health and horse-blinders
when i was little, my mom said i watched TV so hard she could stand in the periphery and wave and i was just locked in - no response. more recently, i saw a meme that speaks to what that small person i once was still is
this past March, i wrote an angsty post about the state of online political discourse. in retrospect, i've spent too much time thinking about abstract things.
not to return to monke
not that online discourse isn't a bizarre and wonderful phenomenon unique to recent history or that it isn't productive to think about
but because of the opportunity cost in attention towards my mental and physical health
in that same post, i mentioned i stopped drinking to see what would happen. well, I've only had a beer or two since that time, and i lost 30 pounds (254-224). now its cardio every day: bike + (walk or run), and cooking decent meals for myself much more frequently (than takeout). around the same time in March, i also stopped vaping (nasty habit, it was, you're right). i now use those nicotine chiclet gum (a couple a day?). used to be out of breath after climbing the one flight of stairs at work, and now I'm not - funny how that works. i also developed a habit of doing pushups every time i wanted a hit of nicotine, starting at 3 pushups per strong urge. then 4, 5, ... and now i'm at 16. today, i did 16 pushups about 6 or 7 times
as someone who has spent a lot of time hating my body or being anxious at the state of it, it's been a gratifying experience. is this a perfectly healthy mindset or worldview? probably not. i'm just eagerly replacing my vices with more healthy and productive vices, which is nice because i can always just do it again, no matter what my current collection is (bullet chess, still nicotine w the gum, weed sometimes)
i don't intend this to be braggadocious or preachy, but rather to embarrassedly admit that adhering to basic health principles has dramatically changed my life. not sure if i was thinking, "oh the world's probably gonna end anyways, what's the use in working hard to maintain a body that'll be incinerated by nukes, carried off by drones, or finally schmucked by that Amazon delivery truck on Milwaukee in Wicker Park?" or more likely/boring "I don't have any good reason to take care of myself", but regardless I sure did embody my shitty self-image and worldview.
in the spirit of a new leaf this post is meant to give myself grace. my addictive personality and fear of my own suppressed turmoil drove me to avoid and live with my substance abuse cope for all of my early twenties. my career enabled me to obsess about things on the internet and neglect my real body, as long as my online boxes were ticked. it was rather low-friction for me to continue being unhealthy.
but unfortunately, i am still a mid-post-ape, just like you. lift heavy rock, make sad thoughts go away. you might hate the reductive nature of the saying (like i used to), but you can't say that something functionally equivalent to that saying didn't help me change my life.
all is not solved, i just feel i've gotten over a hump and i want to write down and remember that i am capable of this. i can improve rather quickly, and even though I'm not really uniquely capable in any way.