and had maintained my political analysis skills. Once I’d gotten shoved aside, though, and quite effectively, I didn’t have that same voice, through the waves of campaigns to subsume lesbians into an overarching larger “community” in which our issues would be ignored and even counteracted. And, there have been times when that voice has been needed.
I lost the FOMO a few years ago, on the road to Machu Picchu. I was on a four-country excursion with multiple flights, which I handled with aplomb. Realizing that came from experience, I felt a tipping point in terms of having been so many cool places that no, I’d not missed out at all.
Lately, there have been other, younger voices on the same legal analysis page as myself. I’d come up with using BFOQ (Bona Fide Occupational Qualification) theory to protect women’s spaces, now applicable to athletics as well: it's not sex discrimination if sex is an essential. I’d had that in reserve in 2006, for an administrative amicus brief that, fortunately, never needed to be filed. I published in in a paper in 2011, before Justice Breyer made the same points in oral argument in the Bostock case. And now, the Women’s Liberation Front is defending BFOQs. Yay! WoLF also helped initiate a medical malpractice suit, Kiefel v. Ruff, in which plaintiff claims a social worker and a therapist fast-tracked her for a double-mastectomy after two Zoom sessions, telling her it would end her discomfort as a non-binary person. Two years later, plaintiff realized that wasn’t her problem, and that she’d been led into making a terrible mistake. I’d been wondering when anybody would sue for malpractice on the behalf of detransitioners.
I got back to feeling content fairly quickly after that weird thought about FOMO. On the weekend, I volunteered at the Fall Chocolate Salon at the Hall of Flowers next to the Botanical Gardens in Golden Gate Park. As I rode transit through two old neighborhoods, and as I sat at the door, I marveled at the lovely winter light and felt happy.
Before that, on Friday, thrilled that I’d done a walk around the Lake without my knees barking, I joined a lesbian group for five miles with 500 feet elevation gain on Mt. Tamalpais. It was nearly a mistake. They were all faster than I, especially as we started out with elevation gain. I said it would be okay to leave me behind to go at my own pace, as I had the distance in me but not the speed. I took a photo on my phone of the route highlighted on the leader’s map, and agreed to text when I’d finished the route. Just past halfway, when I used the facilities at Bootjack, I saw a text from 15 minutes previously saying the group was there. Since we’d had a late start, they suggested I consider whether to turn back while I had light. I kept on, as I was now closer to the end.
My knees continued not to bark, but with the elevation gain and drop, my leg muscles were getting mighty sore. Nonetheless, I finished, while there was still light. (And the route took me out from behind the hill at Pan Toll campground, so I was never in gloom.) In response to my text from my car, I was told everyone else had just ordered at a restaurant downtown in Mill Valley, and they’d wait for me. When I arrived, I got something of a hero’s welcome. They were all amazed I’d done nearly all of the hike by myself. I’m actually someone who’ll get out and about by myself for long distances, so I didn’t quite understand. And what’s not to like about lots of time spent on beautiful Mount Tam? My heart had been singing—even without the “benefit” of FOMO.
I’d played more of that Grateful Dead CD set in the car on the way over. The show contained a very heartfelt “Crazy Fingers,” with its lines “Life may be sweeter for this, I don’t know/Maybe find out in the end.” It felt sweet that day.
Meanwhile … some other Substacks with which I’ve connected lately: Robert Grayboyes’ Bastiat’s Window. Another cool generalist. He has something up on eugenics at the moment,
. Also just happening to touch on this is the return of Jeff Goldstein’s Protein Wisdom, at
. Speaking of culling the herd of “defectives,” and of “burdens on society,” a friend just sent me something about assisted suicide in Canada as a growth industry: 3.3% of all deaths, and up a third between 2020 and 2021. Hmmmm …