Is there a little (lurgy) Luigi lurking in all of us?

There’s more going on than you realise

While many of you slackers are taking it easy for the holidays, I’m ramping things up with a final weighty diatribe before a couple of lighter, festive pieces to round off 2024.

This post has been harder than usual to write, for I’ve caught the dreaded lurgy and my head is a fuzzy mess. But I was determined to get this out and hey, look on the bright side – it gives me the perfect excuse to have fun with my headline.

What if I told you that I’ve been so angry with my doctor lately that I want to…well, not kill him, but perhaps kneecap him. Would you think I was a bad person?

What if I told you that a couple of weeks ago, I called my 6-year-old little girl a fucking bitch? Would you think I was a horrible person?

Feel free to stop reading and banish my existence from your life. I’d prefer it if you stuck around and let me try to justify things though.

Get both sides of the story

In high school, my speech and debate class with Mr McGowan was vital in getting us to think through arguments and learn to look at every issue from different angles.

We did some switch-side debating – arguing in favour of the opposing sides’ viewpoints, playing the role of Devil’s Advocate. We also had team policy debate, 2 versus 2.

There was a year-round topic all high schools used in competitions and tournaments, with themes including intellectual property protection, curtailing the powers of the federal government, the legalization of drugs, and whether cats are better than dogs (just kidding).

This is Dave, my debate partner, from 1994:

Who the hell is Luigi Mangione?

You might be thinking, what an absurd question, who on earth hasn’t heard of him?

Plenty of people, as it turns out.

I did some lazy research, which basically meant asking my non-US and non-UK followers on Facebook and Instagram if they knew this name and if the story was big wherever they were.

Most responses were in the variety of “Who?” or “Never heard of him!” and “My wife thought he was very handsome.”

Global answers

• From Vietnam: “Is that the dude who was ratted out by McDonald's? My American colleague cares a lot. Rather than him, probably not too many people.”

• From a Ukrainian in Canada: “I’ve seen the story on the news, read a bit about the guy’s background, so these days my news feed is full of posts about him.”

• From a Canadian: “It's big in Canada.”

• From Finland: “I've seen a few articles in Finland about it. Mostly the focus seems to be on how people consider the insurance-based healthcare model to be very unjust.”

• From a Ukrainian in Poland: “The only news channel from where I read the updates of this story is CNN. None of my Polish friends is talking about him.”

• From a Ukrainian journalist: “We covered it briefly, but frankly, I think because of the war, we've lost sensitivity to such stories in Ukraine. However, we discussed glorifying the killer with my friends as he was for many people, in some way, pretty Robin Hood, which was weird for us.”

For my global audience, let me state the case as simply and as judgement-free as possible. I’m not doing any justifying...yet.

BBC

This story is massive in the US

Luigi Mangione, a 26-year-old, shot and killed Brian Thompson, the 50-year-old CEO of health insurance company UnitedHealthcare (UHC) early in the morning on 4 December in New York City.

The US health care system is…complicated, and probably misunderstood. Access is a problem; many people can’t afford insurance. It’s not universal care like you get in Canada, the UK and much of Europe. Insurance is often tied to your job, if you have one.

American insurance companies are notorious for turning down medical claims, not reimbursing bills, or denying coverage for pre-existing conditions.

Insurance is so expensive in part because doctors tend to be overly cautious for fear of lawsuits and malpractice claims. They err on the side of caution by referring patients for further consultations with specialists, sometimes overprescribing medicine and unnecessary procedures.

Millions of people have been affected. I have too. Thankfully nothing too catastrophic, but the fine print and the details are often overly complex, and you might think you were covered for something, only to be denied and left facing a whopping bill.

You can’t take health care for granted. If you are in a serious accident, then you won’t be left to die – you’ll be taken to the hospital but without insurance, the bills might be astronomical. Foreign visitors, be warned.

In short: LOTS of people are pissed off with the system.

Also in short: there’s a clear divide between those condemning the killing and those lionising Luigi.

