Tuesday, December 06, 2005

More tablets doctor...

As it's dark, wet and I'm too tired to go out today I'll make my entries now so I can get to bed slightly earlier than last night. It's a terrible habit but if you look at most of my internet entries they were done after midnight, as well as most of my writing. If I'm on a roll why stop? Shame the rest of the world doesn't wait for me to catch up though, and I can't always get up as late as I'd need to if things are booked the next day.

My article was sent and accepted within the hour earlier, and I think it's a lesson for many people to learn, the basic message being not to assume others react the same way to things as you do, as it's not necessarily the case and leads to pressure on them, and possible judgement where they don't conform to your own assumptions. It's rife in a certain part of my family and I know tends to be a particularly Jewish habit, where kids are indoctrinated to expect the same sorts of behaviour from everybody. Why not just be realistic and accept 'erratic' and then everyone will be assessed accurately. I wonder how standardised neuroses actually are having said that, as racially we all tend to demonstrate pretty similar sensitivities, comparable with the sensitive racehorses or delicate scientific equipment. High performance, high maintenance and low reliability. But it seems the majority have to trade brains and brawn, as few have both the incredible creative potential and stability in one. And having a similar balance myself would prefer both for myself and others if I had to choose to keep the creativity as it both satisfies my ambitions and leaves things for others' benefit. If my health is all over the place as well, so be it. It seems to add detritus with time, each negative experience adding to the reactive memory and weakening an already weary physical body.
This is interesting in the fact I have had to learn about aerobic and anaerobic exercise at the gym, and all my life I have had the lowest aerobic fitness I've ever come across (even worse than my mum apparently, as she doesn't exercise and I do and I am still unfit), but pretty good anaerobic. This, in practical terms, means I can go and lift weights of up to 60kg three or four times a week, but feel like shit after running for a few minutes. The only time I improved was after my Dad used to take me running for a few months, and I could do a lap or two of the circuit (400 yards?) without too many effects, and quickly. As soon as I stopped I was back to normal, almost collapsing after an hour of tennis. At 45 I don't intend to follow my Dad's example of taking up running in his 50s, and doing a hill run on many days of 6-7 miles. I'll stick to the weights and extending my brain rather than overdo the fitness, though I have bumped up my time on the running and stepping machines quite a bit as the one concession.

I assume having a partner or friend around would lessen the effects of any stress in my life, as at the moment any physical or mental stress produces a reaction comparable with a Vietnam veteran. I see it happening as an audience would now, I feel fine, something happens and my mind or body go into a sudden decline which is a million times worse than the incident that caused it. I know I'm both physically and mentally exhausted, am coming out of it slowly but not finally as as soon as things get tough I go back again. The literal only area this may now be a problem is meeting women. The woman who wanted to call me from the dating site looked pretty good generally, but having just got over my summer krenkheit* I dreaded going anywhere in case it came back as it can do at random, even now. People who already know me are probably used to it by now and make allowances, but expecting a potential new girlfriend to krich' around with me like I'm a geriatric is probably a bit more than most would be prepared to allow for.

I've had these sort of times before a couple of times, this may be worse but at least I now know more or less what it is, and have the experience to work around it rather than be stopped completely in my tracks or try and ignore it and make it even worse. In fact this time I can't do that as the levels of tiredness have been close to descriptions from ME, though I can walk and it doesn't usually last more than a few hours. But I feel I have to mention it here as my variable health is as much part of my life as what I do, and I've even had to miss a couple of football matches (including last Saturday) as I'm not sure I could hang about that long yet. Also I want people (through my article and here) to know how people can seem fine on the surface when you meet them (though sensitives will notice a problem) but be struggling to carry out tasks that used to be automatic. And though I suspect it's the rare few who get these problems (tell me I'm wrong?) that makes no difference when you're the one going through it, so it's just about being understood, and people not thinking I'm being difficult if I turn down arrangements and the like. I just can't manage a lot at the moment, full stop.

OK, I had my lecture, in fact I was only going to summarise my projects today, but as 1) they were reduced by tiredness and 2) I'd just written my article, it ended up as a full one-way therapy session. Culturally, I take after Freud, Einstein, Woody Allen, The Marx Brothers and many more weird but wonderful Jews. We make a career about sharing our feelings, partly maybe to balance the goyim who as a whole pretend they don't have any, and I have met some that actually think they don't as they were trained for so long to repress them. Neither extreme is ideal, but I just exploit the tendency as what's the point of trying to cover it up? I'm sure in my case it would leak out one way or another. I'm not Prince Charles and never will be, and I'd like to see the sort of guff he'd write if he was allowed to have a blog.
Mind you, my grandma is definitely the lost Jewish member of the royal family, and my mum always looked like the queen, but a lot younger. Maybe we've missed something...?

* illness 'crawl Visit here for more Yiddish translations.

No comments: