4th Jan

In my experience, one of the best bits of advice I've given myself and learned to do, is to take time to think things through.

Sleep on it.

Maybe several times.

It always results in a more considered, wiser approach. Less up and down, zing, zang, at the mercy of a single emotion or direction, and more of a balanced whole.

So saying.

The future. Sleep on it. Wise monkey. Ooh ooh, ah ah. Screeech.

I have been sleeping on it, and mulling it over, not panicking, take a breath. And of course, a fourth option has popped out of the woodwork. Not to say its amazingly clever. In fact it's really goddamn obvious. But then being a dumbass is part of the human experience. Ooh ooh, ah ah and all that. Poor hairless monkey barely out of the trees ( uhhh technically it's ape you see because... yeah yeah yeah , bite me ).

The fourth option is to wait. Take a breath. Pause. No rush. Give everything space and time, and then reassess.

There's a small risk here that the option of waiting is like the other 35 years of waiting that has come before. Endless. But, I really don't think that's the case here. It's about recognising a changing situation and waiting for my friend to sort through his thinking.

There is no absolute demand for me to do X by Y at this point in time. None, nada, zero. A purely manufactured date. Don't get me wrong, working to a planned schedule that has been months in the making is a very good thing. It lets you get your ducks in a row, and progress is a well known and trackable thing.

But shit changes. Has changed. So. We can adapt. That's ok. Not ideal. But ok.

So pause. Take a breath.

This seems overwhelmingly wise to me at this point. So. I will wait for my friend, and see if and where he pops out. No matter what the outcome, I will have more information at that point. Information means better plans. So. All good.

Zen.

In fact so zen, it holds up to scrutiny. If my friend comes along and says why haven't you quit, or done this, or that. Why wait for me etc. I can say. The wise course is to wait, assess, take time to work things through. Stable foundations are better to build on than ones in flux. Calm. And deliberated. Deep breath in. Deep breath out. Do not fight the flow of the stream. Adapt to it.

See. Zen. Except the stable foundations quote would be something weird. The calm badger builds better than the crazed tiger. Or some shit. But on point if you're of an old school lost in translation mindset ( I think most of the Tao te Ching ( that's the book written by Lao Tzu that has all the taoist wisdom in if you didnt know... you cultural peasant .. what do you mean you've not read archaic chinese texts, pffft, lame ) could probably be called Lost In Translation ha ha ).

Change of topic. I checked the hole in my arse today ( from taoism to neatly segueing into holes in arse, the range of crazy in this blog is amazing ). Poking with fingers, as you do. Oooooh. It's healing ! Disappearing. Oooooh. Amazing. This is pretty good news and I am happy about this. I am also suspiciously feeling a little better. Albeit. Not without the usual hiccups and bullshit. Yesterday out of nowhere I had a real deep head spin. And I mean deep. Consciousness wobbled a little. Yikes. I didn't move. Didn't do shit. Just. Bam. Whoa. WTF. I am not sure. But I think it might be somewhat related to tiredness and.. food. I. Suspect. I have become a little sensitive, "sensitive" to eating correctly. My head span after not eating for 14 hours. Which. Earlier me would have not even blinked at. Don't eat for 36 hours ? Yeah sure, why not. No problem. I would always be slightly nonplussed as people would tell me how bad or weird they felt if they hadn't eaten in like 4 hours.

What ?

I regularly skip days. What is wrong with you that you have to eat every four hours. Are you a hamster ?

But eh. Perhaps it was me all along. And for one reason or another, maybe I can't maintain that kind of bullshit eating schedule anymore.

I did feel a lot better after eating an apple, and scoffing some plain porridge ( yes, I sometimes eat like something out of a Dickens novel, aww gorr bless you guvnor )

So. Eh. Yeahhhhhh.

I dunno. It feels like last year and the illness and ongoing bullshit has like... rewired... how my body works. A factory reset. All your previous configurations have been forgotten. This is now how you work.

Maybe. Maybe not.

It does start to lead me to hypothesise that people can exist in different... eh... "metabolic states". Perhaps having a robust constitution is about having your internals working in just such a way none of which is understood or even looked at by modern medical knowledge. If you take that idea, it does start to sing a similar tune to the newly forming science around "the bacteria in your gut have a massive knock on effect to everything else in your body". It's a holistic orchestral thing perhaps. Hmmm. It also reminds me of the whole drastic MS "cure" of wiping out your bone marrow and immune system, and then restarting it with someone elses. Another reset procedure. Have you tried turning it off and on again. I wonder if various systems in our body can get "stuck" not functioning quite correctly, or in some cases really fucking badly. But it's not something like, oh, your heart stopped. It's a lot more subtle than that. The orchestra is half a note off key. Sure. It still plays. And is an orchestra. But eh. This one keeps getting a cold every 3 months. That one over there takes the piss, eats shit, and runs around like a race horse shrugging everything off. And I do wonder if nasty virals effectively do a bit of a half reset. Or spanner in the works type thing. Which they can't pin down, and just shovel into a vague hand wavey, ooh its CFS. Because its an orchestral problem. And modern medicine, does not do orchestral problems. They do instrument problems. Restring a violin, yeah maybe. Get an orchestra back into harmony again - not so much. No clue mate. This is the violin department. We can refer you to the snare drum department ? We are Handymen. Not architects. Tinkerers. Not designers.

Some problems cannot be framed or solved by looking at the minutiae. Classic human blindspot. The Many Variabled Big Picture. It surpasses our capability to hold in our minds at one time. Out Of Run Time Memory. Data Too Big. This is our fundamental truth - we can only solve things in bitesize chunks, abstract that solution, and then move onto the next bitesize chunk, leaving a series of abstracted solutions in our wake, and ever extending upwards on the shoulders of giants ( and their abstractions ). Where a problem cannot be broken down into this pattern, do a little, solve a little, move on, we utterly fail. Bring on the AI's..... who can do that shit simultaneously. It's a bandwidth problem. How many plates can you spin at once. This problem is a single plate spinner. Easy. This problem is a 6 plate spinner. But I only have two hands. Sucks to be you. The AI on the other hand, has as many hands as it wants to make itself.

Moving on.

I stumbled across people talking about their experiences with long covid today. Man oh man. Did it read exactly the same as me. A smorgasbord of post effects. Heart issues that morph into gastro issues, leaky valves, tinnitus ears, dizzy head. Umm. Me too. Perhaps covid did have its way with me after all, and the CFS people are right. Who knows. It's pretty shit though. And a lot of people seem to be in the same boat. Meh. Let's hope it really spurs on some good science about it all. It probably just ends up a case of "yeah, some virals really do fuck you over and leave random patterns of damage around the body that in some cases is permanent". Like a fragmentation grenade. Bang. Walk with a limp forever more. Put it like that, it sounds like a no brainer right ?

Anywho.

Feeling upbeat today. I should have no reason to feel that way. But I do.

I have been getting some pretty hardcore anxiety in the mornings though. I think. I can anxiety up pretty hardcore whilst I am asleep and coming out of sleep ( again a delightful new feature for me from 2021 ). Waking fully up pushes it away. If that's true, I could be very susceptible to stress and worry that I am ( again ) not so aware of.

It's fair to say my friend doing what he's doing has rattled me hardcore. But eh. I am coping. And upbeat. He must walk his path. I have done all I can at this point. Be zen. And I am. Been a long while since I could touch zen. I like zen. Zen is my place. But perhaps in the space between awaking and fully off, there is room there for me to anxiety up nastily.

I find it deeply ironic that at this point in time, it's not me that is unreliable, burnt out, etc, and I have kind of again, flopped into a strength role.

It's also made me think again of the whole "where are the normal people at". I honestly, at this point, don't know a single "normal" person. Everyone has been fucked with.

I spoke with another friend about this last evening. He reckoned the pandemic was at the root of it all. Maybe. I agree that the pandemic has had a massive effect on everyones mental stability. I've seen a lot of wobbles and crashes and all sorts in the last couple of years. Waayyyy above normal. In people you wouldn't expect it in.

Tricky stuff.

Eh well. Onwards and upwards. Feeling positive. I need to get some rest in today. I've been burning the candle at both ends a bit too much lately. Need some zzz's.

Also. I'm gonna try stuffing my face with kiwi fruit more. I know this shit already. And. It doesn't super work like that. But eh. Kiwi is packed with serotonin. Makes you sleep better. And. Happier. Counter depressive fruit.

Well. Kinda. Sorta. Not really.

Anywho. I shall be doing that. For a wheeze. I like kiwi.

End on some positives.

I am getting an itch to get back to my painting. Wanna finish off my 6mm little dudes. Should be cool. I am also getting a tiny itch to do some baking. Heh. Something... cakey. Cinnamon whirls perhaps ? Hnnnngggg. I don't do cakes. I mean. I make cakes sometimes. But I don't eat them. I make them and then watch others eat them ( I guess this makes me an ideal partner for someone who loves cakes, but cant be arsed making them, ha ha ). They are not my thing really. But cinnamon whirls are amazing. Nom.