From the BBC

Andy Futuro

had some astute analysis:

The inside scoop

Here’s a summary from my friend and US-based insider Kristen, who is always on top of the reddit/social media angle:

When the murder first happened, Reddit/social media was very much in the gunman’s favor with a lot of comments and memes along the lines of “Americans solving their healthcare problems with gun violence.” I saw many comments about UHC having by far the highest rate of refusing claims, causing deaths and even labeling Thompson a serial killer. There was a strong sentiment that maybe the gunman was one of the “healthcare victims” like having had a claim rejected or perhaps a sick family member who was denied coverage. Obviously, this came especially after the [gun] casings were labeled deny defend depose.

There was a lot of talk/memes about this uniting America because we have all been affected by healthcare companies denying claims, medical debt, loved ones not receiving treatment on time, etc. [People are] definitely on the gunman’s side, thoughts of him being a professional assassin or wronged party and that it wouldn’t narrow things down as millions have been harmed by UHC in some way.

As he became more recognized, more pictures and memes were about how attractive he was, of which my favorite was the hashtag #assassinbae. I think it jumped the shark there! Once he was identified I saw comments about how he was caught on purpose, too smart to be caught so easily and putting down the McDonalds worker who identified him saying they’d never receive the reward money (probably true.) And quite a few memes about other fast-food restaurants not hiring snitches. There were also some Sopranos memes regarding Luigi being an Italian hero.

As an American in America, I discussed this daily the first week of the story (especially before he was caught) with people trading memes and links.”

Some women have been swooning over him.

What does Luigi have to do with us?

In debate, you are often asked to put yourself in someone else’s shoes. See it from their point of view. Try to get inside their head to imagine what it feels like.

I’m going to invite you inside my head to see if we can make some sense of it.

This is not to justify anything. It is to understand it from both sides, as ridiculous as that may seem to some. I’m not condoning the murder, nor am I defending the suspect. I’m merely trying to understand what might have possessed him to kill a man.

Now for a short interlude where I tell you more about our new co-author, Groucho Marks.

Meet Groucho Marks, Cantankerous Curmudgeon

Groucho is a peripheral observer for now. He will soon be making valuable contributions on a regular basis.

Groucho lives up to his name: he’s a miserable, whingeing, grumpy old crank. He has taken complaining and turned it into an art form.

Why does he enjoy complaining? He says it’s cathartic and soothing. Deep down he’s a kindhearted soul who only wants the best for humanity. Complaining is not only his therapy, but his way of dealing with the world’s madness.

Beneath the steely exterior, Groucho is unfailingly polite and respectful. He genuinely cares about people and is conscientious. He just has trouble dealing with his emotions and his list of pet hates/peeves and bugbears stretches into the hundreds. His mission is to make the world a better place and he’ll be sharing stories and case studies about his grumbles and how they’ve improved life for the better.

Groucho might be naïve, but he believes in his own counsel, and he’s fed up with so much lousy advice being peddled by so-called influencers or self-help writers. He doesn’t necessarily have things figured out, but he’s certain that no one else does either. He takes comfort in the thoughts of Oliver Burkeman, who says everyone is winging it, all the time. All of us are lost souls.

Groucho is a huge believer in silver linings, and sees the bright side of almost any situation, no matter how wretched it may seem. He also finds humour to be one of life’s best coping mechanisms, whether it’s dark humour or taking the piss out of himself.

If you’re the kind of person who doesn’t like reading about such negativity – even though he wants to paint it in a positive, therapeutic light – then you can easily avoid his columns. They will, after all, feature his byline.

But he will be unhappy if you do, and he tends to hold grudges for a very long time.

Groucho would like to express his thanks to

Faith Liversedge

for creating his logo.

Now that you’ve learnt a bit about our friend Groucho, we return to our story.

---

I’ve long had stress and anxiety issues. I used to have a nasty anger management problem too. Thankfully, until recently, it was well under control. I had a dreadful habit of throwing and breaking things, mainly coffee cups. I still lament the loss of my Marvin the Martian cup smashed against the walls of my halls of residence in Edinburgh.

Sorry buddy.

That was over 20 years ago.

The last time I launched something with force was about 10 years ago.

So you see, I’ve improved, kind of.

