forever failure

So, my thumb took forever to recover, but I finally made it back to the gym. I probably could have gone back a week ago, but I've been a wreck. I gave up completely for a while, and I'm having a hell of a time getting it back together. When I relax and let myself indulge in escapism, I never want to come back to reality. I sink deeper into depression, and it becomes a vicious deadly cycle.

I look back on my life, and I haven't done anything. I've spent all day every day distracting myself from do nothing depression, and in retrospect, it's horrifying. Where did the past months go? Years.. decades.. It's like I've been in a coma. Desperately trying to keep the fire burning, so that I don't relax, give up, drown.

I am getting sick of blogging about it, though. I don't have any answers. I haven't figured anything out. I don't really have anything to say anymore.

the end of my blog

Antibiotics did nothing. One goddamn thing after another. I fucking give up.

Dragged kicking and screaming like a toddler, my aunt brought me to an urgent care walk-in place. An ER-lite? I hate hate trying to navigate the medical industry. They scare the hell out of me. I thought they might do some painful poking and prodding, maybe even some puncturing.. 

This guy I just met wants to flay open my thumb, right there, right now. He says it's an abscess, and antibiotics don't work, with all that pus trapped in there. Because the nailbed is a little complicated, he can't just drain it with a needle. He has to reenact a scene from Game of Thrones to clean it out. Then he just tapes it up and sends me home. Not a problem of antibiotic resistance after all, he gave me more of the same stuff. 

If not for my aunt, I think I may have just let the staph have me. Let it fight it out with the cancer. I'm tired. Getting more aggressive medical attention was even worse than I'd imagined, but I'm glad it's done. Hopefully it works.

infected

I haven't been getting to class all week. I tried on Monday, but went home early. I have an infection in my thumb. More severe than the typical infected cuticle I'm familiar with, it kept getting worse instead of better. My immune system didn't seem to be handling it. A concerning patch of green had begun to form under the skin. To cut to the point, it's much better after a few days worth of measures were taken, but in a grey area, as far as whether I should go back to class, just yet. 

I'm sure some would. I'm not sure they'd be right, but it also feels like it's one thing after another with me. Is this just getting older or something else? I have enough trouble with getting out the door as it is. The added indecision is too much. I err on the side of fuck it, I'm going back to bed. I used to pride myself on never getting sick or injured, but turns out that was mostly just because I never left the house.

Maybe I should be ok with this. I'm still doing great by some measures, but I just collapse. It feels like I'm failing. The pain of recent years has been too much, always facing it all alone, my coping strategies are undermined left and right. I'm trying to be optimistic and ambitious, as I struggle to make my last stand against the waves crashing down on me.

It's the end of the world, because I have an infected cuticle. I have a doctor appointment on Tuesday. My white cell count, etc came back low again. Not dangerously low, but could it be why I'm feeling crappy and failing to fight off an infection? In any case, maybe I should ask about getting back on sertraline, too.

shirtless

Years ago, I was hanging out with a group from the dojang. One of the few times I ever did, beyond the socially structured safety of the Minneapolis Academy of Hwa Rang Do. I don't remember the context that provided the comedic timing, but I remember that everyone laughed. "How do you know I don't use steroids?" I quipped.

Jason made a motion as if to close his thumb and forefinger around my bicep. I gave the green light to joke about it, but yeah. It was comically obvious that I didn't use steroids. Despite sweating my ass off year after year, it appeared I didn't even work out. It wasn't even clear that I ate regularly. My body doesn't produce growth hormone. It's difficult growing muscles without it. 

Bones, skin, cardio too, but muscular development can be the most apparent. Something we might become more psychologically fixated on, for obvious reasons. Just before the pandemic, after a tough class, a training partner made a comment that I was looking "swole." I'm pretty sure it wasn't even sarcasm. I'd never gotten a compliment like that before.

I get random compliments occasionally, now. About this aspect of myself that I was so insecure about my entire life. The compliments help a lot. That first compliment, that external acknowledgment of my progress, helped significantly in taking that initial leap into working out every day, when the pandemic hit. Confidence in the ability to progress can be an important part of motivation.

I struggle to put this into the context of being 47, but at least it's something to feel good about. I have pecs and abs like the comic book heroes I used to draw when I was a kid. At 47. I don't care if it's tacky. Jason died in a car accident a few years ago. He was a good person. Exceptionally so. Life is brutal, yet we can't help but worry about the dumbest shit.

life priorities

I used to wear a sweatshirt with this design printed on it. Somewhat tongue in cheek, but I essentially believed it. Nothing really matters. Just enjoy what you can, while you can. Now, I'd be ashamed to wear it. My grappling dummy wears it instead.

I don't exactly disagree, though. It's misguided, but I still don't think anything matters, per se. Objectively speaking. Does this mean I'm ok with being miserable? Happy, sad, whatever? Well, no. Being miserable is our brain's way of telling us we're not ok. Philosophical objectivity aside, being miserable sucks. It's miserable. Whether or not it matters doesn't matter. Our health is important to us, as wheels and engine are important to a car. Mentally and physically, we might sustain damage or heal, thrive or break down. Our thoughts and feelings are only manifestations of that. We have feelings instead of dashboard lights. 

Hedonism can be so ignorant as to what makes life enjoyable. Turns out, it's so much more complicated than just doing what we feel like doing. If the secret of life is a good cup of coffee, there's a lot that goes into being able to appreciate that cup of coffee. It's a luxury to be able to enjoy smoking pot, playing video games, or eating. 

Even as a priority, we squander that, if we squander our mental and physical health. We won't enjoy any of it, if we don't take care of ourselves. Life being so terribly unfair, where we're starting from varies widely. We may have lots of damage to repair, lots of work to do, before feeling good is even possible. Others just have to avoid screwing it up too badly. 

When we're in pain, relieving that pain can be the closest thing we know to feeling good. It can seem important, even. Addictive behaviour tends to occur when we do these things not to truly enjoy them, so much as to be distracted, relieved of pain. If that's the best we find possible, while everything else brings pain, it doesn't seem like such a bad calculation to indulge way too often.

This is in the short term, with no guarantee anything will work out any better in the long run. I've found that a lot of things do work though. A little, gradually over time, and all together, it adds up to being clearly worth more than all these things that can be momentarily enjoyable, all too easily overindulged in, to the neglect of everything else. In time, none of it is even enjoyable anymore, so much as mindnumbing escape.

We're still talking about taking painkillers away from people who tend to need them. It's hard. What works for me may be unnecessary for others. I don't know what's going on in anyone else's head. I'm not going to say that everyone needs to exercise the way I do. Not to mention eating. I'm an intermittent fasting vegan, but I do it so that I can enjoy eating at all. One more piece of this whole strategy for being I'm working on.

strategies for being

I think a lot about what and how other people think. As far as I can tell, reality is the construction of the external world via other people's ideas, in the most meaningful sense. Not to cast aspersions on an objective material reality that's going to do its thing, no matter what any of us think. That is clearly a thing, but, it isn't a meaningful thing. Meaning is all the nonsense humanity comes up with.

To cast it aside entirely would be nihilism. I can't find a solid argument against that per se, but I'd instead point out that it's just unrealistic. It assumes we're capable of being purely logical, and that's not at all the case. Rather, we form all these values and interpretations, not from pure logic, or cold hard objectivity, but from living our entire lives navigating the swirling chaotic sea of everyone else's ideas.

They say Major Depression effects about 5% of the population. That means 95% of you can't understand why I'd need to exercise every day, just to get a step closer to being a functional human being. Never mind that much of that 5% doesn't really want to hear about exercise, either. Many would prefer to hear it's just an illness they should take meds for. Major Depression itself being a problematic concept in that it's more of a symptom than any particular illness. A symptom of any number of things, sometimes easier to discern than others. In my case, hypopituitarism probably has a lot to do with it.

In recent years, I've been getting better at developing strategies for coping and even overcoming it, and yet, even as they're working, I feel like they're not. I stop doing them. I sink back into depression and don't understand why. I find myself wondering how others could possibly sympathize, when they need no such strategies just to be functional human beings.

It does get difficult to keep plugging away, never getting ahead of depression enough to feel it's worth all the trouble. Strung along by this notion that at some point, life is supposed to be rewarding, but never quite getting there. I try really hard. At what, I'm not sure.

the great reset

I was reminded yesterday that when I crash like this, I've learned to do a sort of reset. I've shown that I can do it, so why not just do that again? It doesn't feel like a matter of agency. Sometimes it just happens. I hit a point and I'm suddenly pulling myself back together. 

We can be doubtful that it isn't a matter of agency, and I find that strange. I can get off in the weeds going on about free will and pratityasamutpada, but there is a truth in between. It's not a simple direct will of good strong bootstraps, but I know there are habits and rituals I can get into that help. I know that I haven't been doing them lately. Getting back on track tends to start with getting back to these basics. A reset of sorts, back to the beginning of the process. 

