you humans all look the same

Passover was interesting this year.  My family was there, some extended family, and a friend of my cousin - and her husband, the jeet kune do kickboxing instructor from the martial arts school I just started a month ago.

It was surreal.  As we were introduced, he laughed and said we'd met ..but I couldn't place where.  He looked really familiar, but my brain was looking in all the wrong places, weddings, other family get-togethers.  I couldn't place who he was, and had to ask.

Combat Fitness, he offered, but I was still confused.  He had to go so far as to tell me that he teaches the class, before it clicked.  Doh!  I don't go to his class as often as some of the others, but still.  I guess I'm not so good with faces.  The difference in context really threw me.  

Got me thinking about how context dependent my awareness of other people can be.  I compartmentalize everything, to better cope with various people I deal with.  I was shocked to find someone in the wrong compartment, but I think I handled it ok.

I mean except for not even recognizing the guy.. and I wonder why I have trouble connecting with people.  I can hardly pay attention to superfluous details such as what their faces look like.

autophagocytosis

It's odd that I've become such a health nut.  I'm not trying to "eat healthy," just trying to avoid processed foods, breads and pastas. Meat, eggs, dairy.  Beer, coffee, sugar.  Anything without enough nutritional value. Once I learned how much is lost when you strip the bran hull to make white rice, eating brown rice just makes a whole lot more sense. Or sometimes quinoa.

I miss making lasagnas and quiches, but there's a lot that can be done with plants.  The amount of flavor you can get grinding up their seeds can be impressive.  I've gotten into the habit of doing this almost every day.  Well, not grinding my own spices, but cooking myself a big flavorful lunch ..before fasting.

Does it seem I'm getting carried away?  I'd have thought so myself, until reading about autophagy or rice bran or adenosine receptors.  Then it's a no-brainer, and honestly, it's not that difficult.  Changing habits can be difficult, but once I'm in the swing of doing things differently, going back seems unthinkable.  At least until life throws me back one way or another, but maybe that doesn't have to keep happening, right?

Another case in point, my body seems to have adapted well to the regular stress.  I'm no longer limping after class, or even the next day.  Sore an awful lot, but not cripplingly so, anymore.  I wonder if up-regulating autophagy helps with that.  As I understand, it should help with a lot of things.

All these things require thinking ahead in a way I haven't done so much before. They all make little to no difference in the short term.  Eating better feels better, but eating donuts feels pretty good too, so that can seem like a wash.  No, it's more about how eating too many donuts too often will feel after a year.  Five years.  Twenty years.

In theory, eating a donut with some coffee would be fine now and then, but once I'm out of the habit, I almost never get around to it.

speaking of addiction

Walking home from BJJ class Thursday night, I thought about how I often question the point.  I thought about how much I enjoy it, and how that should be more than enough.  Not sure why I have so much doubt about it.  As I've been going to more classes, I've been getting back into the swing of it, my old skills gradually coming back to me.  My muscles getting back into shape enough to do what they're supposed to.  Sort of.  I have a ways to go.

Next class isn't until Tuesday.  I have some other bullshit to worry about in the meantime.  Land baron called, said the apartment needs to be inspected, next Thursday.  I hope it's just a routine thing, and not because they're selling the house.  That would be a huge hassle I don't want to have to deal with.  I also have to clean my apartment before then.  A small hassle, that I can't even deal with.

So, doing well, but could be better.  My apartment is messy again.  I keep thinking about what I'm doing differently, that might be making things more difficult.  Maybe I can scratch running off of that last, but I'm not sure.  It is a unique type of cardio that might be uniquely beneficial.  Lots of snow again, I've barely been able to run twice a month.  I ran out of that omega-3 stuff, maybe that's it.

I also stopped drinking coffee entirely.  Just tea once in a while, this past month or so.  I should probably try coffee a little more often.  I keep reading articles about how coffee drinkers live three times as long, can hold their breath for half an hour, and spontaneously learn coding.

I'm spending too much time at my computer.  That one occurred to me recently.  I don't know how it happened, but bad habits come creeping back.  Next thing I know, I'm sitting here all day, every day, not feeling like doing anything at all ever.  Still doing some things, but that's not the point.  I've been mostly doing lots of this, and feeling worse.

Pretty sure I need to put some discipline back into doing less.  Go back to meditating for a few hours a day if I have to.

Bah, just when I was starting to get the hang of Twitter.

new rules

I've been making lots of rules for myself lately.  Turning everything into daily rituals.  I don't know why I need to do this, but it seems to help me do all sorts of things that I need and want to do.  Without it, it's always never right now.

New rule being that after I meditate, I can check my PC as I eat breakfast, but have to get off within fifteen minutes or so of finishing my granola. Then a few hours later, after I've done a few things, I can cry about being tired, and.. what is it I do at the computer, again?  Mostly nothing.  It's just a zillion places to look for something to do.  Something to respond to or be angry about.  YouTube videos about theoretical physics and Mongolian street food, and there are always new articles about socialism and how much America sucks.

The vast majority of the time though, I'm just bouncing between these places, not even doing anything.  Just bored, looking for something to engage me, and distracted by that, itself.  If I must do something so painfully useless, it has to be at the end of the day, when I allow myself to get stoned anyhow, forgetting everything I'm supposed to be doing for a while.

Then I get all confused when my aunt calls and invites me to have dinner with them, for my cousin's birthday.  She gave me three hours notice, but still.  I'd just eaten my last meal for the day, my carefully planned intermittent fasting, where I cram as many calories as I can afford before two or three in the afternoon, so I won't be that hungry when I go to bed.  I don't eat again until that granola.

Around what I consider to be the end of the day, all going according to plan, until my aunt called.  I had to decline, with a bumbling explanation and apology.  She then invited me to see my uncle play jazz on Wednesday.  I can skip class for it, as long as I have a few days to plan around it.  Time to decide which other classes to go to instead.

Also stressed because my bathroom ceiling sprung a leak.  I suspect due to my upstairs neighbor spilling water all over the floor, eventually saturating the ceiling panel, which started to slump, tearing a small hole above my shower, where it connect to an adjacent panel.  Now I have to deal with this too.

I don't understand how people juggle all the crap they do.

but I guess maybe I can figure it out.

disciple

It seems rather like learning how to self-regulate my behaviour.  Doing things I don't feel like doing, Not doing other things, when I really feel like doing them.  In a sense, maybe that's fundamental to everything else.  I can't pursue much of anything, if I can't get out of bed when I don't feel like it. 

It's easy to think we're great at this, until one day we're really sick or injured, and allowed not to test ourselves.  Mental illness can mean feeling sick and injured every day, but needing to get up anyhow.  I'm getting better, but still worried that it's a house of cards that could come toppling at any moment. 

All it takes is that shift in perspective, an event that jars this way or that, a change in neurochemical distribution.  It doesn't feel very stable, but I'm wondering if I could even try playing a new computer game, without letting myself play it all day long.  Not sure I should risk it.  Farcry 5 looks pretty enticing.  So does a good cup of coffee, though.

My legs are all bruised, my muscles sore, and another kickboxing class tonight.  JKD/Jun Fan kickboxing, whatever that means.  It seems like a nice place, they have a different instructor each day, each with their own specializations.  It's going to take my body a while before being able to handle it all without so much complaining, but I'm really working on this doing-it-anyway thing.

cognitive distortions

I have trouble admitting that this is an issue.  My cognitive faculties are awesome, often the only thing I've had working in my favor - but that doesn't always work in my favor at all.  Social anxiety means always trying to imagine what might happen, how interactions might go, and that makes some sense, up to a point.  A point that I often blow right past before going off the rails and obsessing about something ridiculous.

A lot of it is plausible, well thought out, and that can make it especially deceptive.  I'm often afraid of things that could conceivably happen, without enough information to be sure how improbable it might be.  Even in trying to read people, I'm prone to guarding against worst case scenarios, rather than what's most likely.  It can be hard to tell, so better safe than sorry.  I probably shouldn't risk leaving my apartment or talking to anyone at all, just to be sure.

Starting martial arts classes, I have all sorts of concerns.  Some of them more valid than others.  I worry about being too fragile and feeble in my old age, but this is one of the most ridiculous of all.  I have no evidence that my body is going to disintegrate under the stress.  I seem to be able to handle it pretty well, all things considered.

Third class tonight, first two were kickboxing.  Not so bad, but now for the real test.  I have to say, it was pretty rough.  Towards the end, I had to take a break to avoid puking, I was so exhausted.  Walking home, my legs felt like jello.  I wasn't entirely sure I'd make it, but what was that feeling in my head?  A glimmer, I almost want to say, of happiness.  I haven't grappled in how many years?  It's hard at first.  It's supposed to be.

I also worry that I won't be able to find partners anywhere near my size, and this is a little more valid.  Not because I'm freakishly small, but at 5'6" (1.7m? and oh yeah, 55kg) it is a bit like being the smallest kid in class, all over again.  I think most people at my end of the height and build spectrum tend to avoid this sort of thing.  That is frustrating, but not a good reason for me not to go at all.

It was a bit of a issue in the kickboxing classes, but not as bad as expected in the judo class.  Two of the three people I was randomly paired with would have even been within a weight class.  The one guy who was bigger wasn't that much bigger.  So yeah, I worry about way too much stupid shit, instead of just doing what I want to do.