I woke up this morning feeling much better. A little gurgly in the stomach but otherwise my psyche has fully returned. I feel alive. Ready to take on the world. Oddly, more so than prior to being sick. It provided a keen insight that I failed to realize and that is oddly lacking in most advice: if you can't feel the joy, deprive yourself of those things which you should be joyful of and you will find yourself enjoying them once again when returned. Absence makes the heart grow fonder and all that. Fasting makes food all that much better. And being cooped up sick in a room all day with every muscle and joint aching and a brain full of fog makes you enjoy the clarity, mobility, and freedom to roam the next day. Go figure.
The only remaining question then, is what to deprive, when, for how long, etc. Okay, that's multiple questions. Maybe it can be regular like fasting on Saturdays or maybe it can be skipping all meals but lunch. Maybe it's getting away to an isolated cottage in the woods for a week once a quarter. And, of course, maybe it's entirely unique per person. I will need to be attuned to what I am essentially taking for granted and no longer feeling the joy and take that as a sign to deprive. And I'll have to play around with lengths of time to determine what truly works. This is quite the homework and entirely anecdotal, but I suppose anecdotes are fine when it's personal. And even a placebo effect is still an effect--especially with the theory of creating our own realities.
My stomach still wasn't quite with it so I ended up sleeping a lot still. I kept having weird sinking feelings while I slept. I tried to give in to them after a while to see if I could go "deeper" and it felt like I could to some degree but it never led anywhere in particular. I noticed that the sinking feeling aligned with how it would feel if I were laying on the ceiling. Weird, I know. Haha.
As I lay in bed though, my mind often ruminated on what it has consumed the most of recently: the show Extraordinary. And while I haven' discounted it as "bad" per se, I feel like there are better things for my mind to be ruminating if I want to be in the virtuous current. But what is that? What does one think about while riding the currents of virtue? I use ChatGPT a lot to come up with ideas and it essentially recommended mindfulness as a practice as we go through life and that made a lot of sense. Mindfulness, of course, being the practice of being acutely aware of everything: the breeze, the flavor of food, the sun, the smells, etc. I'm not sure what that makes my brain ponder while I'm lying sick in bed, but mindfulness does make sense as a means of taking joy in the small things.
So I finally got up to get some food and as I got in the car, my phone automatically continued Spotify which was last playing some weird playlist of... I dunno... music you'd hear at Panera? I let it continue and it was, of course, relaxing and probably closer to joy as a feeling than the heavy metal I typically listen to. When I sat down to eat, the music ruminated in my mind even though I wasn't familiar with it. I continued with a feeling of peace and tranquility. I tried being mindful of every bite of food I ate while listening to the soundtrack in my mind.
Now, normally, I eat quickly as a task. It's something to complete and if it was good tasting that's a bonus. I considered for a moment that I'm being mindful and eating for the experience, not the task. It's not like it's hard to get food, so if it's a task, eat something quick and bland, but if it's an experience, then I should actually experience it. I ate half of it before my experience told me it was enough. I'm not generally a quitter, but I couldn't experience more joy out of it while being mindful. I was acutely aware of my body saying it was done. But... I'm not a quitter! And... I don't have anything to take it back with me! I wrestled with asking for a box or finishing what I started and ultimately did the right thing and got the box. Mindfulness helped me be aware of what I was doing and why. I can't say I fully comprehend why I'm so stuck on cleaning my plate ::glares at my mother in my head:: but it's not an ideal goal over my health.
If the theory of streams and currents of reality are true, I wonder if we can imprint thoughts upon those streams and anyone else tightly locked into that stream and sensitive enough to it, we could communicate telepathically. It's probably just as out of reach a theory as the number of licks to get to the center of a tootsie pop though...
I finished watching Extraordinary. Spoiler alert. The last episode of season two has Jen saying goodbye to her dead dad forever (who was being channeled via Carry's power). This oddly hit me deeply. I guess because I never had a bond like that with either of my two dads. Like seriously, I get two fathers and neither of them created a strong bond? What bullshit. And I carry that with me apparently. I have no loss to lament--only something I should have had but never did. My biological father has already passed away due to cancer. We talked maybe 4 times and 2 of which were only digitally. My other father still lives and we had a great chat today--father's day--but we rarely ever talk. We're on such different wavelengths. We have some things in common and I try to share those things--like having a tractor, acres of property, and... I dunno, that's about it. We were always pretty different. I like to pet animals and he likes to hunt them. That pretty much sums up the difference. To each their own in this screwed up world, but it does suck to have no bonds with family.
Working through this little-t trauma seems important for riding the waves of the virtuous current. I hold no ill-will, just a deep and hidden sadness. And one that probably leaves scars of self-deprecation to overcome. English is so dumb. It's an e for deprecation but an i for deprivation? Anyway, it's weird that it took the motivation of a made-up theory of currents and streams to lead me toward healing. Whatever floats my boat I guess...?
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