Exercise, every day. I find this difficult to juggle with the classes I take. It counterintuitive to think I'd still need it. On the days I go, that's plenty of exercise. Almost too much, so I slack off when I don't go. It really needs to be every day. I know that. Otherwise the whole thing unravels, and I'm constantly trying to hold it together.

Diet. I haven't been doing much cooking, which for me, equates to not doing as much eating. I'm eating enough to maintain decent health, but not decent energy levels. What I am eating hasn't been as healthy because I've been lazy about shopping. Depression undermines all of this, but this can also undermine depression. I should be able to start buying proper ingredients and cooking again.

I was making those vegan pizzas, last I was making anything substantial. It was way more wheat flour product than I'm used to consuming. Largely because food like that seems to contribute to me feeling like crap. Maybe all those processed carbs sent me reeling into a depression. I don't know, but it sure didn't help.

My sleep has been lousy, too. Staying up later, sleeping later but not very well. I know that causes problems, but can balk at fixing it, because insomnia sucks. I can't just decide to start sleeping better. I can exercise every day though, and next thing I know, I'm sleeping better. When I'm sleeping better, I have more energy and focus to eat better. When I'm feeling better, because I'm sleeping better, eating better, and getting daily exercise, I get out and around people more, and suddenly, I'm talking about competing in BJJ tournaments again, right?

I don't know if reset is the right term, but it starts with looking at all these causal connections, going back to the first one I've been fucking up, and proceeding from there. Eventually I might find my way back to something better resembling so-called agency.

but why

I blog when I'm doing well, to remember those brief moments when it happens, to remind myself that they do in fact happen, or maybe just to gloat about whatever I can say that I have going for me. I blog when I'm doing badly to help work through it, to put it in perspective, and as if to beg the world for help.

If I hadn't been taking somatropin these past few years, I wouldn't be able to do this kind of martial arts much at all. Not very well, often, or safely. Because of that, I'm doing so much better than I could be. Still, frequently thwarted by both mental and physical limitations, it can be frustrating and I don't have much else. Taking GH was supposed to help with a lot more than this.

It can feel like a great disappointment. I was hoping to be doing better than this, and it's so easy to forget how much better I am doing than I was. I was a wreck for so long. I had no life at all. It would make sense to be happy about how I'm doing, but mostly I still feel like crap. Forever struggling to keep my head above water.

training blog

Seems odd to me that my blog has mostly been about training lately. It's where my head is at, and where I want to be. I'm either blogging about training, or blogging about how depressed I am that I'm not training. I don't know what else matters anymore, everything I used to go on about.. I'm glad it's there, but I don't feel like going on about it anymore.

I spoke to one of the instructors about competing tonight. We had a good conversation, and I feel like it was the first step towards actually doing it. We talked about finding training partners who I'd be able to do some hard sparring with to work my way up to it. He also offered to be one of those hard sparring partners.

I feel like I got my foot in the door, and the natural trajectory will be to push forward. We'll see. It's a huge problem that I sink back into depression sitting at home, such that my confidence withers and I freak out over what I'm getting myself into.

I can't sleep because I'm laying in bed practicing combos.

struggle

 As soon as I get my head above water, I start thinking maybe I can fly. If I were content swimming, I'd lose the motivation not to drown. I was doing well for a moment there, only to come crashing back down again. Sitting in a heap for a while, recollecting myself, beginning the climb again to get back there, back to what was supposed to be my new baseline.

Maybe I shouldn't feel so bad about the low end of the cycle. Or maybe feeling bad is what gets me out of it. Life is so much contradiction and complication, guesses and beliefs. Maybe this, maybe that. Hold onto the hope that maybe I'm getting somewhere, as it's either that or sinking again. Where I am right now, a momentary snapshot of a mirage.

I made it to the gym twice this week. I failed to get there today, but doing better than last week. Maybe I'll do better next week. Maybe get back to that point where I get there five days a week again, before collapsing back into depression again.

survival horror

I'm still playing this silly little game. In fact, I've retreated into it to spend all my time fending off zombies, building barricades, and scavenging for food and weapons. Checking traps and farming, for sustainability when my stockpile of canned food runs out. It's a game about trying to survive a zombie apocalypse that opens with the premise that you absolutely will not:

THESE ARE THE END-TIMES.

THERE WAS NO HOPE FOR SURVIVAL.

THIS IS HOW YOU DIED.

Unlike in real life though, you can survive indefinitely if you're careful, sufficiently fortifying your home base and planning for the months ahead, like the coming winter when crops no longer grow outside. If you spend enough time learning the game, your imaginary character gets to live forever in an imaginary world. Real life is so much more horrific.

I don't know why I'm suddenly a gamer again. I don't think it's healthy, I can't seem to moderate it well, and it seems to make me feel worse overall. It's rewards aren't real and as such, are never quite rewarding. I just keep desperately focusing on its attainable goals and the fight to survive. The game doesn't have any other point. There's no story, and there's no way to win. I find it interesting that the game I find so addictive is all about the struggle for survival and nothing more.

I play as a someone who has no leisure time. It's just constant struggle that I get to escape into, from my life of nothing but leisure time. I'm just passing the time, until it runs out. I've spent hours building a wall around my home to hide from the zombie hordes, only venturing out for supplies. In some ways, it feels an awful lot like my life.

In life though, I don't know what I'm doing or why I'm (not) doing any of it. I have no idea how to deal with the zombie hordes. There is no fight to survive, but that's a good thing, right? There's nothing much motivating me at all. I have to play a game for that. It's not a healthy dynamic, but I find it strange that the goal is to bury ourselves in some kind of work, to mitigate existential angst. That's no a solution, just a better distraction. 

There are no solutions. Life is a sick joke, and the punchline is that we all die. The fight for survival feels like the most indisputable motivation we have, and we will all fail.

flying guillotine leg catch counter

Got to try an interesting move today, sparring the biggest guy in the gym. We were doing MMA rules and he caught one of my kicks. I put my weight into that leg, and before he could sweep me, I was climbing all the way up into guillotining him. I hesitated to commit to it, and he panicked and threw me to the mat. He apologized for being rough. It's a good thing I'm good at falling. Breakfalls, we call it in Judo, even from six feet in the air. He seemed pretty shocked that I almost choked him out.

I also sparred with the smallest woman in the gym. That was fun, too. She punched me in the face more than the big guy did. To be fair, he did catch me with a few elbows that might have killed me had he been throwing them for real.

I find myself loosening up. When people hit me hard, I hit them back hard. I don't need to be so controlled, and when I relax, I'm even faster. My ribs have been bothering me from BJJ, and after getting hit in that increasingly sore spot for the third or fourth time, I decided I should stop. Before I end up needing to take a month off. I'm afraid I may have already pushed it.

Started playing this game that caught my eye. I want to be clear, that it's a dumb little game, to signal that it's beneath me. That's my impulse, and on the one hand it's a silly impulse on all sorts of levels. On the other, I have been reminded of why I'm inclined to abstain from everything like this. I don't want to enjoy just sitting here at my computer, because it helps get me out and living, that I don't do the escapism anymore. 

There's this ideal of moderation and self-regulation, but that fails to take into account that we can still be thinking about how much we'd rather be doing something, no matter how well we commit to not doing it. I don't want some game stuck in my head, when I'm trying to get myself to the gym. Training is so beneficial to me, but so fragile.

Life is weird. Seems almost idyllic that I get to do this, without needing to work, but I've only been able to do this because I do little else. I have hot sauce to make, plants to repot, laundry to do. That stretches me past my limits as it is.

summer's end

Walking home from a conditioning class last night, I was cold for the first time in months. It was almost 70, but breezy. The sun was going down, my clothes still drenched in sweat, well after my heart rate had dropped back to normal. During the night the temperature dipped into the fifties. My outdoor plants will stop giving me peppers soon.

It's been a great summer. I got to the park for sparring twice. A real summer activity type of thing, doing something I like to do, in the sun with other people and everything? That alone was a huge departure from the rest of my life. I didn't know if I'd even be able to get myself there at all. I've been hitting the open gym every week and making it to lots of classes. I survived cancer, and made it through the pandemic. 

I'm still struggling with low grade depression every day - which means being tired, listless, apathetic and cynical. Not to be confused with being sad about something, anything, or nothing in particular. Just far more tired, unfocused, and unmotivated than I should be, but I managed to have a great summer in spite of that. Almost entirely due to dragging myself to the gym again and again. 

I feel like I should have more to list, that made the last few months worth living, but no, training has been pretty much everything to me. This is why it wrecked me to have it taken away. This is why I'm devoting myself to it more than ever now.