Stress, anxiety and sleeplessness on the other hand? These have proven harder nuts to crack.

We won’t get into all this now – that will be Groucho’s role, to explore the ins and outs, the whys, and the solutions, if they exist.

For now, suffice to say that the three biggest issues consistently causing me angst are:

• Short-time pressure (as in, you have 2 hours to prepare 4 classes, or a looming deadline to meet)

• Dealing with distractions (when I’ve set clear boundaries)

• Misophonia (which I think I’m qualified to write a book about now)

There’s also a fourth category that any human on earth would be susceptible to: major life changes and unprecedented crises.

January and February 2022, Kyiv, Ukraine, for example: will there be a full-scale invasion? I was an anxious wreck. You’d have to be damn strong and resilient not to let that faze you.

In August 2023 I started taking anti-anxiety medication, but not for my anxiety, which was manageable at that point, possibly because I’d been unemployed for three months and was happily beavering away on my book. The neurologist – oh boy, do I want to kill that jerk now – said it was to help me sleep and to alleviate the pounding headaches I was getting. When that didn’t work, he was overeager in prescribing sleeping pills, which also didn’t help.

I was calmer overall, but it was hard to judge since I was no longer working, the primary cause of my stress. There was anxiety around marriage issues too, but I think in retrospect that was due to the two of us paying lip service to the idea of working things out when ultimately, we didn’t want to be together, plain and simple. Finally deciding to move on was a huge relief for all parties.

Being unemployed with my money dwindling strangely didn’t affect me much. That’s because I realised how much joy I get in writing, even though my book was dragging on and on. The more I wrote, the more I wanted to write. Ideas kept flowing into my head, into my notebooks scattered around the flat, into various Word documents, into endless voice and written notes in my phone. My head was exploding with ideas and the best therapy was to write, write, write. It was an addiction, albeit one far healthier than drugs or alcohol.

Or maybe not.

Of all my favourite life quotations, this might be the one I quote the most, to the point of beating it to death. No one has captured it better:

“Writing is a form of therapy; sometimes I wonder how all those who do not write, compose, or paint can manage to escape the madness, melancholia, the panic and fear which is inherent in a human situation.”
Graham Greene

A powerful, hard-hitting quotation for me has to come from an author I love, and has to come from my own natural discovery in reading it; how apt this Greene sentiment comes from Ways of Escape.

What changed?

September 2024

Once I returned from my second trip to Ukraine where I did some book events, I focused on writing my next book. Maybe I should’ve focused more on marketing, but like many writers, it’s the least enjoyable part of the job. My favourite book marketing advice? This could be my confirmation bias acting up, but it was the mantra to write, write and write, and create that back catalogue.

Fantastic. At this point I started treating it like a full-time job.

The trouble was is, I’m not able to put in anywhere near full-time hours.

Who doesn’t suffer from distractions?

Perhaps it requires more self-discipline, but I cannot be interrupted when I’m in my flow state. Especially by people who know better (I’ll leave it there, to be as diplomatic as possible).

As for my darling little 6-year-old…come on, she’s a kid, this is what kids do! Even if I’m in the middle of the deepest and most profound revelation, if she comes up to me to show me her latest artistic creation, I can’t not look and marvel at it. If she wants to show me her new twerk style-Swan Lake improvisation, of course I’m going to stop and watch. These moments are precious.

And if she approaches with a book and says, “Daddy, can we read?” I don’t care if I’m in the middle of a heart attack, of course I’m saying yes. Never say no to a child who wants to read.

Unfortunately, there’s still that nagging feeling in the gut, that tick-tick-tick…tock.

Anyone with kids knows about their foibles. This is par for the course for 6-year-olds, but it’s their inconsistent empathy that’s a head-scratcher. One minute they’re showering you with sympathy after you’ve bumped your head and put on an Academy Award-winning performance, writhing around the floor in pain (my specialty), the next they’re disgusted that you don’t want to go to the playground in 5-degree weather as you wince from your piercing headache.

