I've been bouncing around a lot lately. Fasting, not fasting. Stress eating. Yelling at the kids. Flying off the handle. It's so not me. I need to get back to my usual zen self.
Food has been poisoning me. I need to just keep it simple. Eat what I need. Stop stress eating when the kids get on my nerves.
I used to be one of the most patient people. No more. I'm not sure why, either. Everything seems to be going our way. Katy is making more than an SES. I'm making a ton of money for doing basically....nothing. Not quite nothing. But very little indeed. Certainly less than I've ever done. So many toxic work experiences over the past 11 years have taken their toll. It's time to let them go and move forward.
Part of the problem now acute anxiety over the kids future and the state of the world. And the fear of feeding them into the same system that I went through. The idiot education machine. Run by idiots. Taught by idiots. Surrounded by idiots. Yeah....that one. Is it wrong for me to want something a bit better for my kids? But what would be better. Home schooling? That wouldn't be the most healthy option, particularly if I'm the teacher. My world view isn't the best to rub off on young minds. Attitudes are contagious...mine might kll you.
Private school with all the other privileged youths? Perhaps the quality of education would be better, but I wouldn't want them interacting with fucked up preps.
<sigh>
Also it's pretty fucking obvious that this world is flying apart at an alarmingly accelerating rate. Climate change is accelerating. We were inundated with rain yet again, in mid-December. Do the climate deniers never go outside? Are their yards not turning into swamps while the West burns? I really don't get it. It's right out your fucking window, moron!
And don't even get me started on the political situation. Suffice it to say that all governments, like all bloated bureaucracies, are totally incapable of responding to any threat. "Power of One" was added to Netflix, on a side note, and I watched my favorite scene with the prisoner's concert. After that scene, it cuts back to the main character's school, and the teacher says "Any system that spends resources attacking that which least threatens it will not survive a generation." Holy shit, how prescient. That's where we are. Ignoring the truly existential threats and focusing on things that don't matter two dingoes kidneys.
Honestly it's a lot like the situation I faced in high school. Exactly, actually. I was overweight and started training to survive nuclear war. I lost 50 lbs in a month by watching my diet and starting to run. Well, running isn't an option anymore. I've learned after 25 years of running that it's useless, and there's a lot of better things you can do. But here I am, facing existential threats, but this time to my children. So, like then, I guess I have the option of just giving up or fighting my way the fuck out.
I chose fight. Doing nothing isn't an option. Filtering what I do to what I like seems the most logical course. I like lifting. Hitting things. A healthy dose of physical labor now and then. There's ample opportunity for all of those. Fuck endless and pointless cardio. Fast when you want. When you eat, eat things you like and eat what your body needs. Change your stress response from eating to fasting.
There is no system, no master plan. The universe....is indifferent. I should be too. Through all the fight in my youth I came to a zen-like detachment from the world. I discovered that humanity was ultimately worthless and that nothing I could do would change this fact. I also learned that, logically, humanity is destined to destroy ourselves. For the longest time I wrestled with this undeniable fact. In the end, all I was able to control was the level of my emotional attachment to it and the effect that depressing reality has on me. For a decade it inoculated me against pretty much anything. The total annihilation of mankind being an inevitable foregone conclusion, everything else seems a moot point. I am always startled at what people get hung up on, particularly at work. I mean people argue and get worked up over the dumbest fucking shit. Jesus.
People at work still mention that they are surprised how things never affect me. It's because work means nothing to me. Accomplishment, recognition, promotion, awards....I have no need for these things. Nor should you.
What matters to me is my family. My friends. Their future. I know in the end I am just as helpless in shaping those as I discovered earlier in life. I guess I need to learn to let go a bit and let things play out. And just do my best to guide them through the tempest, both literal and metaphorical, that they are facing.
The reminder to go lift just popped up on my screen. A couple of last thoughts before I go do the 3-rep max all muscle groups shred....a key part of letting go of how fucked up the world is getting would be detachment from the digital globe. Step 1: Stop reading news....spoiler alert - it's all bad. Step 2: Ditch the smartphone, it's too easy to lose yourself texting, checking email, weather, news, whatever. None of it is shit you need to know. You have a life to live. Get off the fucking phone and do it. Step 3: Say a big "Fuck you" to cooking, cleaning, doing housework, etc. and spend more time playing with the kids.
How troublesome.
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