I'm even thinking about doing some competing. Martial arts schools always encourage that, but before the pandemic, I wasn't interested. I'm too old, it was just a side hobby, but mostly, I'm just not a competitive person. Now that I'm training harder and finding that I'd actually be competitive within my weight class, it might be a good way to more fully immerse myself in the experience. It might help me feel more engaged.

BJJ tournaments are the safest. Not necessarily in terms of injury, but they're tournaments. Participants are one of many, in these day long events. They sign up, and join in, and the sport itself isn't about hurting your opponent, per se. Accidents happen, but most matches are relatively painless.

Striking competition on the other hand, I'm a lot less sure about. They aren't tournaments. They aren't open to anyone within given requirements who wants to sign up. Fights are set up for specific people, and it's just you, your opponent, and spectators. Amateur competition comes in all different forms and levels. Lots of it involves sparring style protective gear. Shin pads make kickboxing a lot less scary. Almost too much so.

Headgear is of more dubious benefit, but often used. It protects from cuts, bruises, and broken noses, while it does nothing to prevent CTE, arguably making the risk worse. A note on that though, as I've been sparring more. Getting punched in the face far more than I was in Hwa Rang Do, where strikes to the face were against the rules. Strikes to the head were allowed but had to be light contact. Where I train now, light contact is encouraged, but some people hit harder than others, some more intentionally than others. It's all pretty friendly, and people tend to adapt to their partners somewhat. 

I've been ok with everyone I've sparred with so far, but I have been getting punched in the face regularly these days. It's a big part of what's made this summer so good, but I have been conscientious of the risks. It's nowhere near the level of head trauma professional boxers train with, let alone what they experience in the ring. For various reasons, the punches I'm talking haven't been big enough or frequent enough to be worth worrying about, in my estimation.

Meanwhile, I accidentally hit myself in the face with a medicine ball yesterday. It was way too bouncy to be that heavy. That might have cost me a few brain cells, but fortunately I didn't lose any teeth.

I don't even know what these sorts of amateur fights involve. I know my gym has students participate in them now and then, but I don't know anything about how it works. The first step would probably to work myself up to mentioning my curiosity to the head coach. There are also MMA matches, which would be interesting, but they seem to be less common than kickboxing or BJJ.

So, I don't know. It's just something I'm thinking about right now. BJJ would be safer, but I'd probably lose. Could well even lose the very first match, although in most cases, I'd be up against other white belts in my own weight class. So maybe not. Kickboxing or MMA , more daunting on every level - except that we'd be talking about someone in my weight class, who would have to fight me😈 I don't care what belts they have. I'm almost worried for that person already.

I don't like to admit this, I'm not proud of it, but I would love to see how that would actually go🥊💥💀

the outsider's chaos

It occurred to me as I walked to the gym the other day that I've been going five days a week. That's overshooting my goal by a day or two, but I don't want to miss any of those particular days, for one reason or another. 

It occurred to me as I walked home afterwards, that I haven't been in this much pain afterwards in quite a long time. I'm afraid there may be some correlation between these occurrences. I've taken today off. It seemed like there were twelve different reasons I shouldn't go today, but none of them were very good reasons.

I find myself missing being around people. Not people in the abstract, but specific people. People I've enjoyed training with. I'm afraid it's probably best that I don't know them better, but lots of them have been good training partners. I've been thinking about one of the changes I went through a few years back, when everything changed. I stopped thinking of myself as special, or different from others in any substantial way.

"Substantial" has to do a lot of work here. Everyone is different. Some of us different in ways more different than others. I have problems others have trouble relating to, but so do lots of other people. What feels substantial almost seems ideological. A way of spinning my situation, a defense against feeling like I was just fucked. I was different.

Not to pick on the framing itself, but it is a framing. One that I sought to abandon, for the more ambitious angle, that I'm just another person, with these problems I need to overcome. This in turn seems to have consequences for how I think about other people. The defenses were there for all sorts of reasons. Neurotypicals can be all sorts of problematic. As opposed to that neurospecial alien species I prefer to imagine myself a part of.

The problem of the outsider is that he sees too deeply and too much, but what he sees is essentially chaos. Everything is arbitrary, circumstance, and ultimately meaningless - including thinking about things that way. Maybe the reality of it is that people's minds tend to synchronize under the right conditions, resulting in feelings of life generally making sense. In alienation and isolation, the brain lacks the chemistry to do this, making it prone to eventual aimlessness and chaos.

Doing stuff with others matters, insofar as we define what matters as that which produces such a feeling that things matter.

knock on wood

I'm feeling like I've finally turned a corner, of sorts. I haven't had to force myself out the door much lately. Going to the gym in particular. I find myself looking forward to it, and dreading the days when there aren't classes. I dread sitting home alone with nothing to do all day. On some level, I may have orchestrated this, gradually excising my interest in everything I do to distract myself around the house. 

I used to pride myself on how well I could keep myself entertained. I'd be fine on the deserted island, I thought. I was so unhappy though. Turns out, annoying clichés about self-isolating are actually founded in a loose understanding of how the human brain works. This isn't about shoulds or oughts or passing any kind of judgment. We simply have all this biochemistry for interacting with other people, and things seem to go wrong when it goes unused.

Lots of hormones have multiple purposes. Growth hormone is involved in everything from muscles to skin to heart, lungs, and metabolism. Oxytocin is involved in childbirth but it's also the trust hormone. Cortisol regulates diurnal cycles and anxiety levels, boosts energy levels, and it's used in creating memories. Too much cortisol causes osteoporosis.  How we live can impact us in indirect ways, due to these sorts of biological connections. Solitary people are more prone to everything from heart disease to cancer.

A few months ago, I was doing laundry in the bath tub, wondering how I'd ever deal with going to the laundromat regularly ever again. I felt so broken, it just seemed like too much. Leaving the house and everything. Carrying stuff. Dealing with people. Sometimes they'd even try to talk to me😩

Class was pretty horrible tonight. A conditioning class, and for reasons I did not get through it so easily. This was my first conditioning class after my medical break. Over 90 and humid again, no AC, just one big fan way on the other side of the room.  The nature of the exercises are such that we have a lot of control over how hard we work. Shadow boxing or hitting the heavy bag, for example. Some people hit harder and faster and move around a lot more dynamically. Some people throw kicks, which are much more tiring than punches. Maybe I'm pacing myself badly, trying too hard.

The partner drill we did just wrecked me, but my partner seemed ok, so I felt compelled to try to match his pace. Turns out someone actually did notice I was gone. As I struggled to get through it, he commented that taking a month off was probably bad for my cardio. I was too exhausted to explain that I had cancer.

I'm looking forward to open gym again on Sunday. Looking forward to being back there soon. As positively as I've spoken about it, I've been forcing myself to keep going this whole time. Part of me hates it, but that part seems to be fading, for a change. Finally, at least for now. 

It helps that I've been feeling better about my health. My doctor tells me the laundry list of issues I got from the CT scan is actually normal. That most people have more than twice as many minor issues that the scan picks up, but the number of "unremarkables" next to various organs on my scan report was actually remarkable for my age. 

The low white blood cell count should be resolved by taking more iron. More zinc seems to be helping too. Plus the cancer is still gone. Which should also mean that I'll be able to catch it plenty early enough again, if it comes back.

mass gathering

 Covid numbers are way up, higher than I'd expected, even here in Vermont. Like most of the country, we're surging to at around the worst case numbers have ever been. Peaking, or still going up? I don't know, but of course, BJJ class tonight was sweatier and more crowded than ever. I've honestly never seen so many people attend BJJ. The boxing class is often this crowded, but unlike that class, we proceeded to then roll around on the floor with each other.

And as if that's not bad enough, we round robin rotate partners a few times to free roll at the end of class. 'Free rolling' is essentially submission sparring. A 'submission' is when you twist someone's arm or choke them, until they concede defeat. I never know who's reading this, but I suspect roughly none of them use the handy wikipedia field on my blog, let alone google anything. People just misunderstand what a person means entirely, and move on. Me, I Google about twenty things a day.

I've been trying to ignore covid numbers though, because it doesn't change anything for me. Whatever happens, no matter how bad, this is what we can expect to be the status quo for a while. We already have vaccines. Now we're going to wait for better vaccines? Fuck that. I'll take getting covid over going back into hiding, thanks. The likelihood that I'll be fine makes it an easy calculation.

For those that won't be fine? You've got to protect yourselves, but you've also got to let people live their lives and make their own decisions. I'll wear a mask when appropriate - when it will help or where it's required, but we can't wear masks while free rolling. Even if they stayed on, it's comical to think a mask would provide any protection to people rolling around on the floor trying to strangle each other.

I am a bit concerned as to where this is going. They seem to realize we can't go back to state mandating  masks and social distancing, but I don't think they understand why. Some places are requiring masks, and that's fine, but I don't know what the state will do. For once, I'm happy to have a Republican governor. 

