Aug 31

 An ok day yesterday. A few touches of feeling unwell. But, eh, still ok. Albeit not as ok as last week.

I have a new theory.

The reason I feel better with swimming is the temperature. It's cold.

It's the snap of the cold that makes my internals change.

I Thought of this yesterday when jumping into the pool and feeling a lot better, and then realising my shoulders were chilly. The water is cold.

Which then reminded me of something I said to my brother. On a winters day walk along the coast, with wind and sea spray coming over it was face hurtingly cold. But not too extreme. And I felt a lot better out in the cold. Headache shifted, didn't feel so ill. My brother said it was the fresh air.

When we finished our walk and went back to his house, within 10 minutes of warming up, I felt rough again.

Cold. Links the two things. And I've noticed a reaction to cold before.

A lot of things happen when you are subjected to a cold shock. Blood vessels constrict, heart rate rises, adrenaline pumps up, and your immune system steps up. All in very short order.

Hmm. Something to think about.

I pulled a muscle swimming yesterday. Typical. So now I have to nurse it a bit. It's a really minor pull, but, it's definitely a pull, and my wisdom tells me you're absolutely supposed to rest pulled muscles. Not continue fucking with them. Which doesn't bode well for my increasingly busy swimming schedule.

Pfft. We shall see. I will try going tomorrow and see how it is. Which is too short a time for it to heal. But fuck it.

Work was super stressy and busy today. Too much lazy lack of testing or bothering to chase points and an over eagerness to get stuff into live, to bill for it resulted in a clusterfuck of a release.

It happens. But it's extremely frustrating. Particularly when you mentioned an oustanding problem literally months ago, nothing gets done, it goes live and suddenly, to cover arses we get, oh, can we just change it now, in live.

Fuck me.

Anyway. Unhappy. With the situation. It is not exactly uncommon. It highlights all the common suspects of failings and weak points in the process. Complacency basically.

Onto other things.

Where does your compromise line lie ?

At what point does something stop being a reasonable compromise and become too much. At what point does something stop becoming tolerable and instead become abuse. Do you even have a tolerance for abuse ?

I know a lot of us, if not all of us would answer that abuse is never acceptable. Of course you don't tolerate that ! But in my experience the opposite is true. People can be quite firm about it when addressing others - *you* should not tolerate abuse. But for themselves. They can put up with it. Tolerate it. Especially if it's not a regular thing.

But again. That insidious creep. When does uncommon, become common, become all the time. Again. Oh this is so easy to measure. And yet. In the eye of the storm I see so often this is not the case.

As humans we are incredibly crap at perceiving the slow shift of things. Our brains are designed to catch larger movements, not subtle ones. As far as our brain is concerned, subtle shifts are the same as no shift at all. Thus. Over a significant time period many subtle shifts can become an enormous one.

And as far as you're concerned, nothing has changed.

Wrong.

Abuse or problems in relationships is even more sticky for this. Because there is also an element of familiarity in there. Comfort. Routine. Caring. Love. And loved ones will put up with shit because, that's what you do. Right ?

So where is the line.

In practice, it's going to be different for everyone. How much you put up with. How much abuse you can take. How many bullshit excuses you feed to yourself that it's ok really. How willing you are to sacrifice yourself for someone else - and more often than not, not for some misplaced sense of nobility, but more because they are trapped in a situation of their own thinking. Unable to free themselves from guilt. Or peer pressure. Expectations. Or fear of what lies on the other side of that unknown. The end of things. Spouses that suffer physical abuse are the poster child for this horrible situation. Beaten black and blue but it's ok because he loves me really.

All of it from the physical to the far less discussed psychological abuse causes unhappiness. And ultimately unfulfillment. A stifling of growth. A plateauing of who people are. Expectations dwindling to zero. Joy flatlining. 

It's a tragedy.

And I see it unfolding time and again. From minor to major.

I've lost count of the number of times I have seen it in action.

My worthless advice would be. You get one life. One shot. Change. Do what makes you happy. Break the toxic patterns. Dare to try, dare to do something that might make you happy. I really wish people would be more free. Free to move. Free to be happy, not bound by some bullshit arbitrary notion peer pressure society. Dont have sex before marriage ! Dont sleep around ! Obey your husband ! Do the Lords work ! Commit to that career ! and on. And on.

Of course. My advice to be brave and break out of it doesn't really work like that. The sticky glue of the devil you know is formidable and for the vast majority of issues, is not overcome.

It makes me sad. Another subtle layer of sadness to a world filled with it.

Anyway. I now I ask you.

Where is your line. Where are you now ? Are you happy ? What does your line look like ? IF you have a partner - how does that line look with them ? What does the future look like ? Could it be better ? Be brave...

A friend pointed out a line in a book today. About knowing who you are. I thought it was a great line. It talks about projection ( wrongly imho, they have a really bullshit take on it which I think they have kind of got the wrong end of the stick from ). Anywho. The line nevertheless is good. Just ignore the projection bit of bullshit.

Finish this sentence without thinking too hard about it. Just. The first thing that comes into your mind. 

What I really deserve is.....  ?

Well ? What do you deserve. Don't overthink it and go all philsophical. Go with your first instinct.

I'll tell you mine tomorrow so I dont pollute your own finish.