Sudden Bouts

Some years ago, I had a conversation with my roommate wherein I decided to reveal that I had a headache. At the time, it was quite unusual for me to get any sort of headache, let alone one of sufficient severity for me to bring it to the attention of another. This was a rare occasion, indeed. In a demonstration of his boundless compassion, my roommate reassured me, “don’t worry bro – that’s just the tumor!” Not to be too put off by his callous disregard for my well-being, I replied, “well, that explains the sudden bouts of blindness.” The use of the more server “blindness” over the milder and more expected “dizziness,” for which I had actually corrected mid-sentence, was enough to elicit the expected laugh. But, what even made me think to perform the substitution? Basically, a previous experience with the matter was still fresh in my mind.

Some time before this conversation, I was at work unpacking servers for delivery and setup. The work was tedious, involving opening boxes, taking out the server and necessary accessories to be loaded onto crash carts, and discarding everything else with the original packaging. As I worked, my vision faded to a foggy white. This wasn’t the first time I had lost my eyesight, but it had only ever happened in one eye at a time and had never lasted this long before. After pausing my work and waiting a few seconds for my vision to return, to no avail, I finally reported to my coworker that I couldn’t see. He asked if I was serious. I assured him that I was while groping around for a surface on which to sit. I found a short stack of unopened server boxes and sat down for a bit until my sight returned. My coworker asked if I was okay. I told him that I wasn’t sure, but I got back to work. To this day, I don’t know if he ever decided whether I was telling the truth, or just trying to pull one over one him.

That experience terrified me. Not just the prospect of complete and permanent blindness, but the fact that it could happen with no apparent external cause. I believe that it was the result of stress, mostly from work, so I have taken steps since that day to better manage my stress. There has been no recurrence of that condition, not even a milder single-eye episode, since that time. Also, I later had a CT scan, which revealed nothing unusual. My ophthalmologist hasn’t found anything strange about my eyes, although I never actually told him about the episodes. In fact, until now, I haven’t told anyone besides my coworker. I’m not sure what prompted me to finally document the incident, but it feels like something I have long needed to describe.

Infinite Storm

This movie is slow. At 97 minutes, it feels like it runs much longer. It is also strangely claustrophobic for taking place primarily out in open mountain wilderness. While I enjoy the outdoors, I cannot stand the cold, especially in my vulnerable digits. So, it is difficult for me to grasp the appeal of hiking up a snowy peak while fighting gusts of frigid wind. The setting, for me, portrayed a personal Hell that invites one of the worst possible ways to die.

People can be stubborn. If someone needs to be saved, how far should someone else go to save that person, even if that person clearly does not want to be saved? When does saving someone else become more about an opportunity to save oneself? What outcome must result in order for all of the effort to be worthwhile? The creators of the movie likely want the audience to leave with some of these questions and more. Fortunately, they did not want to leave too many mysteries, so much of the intrigue is addressed directly and wrapped up neatly by the end. Another question that might come up, though, is, why bother with this movie? I suppose that, if this story is something that resonates with you for some good reason, then you will likely enjoy it. It does not resonate with me.

I may feel ambivalence toward this movie, but I have very strong feelings about what happened shortly afterwards. On my way home, I was pulling out of a parking lot on my bicycle when the driver of the car behind me began shouting at me to get out of the way, despite there being no break in cross traffic. I found the lack of both patience and competence of this motorist to be quite unsettling. He seemed genuinely baffled and enraged by the fact that I had come to a full stop holding up my left hand, the legal signal of my intent to make a right turn. He even shouted something about letting him go around me as he lurched his vehicle toward me, seemingly intent on running me off the road and cutting off the cars I was waiting to let pass. When I finally got a clearing and made my way into the street, then the left turn lane, he pulled up to my right, stuck his head out the window, and told me that I am an asshole. The irony was not lost on me, but I was not above returning some expletives as he tried to speed off, slowed by the crawling traffic in front of him.

The driver clearly felt that he was in the right and that I had no business using the road, since he had possession of a motor vehicle and I was merely riding a bicycle. That kind of ignorance, especially combined with that kind of volatility, is dangerous for anyone who has to share the road with such a person. I genuinely regret not taking the time to dismount from my bike and educate this unqualified driver on traffic law, particularly the points on pedestrian and bicycle rights and safety. I doubt it would have done anything to diffuse the situation, but at least I wouldn’t feel as though I just left a land mine to explode on someone else.

Disappearance

I recently went to the park to do my regular workout when, much to my surprise and dismay, I found that The Pit (where I do my workout) had its gear removed and was being dug up. Apparently, the old, worn equipment is being replaced with a single new structure. This comes as the latest setback to my previously proposed fitness program.

The week before, on one of my regular workout days, I had a need to ride my bike into Renton, a bit more than 20 miles of previously unexplored road and trails from my home. The ride itself easily replaced the usual cycling portion of my routine, but the round trip and the wait in Renton left no time for the rest of my exercises. What’s worse is that I injured my knee on the return trip and was unable to ride my bike any real distance for about a week.