We no longer have anything to look forward to. Waiting for the vaccine was bad enough, but now what is there to even wait for? Better vaccines, more variants, rinse and repeat, ad nauseam. So, stay updated on your flu and covid boosters. Beyond that, we've got to let people live their lives.

hey teacher

Head instructor is out this week, so he had a student teach his class tonight. In turn, she asked me to roll with the brand new guy, to teach him some basics. I was nervous, and fumbled a bit looking for approval, and joking about not being a teacher.. but I actually did pretty well. I taught some simple important moves that beginners should know. I went through positions and transitions competently enough to provide examples.

Then I rolled with this other new guy. He's been going a few months, but still pretty new. He outweighed me by quite a bit and went pretty hard, struggling, grunting, gasping for breath. I got him with an armbar, then opted to be less aggressive, as we continued for the rest of the round. I was pretty relaxed. I couldn't beat him easily or anything like that, but I wasn't struggling just to survive, either.

This was at the end of the second hour class, following a tough kickboxing workout. Most students do one or the other. Only a few do both. For me, the hardest part is getting out the door. Once I'm there, might as well push myself until I can barely limp home. I've been holding up for the time being.

Working out all pandemic really paid off. It's taken some time to shake off the rust, and then deal with the medical stuff, but I feel like I'm doing much better than I was two years ago. I'm not struggling to keep up with these young kids. My training partners are sometimes struggling to keep up with me.

That said, I might not be able to walk tomorrow.

you're so fast

Finally made it to open gym today. I've been going to this place for years, but that's how long it's taken me to get around to going when there is no formal class. Just the mats, the heavy bags and equipment, and lots of people. The lack of structure makes me extra nervous. I know I've blogged about this before, but it seems I did not get over it and go, until now.

It's been growing in popularity and the park spar inspired me, so I finally made it. It went well. Sparred someone new - that is, new to me, but he wasn't new to sparring. He was pretty good, caught me with a few good shots. He was tall and lean, and trying like hell to stay out of range. I barely landed any punches, but afterwards he let me know how impressed he was with my kicking.

Your kicks are so fast, he said. I actually have mixed feelings about that, as I'm trying not to be as kick specialized as I used to be. It was good to hear though. He was complimenting me on exactly what I've been striving to get good at - closing distance and landing solid shots despite everything working against me. I had to resort to my longest range weapons, but even caught him with a great advancing roundhouse to spinning back kick 

Then got some grappling in. I hesitated, because it was extra humid today. Another student remarked that the entire mat was pretty much covered in sweat. Open mat is generally no-gi, so it makes for some very slippery matches. We get used to it, such that our main complaint ends up being how difficult it makes locking in all sorts of submissions.

Delta variant? Meh. I'm vaccinated now. I'm done worrying about it, beyond anything I'm legally compelled to do. I can still catch it, especially indulging in such high risk activity, but I'm vaccinated, so the symptoms won't be as bad. I'm fine with the risk now. This is how viruses are, once it's well established across the entire world. It really is like the flu now, and just like the flu, if you're immunocompromised or just really old, it can kill you. If you're young and healthy, the flu can also kill you, but that's incredibly rare. We live with these risks all the time.

New cases are surging because we've relaxed all precautions and half the country isn't vaccinated. This will mean more mutations, and surging risks all around, but it's also just the way it is. Honestly, covid is not serious enough to motivate vaccinating the entire world. Some governments may try, but viruses don't care about your borders. We're never going to get anywhere near 100% worldwide, and the delta variant came from India, not Florida.

So, it's time to accept the reality of it. Deal with the risk, as appropriate to your situation, but do so knowing this is basically the state of things. They'll probably come out with better vaccines and other breakthroughs eventually, but I'm not going to sit around waiting for that.

also pizza

I've been doubling down on the intermittent fasting, along with eating more fresh fruits and vegetables. So, of course, the internet does this to me.

I'm still sitting here at my computer way too much, but I've also been spending more time in the kitchen. I don't know what to do with myself, but my culinary successes have been helping. This pizza turned out so well. It had a Mediterranean flavor to it that should work excellently with spinach, mushrooms, and olives, next time. My hot sauce experiments have been going well too. I'll be looking to give some away soon.

Last bit of bloodwork I had to get done came back with more abnormal results. Some fundamentals I wanted to check, before I even know about this other stuff. Turns out I was right about the zinc deficiency, and right to be taking iron, because I'm also deficient there. Additionally, my white blood cell count is low. I'm lacking neutrophils and lymphocytes, whatever that means. It's a good thing I asked for these tests.

Every concern I've had has turned out to be all too valid. My next appointment is the day after tomorrow.

granola and hot sauce

First, I was invited to do some sparring with one of the only other people around my age. He might be a little older, or a little younger. I'm not sure, but I thought it would be a good first match. I had a hell of a time getting myself going that morning and was still feeling pretty sluggish when I showed up. That said, he proved to be one of my tougher opponents of the day, instead. Getting punched in the face got my adrenaline to finally kick in.

I got punched in the face a lot on Saturday. Numerous people apologized for landing poorly controlled punches - we don't spar hard. Most prefer to go lighter than I'd want them to. I feel good about how unfazed I am by it. I know it's because they're throwing their strikes more desperately. One sparring partner commented that I land more head kicks than anyone there.

I sparred with a lot of people.  Maybe twice as many as last time. I grappled a number of people, too. My stamina has improved so much. I chatted through my mouthguard a lot. Maybe too much at times, but it's my chance to practice being social. That seems to be improving, too.

After about two hours, things seemed to be winding down, and I knew that I was more exhausted than my body was yet letting on. I hopped on my little bicycle and pedaled home. Then barely moved until Monday. I'm amazed that everything has turned out ok, so far. I even recovered in time to participate in this park sparring event. It's been another tough month.

The heart issue did turn out to be minor. I just have to be conscientious about it. I suspect that either the vaccine caused it, or aggravated it, or maybe I had covid and didn't know it, and that's what caused it. Maybe it was all that coconut oil I used to eat, but I switched to peanut oil many months ago. It may get better on its own. 

So far, so good, in terms of the cancer. I'm still struggling with the contradiction that I had cancer but it was just a speed bump. I'm afraid it will come back in one form or another, but in the meantime, I got to class again tonight. Judo was great. We had this terrifying drill, where we each had to throw everyone else in the class, using one of three throws we just learned, while they try not to be thrown. While the rest of the class watches as they wait their turn. 

The throws worked against different types of people. Ouchi gari works against larger opponents, while kosoto gari works better against those who are lighter on their feet. It was interesting to see kouchi work against some, while ouchi other worked against the rest. It was nice do quite well at it, there in front of everyone. I'm feeling back on track again. It's not a track that goes anywhere, but it's a huge benefit to both my mental and physical health. Maybe it will help keep the cancer from coming back.

On the one hand, that seems almost indisputably reasonable to me. We have all sorts of evidence that both physical and mental health play a gigantic role. On the other hand, people often treat it as bad luck and something we really only fight with medical intervention. After a person gets it. especially. We don't want to blame anyone for their own grave misfortune, but those same factors play a role in how aggressively it advances, and how likely it is to come back, should the medical intervention work.

Maybe sometimes it is entirely bad luck, but even then, there are things we can do to improve or sabotage our chances against it. Not just in terms of physical health, but in terms of meeting emotional needs, living in ways that don't make us too stressed out and miserable. Sometimes that's less a matter of having a right attitude, and more of how we spend our time every day. The mind tends to overestimate it's own role in the situation.

Plus the broccoli. I don't know why I keep trying to make tofu - stir-frying broccoli is so much easier to do reasonably well. I also planted a variety of leafy greens. They barely last a day after buying. so if I can grow a good amount, that should work. My plants outside are pumping out lots of peppers. I've finally started making sauce. It's so easy and good. Like making my own granola, I feel silly for taking so long to try it. I thought it would be more complicated.

I'm talking about basic vinegar hot sauce. No fermenting things, no infusing oil with leaves and twigs. Just pureed vinegar, peppers, and salt. That alone is good, but I roast the peppers in olive oil first, and I'm experimenting with adding other things, like mango, and trying different types of vinegar. As for my granola, I've realized that if I add water to the oats and cacao first, letting that clump before baking it all together with the nuts, seeds, and coconut, I end up with those clusters everyone seems to think so important for granola to have.

mild heart disease

I'm a little nervous about going to class, knowing I have a heart condition (again, WTF), but I'm guessing it's minor (no word from docs on lab report yet), and exercise may be the best way to fight it, since I already eat well. My home workouts don't push cardio the same way. So, I finally did a full double class tonight. Boxing and BJJ. My ribs were fine, no nausea, no chest pain. 