The strangest thing about the medication I was on? Despite it calming me down overall, it seemed to exacerbate my misophonia. This is a topic that Groucho is eager to tell us more about but suffice to say that this has got so bad that it’s reached the point that when I hear that ghastly Arianna Grande Christmas song, I feel the angst coursing through my veins, I get jumpy and can’t avoid squirming in extreme discomfort. Music-wise, it used to only be bagpipes that did this to me (damn, I hate those things).

I’ve been operating on fine margins the past few months with little margin for error. That means if my daughter is ill and has to stay home, I get antsy and flustered, but obviously I’m concerned for her well-being, even when I suspect she’s fibbing (which is often – the boy who cried wolf’s message is lost on her so far).

About a month ago, it was time for my prescription renewal, but the doctor’s office basically ghosted me (this is really a long and dull story, so trust me here). I tried and tried to get in touch. Perhaps this is my fault for not being persistent, but on the 3^rd or 4^th day, feeling more or less okay, I figured I might as well give up, see how I do.

Bad idea. Quitting cold turkey like that?

After a week, it was rough. My misophonia was out of control and since late November, I’ve been even more jittery and tense than ever.

I’m so pressed for time with writing deadlines and other projects that I can barely think straight. I’ve been especially grumpy, snapping at people in public. For my daughter’s sake, I’ve tried to be a good boy, and I almost never raise my voice at her and I would never even entertain the notion of hitting her. She’s a pain in the ass at times, but still, she’s a sweetheart.

Until…

One week later, I was seething in rage at my doctor. As tempted as I was to march over to his office, I was scared for what I’d do when I got there. Calls and emails were unanswered. My messages got more passive-aggressive. Eventually I gave up.

Tried to get an appointment with my GP, but it’s so hard to get an appointment. Is this the right time to tell you this, or should we save it for Groucho in the new year? I’m not afraid to die, but I am afraid I might croak any day now. I get crushing chest pains, and I’m terrified I’m having a heart attack. Been to the ER/A&E a few times for some lovely 8-hour visits, but they told me to skedaddle and quit panicking.

I don’t know what was going through Luigi’s mind, but he wasn’t happy with the medical system, put it that way.

In my fragile state, were I to cross paths with my doctor…let’s not even think about that.

The final case – you be the judge

Was I right or wrong?

A few weeks ago, my sweet little princess was acting like a stroppy teenager, giving me lip and being petulant, refusing to get ready for bed. I was being as patient as I could, though reaching the end of my tether. My voice was getting louder and she did that thing I thought only teenagers did, rolling her eyes and using her hands to mimic a ‘blah blah blah’ voice. I was losing my shit, but…deep breaths.

She’s brushing her teeth, stood on her stool, looking into the mirror. I’m right behind her. With a mouth full of toothpaste, she’s still being nasty, giving me a look of pure contempt and as I try to assertively tell her to-

THWACK!!!

“You fucking little bitch!” I screamed, grabbing the toothbrush and hurling it to the floor.

“Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck, gooooooooooooooooooooood...”

I doubled over in pain, gasping for breath.

I’d never in my life been kicked so hard in the balls.

For days it hurt and I had trouble walking. Dear readers, I had blood in my piss the next day for crying out loud! For a while I could only feel one of my balls, I think the other one disappeared into my abdomen. When I later told her that she was definitely not getting a brother or sister, she said she didn’t care, that I was too old anyway (fair point).

As horrible as I feel about what I said, it was completely involuntary, like breathing. I couldn’t help it. That’s my only defence. That, and the pent-up pressure of the past couple of years, the anxiety bubbling over, the volcano of life rumbling…

Don’t be so quick to judge until you get both sides of the story.

After a period of punishment – a week on the rack in our basement dungeon and no cartoons for 10 days – she was much better and very apologetic. We’ve both managed to find the funny side of it.

“Daddy, you didn’t want to have any more kids, did you?”

“No, I didn’t, so you did us a favour.”

Oh, and one more thing – do you know what the national policy debate topic was during my debate class in 1994?

Resolved: The United States federal government should establish a universal health care system in the United States.

That was thirty years ago.

It remains unresolved.

Thank God she wasn’t wearing those boots at the time.