These setbacks, along with a general loss of interest, have convinced me to cease my fitness journal. I will still try to workout regularly, just I have for the past month-and-a-half, but I will no longer keep record of my progress. I figure the first month will prove to be the most interesting, anyway, so I don’t see dropping the journal as a real loss, as long as I can keep myself motivated to stay in shape. Fare thee well!

Fitness Journal

Since I got back into a fitness routine Monday, I decided this morning that I would keep a journal of my progress. It will be a private journal, so I won’t be posting it here. Nevertheless, I believe the idea is sound and worth sharing.

The journal, which I started today, consists of three parts: a checklist of the stretches I intended to do; the number of reps I performed in each exercise; and pictures to physically document my progress. The checklist is a list of all the stretches I plan as part of my routine with a checkbox to mark if I attempted the stretch and another to mark if I held the stretch for 20 seconds. I’m hoping this part of the journal quickly becomes obsolete, acting only as a basic reminder. The reps list is just a count of the number of pull-ups, push-ups, crunches, and leg lifts I was able to perform. These numbers should eventually approach a hard limit, at which point I should add a second, and eventually a third, set. The pictures are only going to be taken once a week, just before my Friday workout. One picture will allow me to visualize the improvement of my upper body physique (in theory) while the other will demonstrate my progress in overall flexibility.

I want to try to keep from falling out of my new fitness routine, and I’m hoping that keeping this journal will make it more interesting. Also, limiting the workout frequency to three days a week cuts down on the likelihood that I just won’t have time. I’ve already seen progress since Monday, so I’m feeling pretty good about getting myself back into shape. Find your motivation, and act! Fare thee well!

Feebility

I was riding my bike today to keep my legs in shape while I’m out of school. On my way home, I stopped by the park and had a quick workout for the first time in several years. In so doing, I discovered that I am abysmally out of shape. I was just able to pull off 13 pull-ups, down from 25 in high school, and I can barely touch my toes with my fingertips, whereas a couple years ago I could touch my palms to my heels and still bend my elbows a bit. The most startling deterioration, however, was in my abs. When I exorcised regularly, I did 50 crunches and 25 side crunches on each side every day. Today, I was able to do 10 crunches, and I couldn’t manage a single inclined sit-up. This alarming development has convinced me that I need to get back into a regular exercise routine.

I used to follow a strict workout schedule that involved stretches, inclined push-ups, pull-ups, elevated leg lifts and crunches every day, with aerobics three times a week. It’s time-consuming, but the benefits are worth it. So, starting this week, I will try to hold myself to a similar routine, even if I do dumb it down to three times a week for everything. Your support and criticism is greatly appreciated. Fare thee well!

Giving Up

The irrepressible crushing weight of chronic depression has left me broken and dismayed.  I no longer view life as a fruitless struggle to justify one’s irrelevant existence before that existence utterly ceases.  I now view life as a cruel and unnecessary affliction that withers away the psyche by presenting the promise of cognition, emotion and physical sensation only to slowly erode away these faculties as your inevitable death comes to bear on you.  The many joys and splendors life has to offer are far outweighed by all the sorrow and suffering that is constantly inflicted upon the living.  And yet, to forfeit one’s life to silence the torment, though it seems the only rational solution, is itself a terrifying endeavor.  Surrendering one’s entire being to the unknown and eternal void of death seems such a horrifying prospect as to give pause to all but the most desperate and miserable seeking an escape.  Thus, the living organism is cursed for the duration of its life with an overwhelming self-preservative instinct.

Although preservation of the self is instinctive, there may be rational reasons for postponing death.  The most obvious rational reason for avoiding death is that death is absolute.  Since there exists the possibility that whatever death holds is even more agonizing than life and since there is no proven way to revert from complete death it seems reasonable to continue to tolerate life until it has completely run its course before venturing into the timeless folds of oblivion.  Even if death is somehow filled with unimaginable spiritual pleasures, it would not be any less so after living a few more decades, so it even seems reasonable to suffer needlessly for the better part of a century rather than rushing to the sweet release of death, since the prolonged suffering of life may actually make the eternal joy of death even more fulfilling.  Whatever death holds, it cannot be known by those who live.  As such, it takes a great deal of compounded suffering before death becomes a welcome companion.

Although there are some rational reasons for avoiding death, there seem to be no good reasons for living.  An individual may acquire knowledge, possessions, power, influence and pleasant experiences while alive, but death eventually separates the individual from these things.  Even if death is postponed significantly in order to prolong the individual’s worldly comforts, as time passes and the individual ages knowledge is forgotten, possessions wear out, power is usurped, influence wanes and experiences grow intangible.  Eventually, all personal reason for living is lost.  The longer one lives, the more completely meaningless living becomes.

In much the same way, there is not much sense in continuing to live for the sake of the species.  No matter how much we accomplish as a species the world will eventually be swallowed by our sun and all our accomplishments destroyed.  This is true even if we spread across the galaxy and colonize other worlds or create solar-powered space station colonies to orbit other stars.  No matter how much knowledge, power and influence the human race acquires it will not be capable of preventing the eventual death of the universe itself.  The struggle for life, in its entirety, is pointless.  Fare thee well!