Whatever the cause of the atherosclerosis, it seems to be at it's worst, when I first start working out hard again, after being forced to take a break from it. After a few classes the symptoms go away.. but that doesn't mean it's not still concerning, possibly still getting worse, and maybe even dangerous. Looking forward to talking to my doctors. Hoping they say it's minor enough that I don't need to see a cardiologist now, but afraid that's too optimistic. I mostly just want to talk to my GP about all this. I'm getting really tired of hospitals.

I'm feeling really fortunate to have public healthcare covering all of it. I can only imagine how much worse this could have gone, had I been worrying about all the ways private insurance doesn't even fully cover people. Healthcare is still catastrophically expensive for a lot of people in this country. Tens of thousands die in the US every year because they don't get it. Hundreds of thousands go bankrupt trying to get it. 

I feel fortunate, but at the same time, I should be able to take it for granted, because we all get healthcare. I'd rather feel fortunate for living in a decent country that provides for all of its people. It's a little weird feeling fortunate to be on disability, but it seems like the poor working class have it worse. There shouldn't even be a poor working class.

I don't bother going on about this anymore though. Jimmy Dore is a lot more optimistic and positive than I am. 

cyber sloth

Every day, for decades, I'd wake up, sit down at the computer. Often sitting there until it's time for bed. Getting up to take care of one thing or another, but always back to the computer. Maybe I eat, water my plants, or even have to go buy groceries, then back to the computer, immediately.

From some angles, this doesn't seem like a big deal. I thought of myself as a character like Serenity's Mr. Universe for years. What do other people do? Sit in office chairs, sit on couches, sit in their cars? I sit here for like fourteen hours a day, every day, though. I've been doing so my entire life. I don't know what other people do, but that seems bad to me.

These days, I do take extra long breaks from my computer to work out. I've had this idea that working out so much compensates for spending every other waking moment being a vegetable. This may be true in terms of fitness, but that isn't the only consideration here. For one thing, it's a lousy way to live. 

Problems like this arise as a way of coping. I was depressed, and the computer at least got me out of bed. All my interests developed around what I could do on a computer, because it's all I had the energy for, and it made hiding from the world easier. I've been arguing with people online all my life. It's the only way I know how to socialize, but I don't want to socialize this way anymore. Twenty years later, it's become more problem than solution, but I don't know how else to live. 

Another problem though is that it may be a cause of cancer. Cancer cases like mine have been on the rise for decades, and being sedentary is one of the main risk factors. I tend to think that exercise thoroughly offsets that, but this presumes too much. We don't know if it has to do with fitness, if there could be a more direct correlation to spending too much time without moving, or whatever else.

I think about how TotalBiscuit was a gamer for a living. That's what we had in common, aside from the size of our tumors; spending all day at our computers for many years. Growing numbers of people do, but gamers in particular can take sedentary to a whole other level. I was less inclined to worry about any of that, when I still enjoyed it. I'd use the computer for all different things, but I don't want to do any of it anymore. Taking a step back, I realize spending my whole life like this seems like a bad idea, but I don't know what else to do with myself.

CT scan in Montpelier went well. No signs of tumors anywhere else. Just some coronary atherosclerosis; build-up (or inflammation?) in the arteries of my heart. Again, I'm a vegan who hasn't had a donut in months. I don't eat fast food ever. I make my own sugarless granola for fucks sake. I'll be hearing from my surgeon and/or gastroenterologist soon, but I'm thinking they'll be referring me to someone else now. 

I have a follow-up with my GP in two weeks. I'm in Burlington Vermont, so of course it's a naturopathic practice. Real doctors with doctor degrees and everything, but with a specialty in preventative measures like diet and nutrition. At least, that's a positive way to spin it. I'm not entirely sure, but they seem good. In this case, it sounds like exactly what I need, regardless. This all seems like stuff that I should be able to address by eating better and spending less time sitting at the computer. Now that the surgery and CT scans are out of the way.

The way I live is killing me though. As I've been saying.

still kicking

My ribs seem almost better, maybe just in time for the park spar this Saturday. I've missed all the sparring classes leading up to it, for various medical reasons. I have an appointment on Wednesday, right when next class starts, for a CT scan. One last test (for now) to make sure I don't have any other cancers lurking anywhere. That they can readily detect anyway. Fingers crossed.

I haven't been getting to class much, since June. My mood's been reflecting that. I went tonight, but ended up leaving after kickboxing, before BJJ, again. I was struggling with the hot weather cardio again, I was feeling indecisive, when I realized I'd forgotten my belt. I wish it were no-gi, especially this time of year. I could have borrowed a belt, but at the last minute, decided to give my ribs a few more days. Still, a bit depressing.

I don't want to reinjure anything, and on Wednesday, I want to make sure the thing being injured isn't another concerning mass. I guess this is standard. One cancer does raise the risk of others, as I understand it. Not so much that they find anything, most of the time, but enough to make the precaution worthwhile. Not that the precise math really matters. It's hard not to worry about it and who the hell knows.

After class. the instructor was talking about new classes that sound appealing to me. Something to look forward to, if all goes well these next few days. Which I'm afraid means I might as well expect to be hit by lightning on the way to the hospital. Which is all the way in Montpelier, because hackers broke our hospital's computers again.

do nothing

I keep hashing over issues of escapism, distraction, and motivation. I was doing so well for a while, feeling like I was striving for something. Then I fucked up my knee and everything went to hell. I could blame it all on the pandemic, but as it falls behind us, I'm still back to doing nothing. I don't know what I should do. 

I don't see anything I can do, anymore. I can't see anything worth doing. I have no confidence in my ability to get anywhere. I don't know how much of this is a matter of perspective and how much is just being realistic.

I'm back to living each day, one at a time and all the same, not working towards anything in particular, not expecting or hoping anything will change. Except for the worse, as things periodically fall apart, leave, end, collapse, or die. That sounds like such glass-half-empty thinking, but the inverse isn't really true. The world doesn't periodically drop good things on us. Not if we're sitting around doing nothing, and that's what I'm back to doing. I know it doesn't go well.

Going out into the world and doing stuff though, holy shit, that was like walking into a woodchipper. Suicide, cancer, plague, death, more cancer, injuries, and politics. Fuck it, I'm wrecked. As I sat outside in the sun this afternoon, listening to music on my headphones, admiring my pepper plants, the nature of my angst came into focus. 

I thought that I was finally getting somewhere, and all pandemic, I put that on hold, uncertain I'd have anything to go back to. I was clawing and scrabbling my way through school, finally getting out of the chasm I've been trying to climb out of my entire life. Without covid to blame for it, I'm left with these voids where major parts of my life used to be. These things I cared about and fought for are just memories now. My fears largely realized, but at least I don't have colon cancer anymore.

Even Bernie's run was a factor. I thought school might be on it's way to becoming more affordable. I was feeling more optimistic about my prospects and the world. There are a number of ways life's beaten all that out of me, but growing up just doesn't make sense anymore. I desperately miss thinking that it did. I've been trying to cling to something that's already gone. 

I remember writing about trajectories, and how I'd need a good one. I was having doubts before all of this, but once I was on track, I could just stay the course. The path of least resistance would be to just keep going. I was freaking out all pandemic, because I had no idea how I'd make that leap all over again. How can I, when it doesn't even make sense to me anymore.

I guess I should be trying to better appreciate sitting in the sun, listening to music with my pepper plants. Apparently, I could have a lot less time ahead of me than I thought anyhow.

this is the world

Many lifetimes ago and a million miles away, I found my music on the radio. Finding radio stations that played any kind of punk or metal was a feat in itself, but there was this one, out of South Orange University, in NJ. 89.5 WSOU "Pirate Radio" because the school mascot's a pirate. Using a Black Sabbath song to seed my latest Spotify playlist, it gave me one a lot like the sort of music they'd play. Some of it's a little cringe, but I even liked the hair bands, if their lyrics were relatable. 

I was never a fan of this band, but this one song struck me as anthemic. I had a thing for songs about how shit the world is, and wishing it were different, wishing we could go somewhere else, wishing there were a better world to go to. There must be, right? 

I think that was such a fundamental misstep in worldview. The world is what it is, and whether we realize it or not, we all want to make the most of what we have, while we can. Dreaming about how much better things could be is a turning away from that. Instead of facing all the trauma and adversity, I retreated into a world of blaming all the wrongs in the world. 'You can keep the world, with all its sin. It's not fit for living in.' 

Even in my politics, it's all about making the world better. Trying to make the world better is great, of course. How much of it was more akin to dreaming about it though? A shared dream, with all the leftists of the world. This isn't to knock activism. It was online activism that brought the surge of mainstream popularity that Bernie rode in on, back in 2015. But this is also why they've clamped down on how their algorithms work, and who gets boosted and who gets quietly suppressed. Under the guise of Russiagate or stopping misinformation, they've completely wrecked the framework that made Bernie possible.

I suppose you might say that I'm discouraged, but in retrospect, I realize that I fixated to such a degree, more as an escape. I was too busy raging about the rest of the world, to face my own life. I've been doing that all my life, everything I do, an escape. I dreaded going to middle school, for the same reason I dread going to the gym, or really anywhere ever. It cuts me off from all my distractions. I wanted to be free, to read sci-fi, play video games, or just fall asleep listening to music.

None of that sounds so bad. The problem is that I desperately want to do such things all the time. I've been avoiding life, all my life, and making excuses for it doesn't matter. I don't care whose fault it is. I've been trying to change, but progress has been slow. Avoidance has been so deeply ingrained in my behavior. Every day is a struggle to overcome that, and the recent hurdles of additional trauma haven't helped.

When all we want out of life is to be free of pain, it's tragic. That is what addiction is all about, and there are good reasons addiction so often follows trauma. Pain can be too much, especially during childhood, crippling neurological development, building who we become on how to escape, rather than how to get the most out of life. 

Forgivable, but far from ideal. It rarely ends well.

achiever explorer socializer killer

The Bartle taxonomy of player types is a classification of game players based on a 1996 paper by Richard Bartle^[1] according to their preferred actions within the game. The classification originally described players of multiplayer games (including MUDs and MMORPGs)

I wonder if it would take much to adapt that to classify the motivations of people in the real world, too. Gaming and fantasy more broadly play on normal every day motivations. Even the "killer" designation has more to do with being competitive and adrenaline seeking than the oft used but incidental themes of killing everything.

I think that it was training in martial arts fifteen years ago that first started to undercut my interest in fantasy. I'd spend months or even years levelling up in a video game, only to get bored and never play it again. Training felt like levelling up in real life. That hadn't felt possible for me. Games make achievement accessible.

I was there for the earliest days of multiplayer games and online worlds for players to socialize in. It was an interesting phenomenon to be a part of, for a while. Our achievements were no longer sequestered within our own private games, but shared socially. I could see and interact, cooperate with or be killed by, other players levels above or below, in newbie rags, or decked out in epic raid gear.

Gaming tends to be the most addictive to people who feel unable to get anywhere in real life. Unable to earn the respect and companionship of others, gaming can be rewarding in ways that feel valuable. Maybe it is valuable. We might debate whether "real life" is all its chalked up to be anyhow, but I no longer think it's all that debatable. 

We're not evolved to sit on our butts all day having pretend interactions. It doesn't fulfill biological needs for socialization, but papers over all that with momentary feelings of sating those needs. We quit game after game, never to play them again, we read novel after novel, or watch movie after movie, but only get one life. 

Real achievement is hard though. Thwarted at almost every turn, it can take so long to get anywhere, in a world that isn't designed to be fair. We can be gimped by bad choices and worse luck, and there's no rerolling a new character. All we can do is keep pressing forward.

Or say fuck it, and get lost in escapism. Maybe at some point, that is the rational choice. What difference does any of it really make anyhow? I don't know how to answer that, but feeling like I was getting somewhere for a change made it feel like a dumb question. The benefits to my well being have been substantial, such that I've come to hate escapism as little more than a means to throw my life away instead.

Exploring a world of fantasy is not the same. Socializing between digital avatars is not the same. Kicking someone's ass in a video game is not the same. A lot of my reasons for choosing escapism are still relevant though. I'm still not having much luck getting anywhere, aside from sparring, but I can't seem to find the motivation to do much else. 

Not much else has gone all that well, but my constant injuries would suggest that training isn't going all that well, either. Somehow it feels natural to keep pressing forward with that, while everything else just sucks. I guess this is just a dark twist on the growth mindset I went on about before everything went to hell. A focus on self-improvement, when nothing else proves motivating. Now, a tortured skeletal framework of the same idea.

a mild case of cancer

Had a follow-up exam of sorts today with a surgeon. She doesn't think I'll need surgery, but now we're waiting for more biopsy results to be sure. So I'm feeling optimistic, but it's strange getting Cancer.. and it can be this inconsequential? It feels almost too good to be true. I'm deeply concerned finding out that I'm prone to this, but I even went to class tonight. I had to leave after kickboxing, without taking BJJ, not because of the cancer, but my ribs still hurt. I'm thinking it might be a pulled muscle.

If anyone were to wonder where I've been the past few weeks, I might tell them I've been getting over a mild case of cancer. I don't think anyone's wondering though. It's even possible no one's noticed. As far as social outlets go, it helps, but I'm not exactly hitting it off with these people. There's another park spar coming up though, and it is nice to know I probably won't be recovering from surgery for it.

Or dying of cancer, because I'd waited another few months to see a doctor. Early detection is so important, and now I understand how early it has to be. Even stage two is too late. That can be early, but it's already metastasized, and that becomes so much harder to deal with. They've got to come up with better ways to just test everyone regularly.

In the meantime, I need to change my lifestyle somehow. I'm just not sure what the culprit is. I'll eat more broccoli, and I'm not in the middle of a pandemic anymore, so that should help. I should probably try to spend a lot less time sitting around feeling stressed out and unhappy too.

[edit for biopsy results: negative for adenoma or malignancy, no significant diagnostic abnormalities. Officially cancer-free now.]

processing

Best case scenario, I still had fucking cancer. There's a chance I still do, but that aside, why the hell am I getting cancer at all. This is so fucked up. I'm only 46. I don't smoke, or drink, eat meat or processed foods. I don't even eat sugar. I exercise every day. I have no family history of this. I've been intermittent fasting every day for years, which is supposed to help prevent cancer.

The one risk category I'm in is that I'm miserable and lonely, and I've been living this way for a long time. Weathering all this, alone in my dismal apartment all day every day, year after year. Now I've got to fend off cancer alone like this? That'll be a straight up death sentence.

Even if I get through this, and if I caught it early enough, it's now something I'll have to worry about for the rest of my life. Once your body grows a cancer, you can't really trust it ever again. Some might think of it as entirely medical, something that inexplicably happens to us. That we're helpless to prevent it, aside from treatment; don't think about it, just deal with it.

Others churn endlessly, trying to figure out why cancer happens. We know that all sorts of lifestyle and environmental factors contribute. Being a GI cancer, diet is especially likely to matter. Despite all the things I don't eat, I still manage to eat almost no fresh fruits or vegetables. I buy them occasionally, but not regularly. I don't shop often enough to keep a regular stock of fresh produce. I eat lots of legumes; beans, chickpeas, lentils, and rice every day. Lots of nuts, seeds, and oats. Actual vegetables though, uncooked? Almost never.

I think it's probably better to think there's something I can do to improve my chances going forward, than to think this is just how random cancer is. Even if I'm wrong, it's beneficial to think I'm maybe doing something to help myself, instead of feeling helpless. Now that I'm saying it out loud, I'm realizing that not eating vegetables is actually quite glaring. They rot so fast, and shopping without a vehicle is such a hassle, but that can't be good for me.

As long as this doesn't stop me from doing BJJ, I'll be ok.

2020 gave me cancer

Just got the biopsy results. Adenocarcinoma. Still waiting to hear from the doctor, my only question being whether I'm in the clear now that the malignant tumor has been removed. Guess I'm officially a cancer survivor.

. . .

Doctor says he probably got all of it, but it was invasive so he can't be sure, and I'll need another colonoscopy in 3-6 months to see if the cancer has taken root in the lining. If so, I'll need surgery to remove part of my colon. He wants me to talk to a surgeon about possibly doing that anyhow, just to be sure.

Except I'll never be sure, because now that we know my body is prone to doing this, we know it's likely to keep happening. They tell people with depression to hang in there, that it will get better. I've spent my whole life waiting, trying, failing to make it any better. It just keeps getting worse.

disabled

Growing up Hasbulla-tiny, I was always being treated as if I were younger than I actually was. I grew up feeling beneath my peers, constantly trying to prove that I wasn't. As this segued into mental health problems and disability, I became stuck in this way of thinking of myself. I grew from one situation that reinforced my feelings of inferiority to another. It doesn't help that this is largely predicated on what seems to be accurate assessments of how people feel about me. Just as when I was little, people don't think bad of me, per se..

I thought I could get there. Finally grow up, get my shit together, go through school, get a career. I'm not sure where that would have gone, had it gone better and been less besieged by tragedy. I didn't do so well though. I really thought I'd be acing everything. It's just community college. Basic classes, and I was barely scraping by. I still had no idea where I was going. I didn't think failure was even a real possibility, once I got over all the hurdles of getting started. 

I needed life to go better than it did, but such is life, I guess? I didn't expect to prove them all right. Trying to hold a crap job would be even worse. I don't know how the hell you people do any of it.

All of that was part of the process that got me started in martial arts again. The one thing that's been enduring throughout all this. I'm not taking it for granted. Not that I made it to class tonight. My side's been hurting again. When I haven't done BJJ in a while, my ribs always get fucked for a bit, as I adjust to having 200 pounds trying to pin me down and twist my arm. I'll be fine, probably, eventually.. and then it will be something else. 

Or it's more cancer. Maybe it's behind the ribs. I can't tell and I guess I really do have to worry about that now. My mother didn't seem to understand the nature of the biopsy. Usually, it means they take a sample, and it tells us whether the thing they're sampling is cancerous. In this case, they removed the entire thing already, because that's what they do regardless. So what they're sampling has already been removed. 

It freaked me out that she interpreted the situation to mean we're waiting to find out if I have cancer. Present tense. That would be unlikely enough that I hadn't been worrying about it.. until she starts talking about how treatable colon cancer is. What, no, that's not.. I mean, probably not.. I can't rule it out entirely, no. 

Maybe some cancer cells were left behind. Or maybe the polyp wasn't the source of the cancer, which would be especially bad. If I understand this all correctly, those are the risks, and they're fairly slim. If it's cancer, I caught it super early. Course, there's also the chance I've misunderstood something entirely. After all, I'm not even a competent adult, let alone a coloncologist.

I was all drugged up when the doctor explained, so who the hell knows. To clear it up, I'm just waiting for my own biopsy results now. This is the best excuse I have, for feeling especially broken and incompetent these past few days.  It's something or other making me feel broken and incompetent an awful lot. Especially lately. It's great that I'm still training, but I was aiming a lot higher. I've been having trouble watching that hope fade ever further into memory.

I can't see a lot of hope in it and to be honest. I can't handle jumping back into all that again. I miss the days when my biggest concern was remembering to walk MC. Life isn't just going to keep throwing this shit at me one thing after another until I'm dead, right?

medical update

Just had an awful few days preparing for an invasive medical procedure, but the sedatives are wearing off and I'm finally allowed to eat again. They found two polyps, one of concerning size. Now I'm waiting for biopsy results on that. Even if it's cancerous, that would hopefully mean it was removed so early that I'm already cancer-free again. Still, it would also mean I'm at an elevated risk for this sort of thing, so I should start getting screened regularly. Which is unfortunate, because I'd really like to never go through that again.

The sedation was odd. I was told I'd be out cold for the whole thing, but instead I dreamily watched the monitor showing my insides.  I was super relaxed but alert. My memory is spotty, even the ride home is a bit of a blur. The nurses remarked that I'd recovered extra fast. I was a little wobbly, but a wheel chair? No, just get me the hell out of here.

I'm so glad it's over. Well, mostly. Still waiting on those biopsy results.

webster

Here's a clip of Hasbulla losing to an actual little kid. That's the sort of stuff my nightmares are made of. I'm not sure why finding out about him had such an impact on me. I'm not even sure what nature of impact it is exactly. Examples of my condition going untreated are rare, but not new to me. The example I've been familiar with all my life was Emmanuel Lewis.

Abdu Rozik is a third example, found through Hasbulla. They're mortal enemies or something. We're supposed to choose our rivalries on our own levels. In many contexts people do this naturally. Others often expect it to go that way. Me, I look for the biggest strongest person in the room and think of them as my primary rival. I guess that has its pros and cons, but it would be an even worse idea if I were still Hasbulla's size.

All three seem to have the same condition, but there's this strange vagueness around it. Rozik's family is trying to claim he just had rickets as a child, which is absurd. Whether going untreated was a choice, or due to impossibility, they seem to be ashamed of it. They all do some sort of martial arts too, which is kinda funny.

Rozik and Lewis have made their fortunes by going untreated. I wonder if it has less do with concern over what the public knows, and more about how they see themselves and their situation. I'm not sure, but they are all textbook examples of what untreated childhood growth hormone deficiency looks like. Strong odds are they all have it, but Hasbulla is the only one admitting it.

Maybe it's just a striking reminder of how far I've come and what I'm trying to do. It's striking to see just how serious GHD is. It's never been about being "short," so much as never growing up; maturing. I find it strange to see how childlike Hasbulla behaves, and how others treat him. He's loved for being like a perpetual child. One YouTuber commented, "best illness ever."

For a while now, I've been ruminating over these people with terrible conditions who are lauded for being optimistic and cheerful anyhow. I certainly don't begrudge them how they feel. I suppose it's throwing into stark relief, this contrast between how far I've come, and how miserable I still tend to be. On the one hand, holy shit it's been a long hard road. On the other, where am I even going.

When someone like my great uncle Daniel would encourage me to be at peace with myself, my situation, I'd get frustrated. Many years ago, he told me that some people live with their parents their whole lives. It's ok. It's nothing to be ashamed of. He never invited me to travel with him though. He once told me he would, but I suspect he realized I wasn't mature enough.

That would be framed other ways, but I've long wondered if that weren't a sizeable part of the problem. Not maturity in an intellectual sense, but something more fundamental seemed stunted. I wasn't ready to face the world. I didn't want to be at peace with that. I wanted to be able to travel with him.

I've been making strides all my life, but I'm running out of time and I've yet to succeed. I realize I'd be more pleasant if I accepted myself, my situation. We're supposed to accept the things we can't change, but I'm still trying. Not that I always have been. When I was with Jenny, I was preaching radical acceptance of ourselves and each other. We are who we are, I thought. Jenny encouraged that, but I was becoming restless. I was realizing this approach to life wasn't working out well for either of us.

center of balance

I've focused a lot on takedowns. I figure no matter what your intent, be it to win a competition, beat someone up, or run away, being able to throw someone is a great way to gain major initiative. Rulesets aside, fighting has three components; stand-up, groundwork, and takedowns. Takedowns are also easier to succeed at against larger opponents than striking or grappling. For me, that's always an important consideration.

In class, we go over different throws each week, but the basics get lost along the way. I do well, relative to most, but I think this is because many don't understand the basics. They attempt throws without thinking through whether they'll have any leverage. I've found it important to keep the mechanics of it in mind.

Every throw, from a seio nagi to a double leg, requires leverage. This means thinking of the person being thrown as a lever to your fulcrum. Keeping in mind which way the lever needs to move, legs going one way, upper body the other, with the pivot point somewhere in between. Focusing only on the legs when doing a sweep make it easily defended against. 

The double leg is an interesting example, because it can look like an exception. It can look more like a football tackle. A properly executed double leg is more about trapping the legs while driving your opponent's center of balance over the fulcrum of your arms. Once they're off their feet, they become easier to lift - or at least their legs do, for a brief moment. That's why double legs can look like a lift. A common mistake is trying to do them that way, people straining to lift each other. Judo throws can be similar in how once a person is off their feet, they can go flying head over heels with surprising ease.

Osoto gari is a common throw, as it's almost similar to how little kids might trip each other. It can seem like one of the most intuitive. That's probably why so many people do it wrong. Myself included, before noticing that it wasn't working out well. You basically put your leg behind theirs and pull them over it, but if they see it coming, they're not going to let you. 

The kid's trip works against someone who isn't expecting it, but if they are, you need to figure out how you're going to get their center of balance past the fulcrum point. Judo practitioners quickly learn to guard their center of balance, so it's important to know how to deal with that, but more fundamentally, to understand why. The tricks used to get a person off balance are no less important than the throw itself.

This can be an arm drag to make someone stumble, so that you can use their momentarily misguided momentum against them. Or in doing a shoulder throw like seio nagi, really understanding why you need to drive your hips down and back to get under your opponent's center of balance. People often screw that one up, because they don't realize how critical the little detail they keep forgetting is.

Class went well. Knee and side were fine. Mondays after kickboxing, we do Judo. Throws and takedowns instead of submissions. It really is amazing what an anti-depressant it is. Just yesterday, I was writing this...

"I think a lot about the nature of self-esteem, and why there seems to be a gaping hole where mine used to be. I think maybe whatever was holding it together failed to survive contact with humankind. I don't know what matters anymore. It doesn't seem to matter what I think. All my ideas," I trailed off, trying to think of another way to say pointless. I think more to the point I was stewing over, ideas have hardly been a substitute for living.

The things I say when I'm miserable aren't wrong, but they only tell half a story. They omit almost everything positive. Not because I think the positives are wrong, but because they feel so much less important. The better my mood, the less important the negatives seem to be. Why does it seem like I'm the only one who sees what's going on here?

There are no objective values we can place on anything. It's all arbitrary. When a negative feels like the worst thing in the world - or easily dismissed, because such is life, and life is beautiful - there is no decision making process involved here. It's just brain chemistry shifting one way and then another. It's neither true nor false, right or wrong.

We don't create physical reality in our minds, but what of all the values we assign to everything? We make that up entirely. The values we place on everything are much more significant to our understanding of life than objective reality, which people are pretty clueless about. e.g. Ok, you stubbed your toe and it hurts, proving objective reality? What does it mean to understand such a thing? Do you know anything about the anatomy of it, the neurology, physics or chemistry of it? Or are you just placing values all over the place and calling that reality?

It's all made up. All the "important" stuff, or whether anything at all is important. Ideas are largely predicated on presumptions of importance, while the very concept of importance is nonsense. Some times this bothers me more than others.

just sitting

Classes went well last night, but somehow I managed to sustain two minor injuries that will hopefully be fine in a few days. Bad enough that I should probably go easy for at least that long. Same old knee, hopefully just a little inflamed or something, and a sharp pain in my abdominal obliques that's probably just a minor strain. Being central core muscles, everything aggravates it. It hurts to cough, let alone upa roll or pendulum kick.

So, a few extra days, at best, of.. sitting here. There isn't anything I want to do or like to do anymore. I'll take care of the few things I need to do, but that's always so oddly difficult, given that I'm bored out of my mind doing nothing else, anyhow. Nothing feels worth doing. I don't know what's wrong with me. 

Loss of hope, disillusionment, jaded. Always so tired. The chemistry of wanting seems all burned out. As things get back to normal, I'm still quite severely depressed, in the clinical sense. I had a great training partner last night. Like a last little ember, I try to focus on that, to get some kind of fire burning again. To keep it from going out entirely.

This isn't exactly what the Buddha means, in terms of liberation from desire, but I think that may be a misunderstanding. Even Buddhists get dodgy around the notion of no-self, but that's foundational to everything else. The self is what we need liberation from. The illusion that the desire is our own. That anything is our own. Our bodies, our feelings. There's no such thing as "ours." 

It's all just causal relationships, but desire is an important evolutionary mechanism. The system doesn't work well without the carrot on the stick. It doesn't bode well for one's mental health to just sit here.

hasbulla

Randomly encountered a meme introducing me to this #hasbulla character recently. He has untreated growth hormone deficiency. He's typical of someone whose system produces none whatsoever. Like mine. I'm not sure people understand when I say that I'd be smaller, if I hadn't been treated. It's pretty rare, and this is what it looks like. 

Hasbulla is 19 years old. Too old to be treated for it at all, as growth plates close during adolescence. It's an illness where we have a brief window within which to refuse to accept the condition. A window which occurs when we're young, so it's really up the parents to figure out if they even have the means to treat it. Some can't afford it, some procrastinate or give up even trying to figure it out.

In many situations, treatment wouldn't be an option. Where it is, it can require extensive fights with insurance companies and the like. My doctor didn't even want to bother testing me, because the condition is so rare. He would have waited until it was too late. Hasbulla looks happy though, and that's what matters, right? No, fuck off with that shit.

I'm reminded of how people treated me in middle school, being new to Jersey, trying to find my place there. They thought my condition was cute and funny and I could have played into that, but I didn't want to be anyone's clown. Worse than dwarfism, people can't help but perceive those with this condition as essentially children. I wasn't bullied. I was liked for the wrong reasons in the wrong ways, and that was even worse. Even most children hate being treated like children. Imagine being treated that way all the time by peers.

Does this sound strange or irrational? To be liked can mean many things. We like and dislike each other on all different levels. We're quick to tell someone in doubt, don't worry, you're not outright offensive, but this is hardly what we're looking to hear. To be wanted or needed by others is to be valued. Those who humbly accept their handicapped social status can be more pleasant. That's an easier way to attain some sense of value, but I valued myself too much for it. 

Now, I'm not so sure. What is self-esteem but an estimate of how others will value us? Whatever attributes or potential we have only matters in so much that anyone else cares. For most of my life, I imagined there are people like me out there somewhere, and surely, they would like me. It seems engaging with humanity has exposed the absurdity of that. Of course it would be nice if neurotypicals liked me more.

I'm very fortunate that I was able to get treated young, eventually almost attaining maturity. Frustrating to fall a little short, but all things being relative. I was so close to living a life of dysfunction on a whole other scale. It's as if I've always been torn between normalcy and that untreated possibility of what I could have been. What I was for a few years there. A little kid, never growing up, just getting older.

That's still me, in some sense, as if I've never quite been able to get away from it. Maybe because of those years before I started catching up to my peers. I looked pathologically young for most of my childhood, as I grew my sense of self. Maybe it's physiological, in that I still don't have a pituitary, I've still got a serious disorder. I've grown, but it's highly unclear how much else the hypopituitarism impacts.

It's intertwined, in that the way the physiology manifests depends on the sorts of experiences we have. The sorts of experiences we have has a lot to do with our physiology.

the body says no

As I walk home, I often realize how sore I am. It feels good to have this evidence that I got a good workout. An hour of kickboxing, then an hour of grappling. I'm so fortunate to even be able to do this at all, let alone do it well.

As I walked to class, I was thinking about this line Gabor Mate uses, where he asks the audience how many times they listen to their gut and regret it. He then asks how many people ignore what their gut tells them, only to regret that. The audience response overwhelmingly supports his proposition that we should always listen to our guts.

As I walked along in bitter argument with my gut, it occurred to me that this can be very wrong, as the gut is often commandeered by mental health problems. That's a defining characteristic of mental health problems to such a broad degree, that we're talking about something most people will experience. Our gut instincts shaped by excessive levels of anger, fear, resentment, or depression.

This point isn't necessarily in contradiction to Gabor's larger point. Which is not so much that our gut instincts are always right, but that to refuse to listen can have serious consequences to our health. It's interesting to think about how this correlates with depression. Evidence suggests that depression is a lot like an immune response. Our instincts are telling us we're sick, and we need to rest and recover. Even hiding can seem like a good idea.

Except with depression, we never recover, and there's tons of evidence that living like that in the long-term is horrible for both mental and physical health. Depression may not even be an exception, per se. It's stressful as hell fighting with my gut instincts all the time. That can't be good for me, either. Every single class, I fend off excuse after excuse. My instincts screaming at me, don't go, this is a terrible idea, and it's going to suck. Today's a bad day for it, it's too hot, or too cold, or I'm too tired. My body says no all the time. 

I remind myself, as I often do, that not once have I regretted going. I always walk home happy that I went.  It's easier to go, being the only thing I do now. When I'm fighting with myself, that point lands hard. I don't do anything else now, so this is all that stands between me and doing nothing. It doesn't feel like enough though. I don't see how training gets me anywhere, and I'm pretty sure I still need to get somewhere.

back to the trenches

I had stuff to do today. My week was planned out, coordinated to do this particular stuff on this particular day, but I didn't do any of it. Now I have other stuff to do tomorrow, and I can't do any of this on the weekend. I could try doing it all tomorrow, but that seems unrealistic, given that I just sat here like a lump today. 

This is the back to normal I've been afraid of. Back to the struggle, after more than a year of just wallowing. I'm no longer hanging on by a fraying thread, but I'm still swimming in a sea of anxieties and frustrations. To relax would be to backslide into doing less and less. My nature is not healthy to give in to, but my nature is also to fight.

So, I'm back to fighting. Constantly feeling like I'm failing, and not doing enough. I often have days like these. Life is so fucking hard when you lack the biochemistry specifically evolved to make it less so. Whether it's endocrine or trauma or whatever else. Nature and nurture are basically the same thing. One is just manifestation of the other, and it goes both ways. Interdependent co-arising phenomena.

My inclination is pretty much to stay in bed all day every day. Not to cook, or grow peppers, or even kickboxing. I have to beat the shit out of myself every day I want to go anywhere at all, including the gym. I dread going anywhere ever. On the other hand, I'm increasingly sick to death of puttering around at home, doing whatever I can rally my waning attention span for, here.

This is why I think of myself as low-functioning. I can't even strive for the things I want to do in this life, let alone the things I should be doing. Some people are better off than I am, some are worse, but this isn't a matter of comparison. That is not indicative of a functioning system. Which in turn has a way of wrecking self-esteem. I'm working on it, but at this rate, it's going to take a lifetime.

park spar

In two hours, I'm supposed to ride my bike to the park to do some sparring. I'd really like to go, I plan on going, but goddammit, is it difficult. I haven't been on my bike in two years, for one thing. 

..and I realized I didn't have much more to say about it than that, and should probably start getting ready.

Now, five hours later, I can report that as soon as I was on my bike, I realized that I hadn't forgotten how to ride, my bike didn't fall apart, and I started feeling better about the whole thing. Still nervous, I pedaled along, there was no turning back. I was out the door and on my way, the most difficult part behind me.

I had a good time. I got to kick lots of people in the head. I love kicking people in the head. As usual, my fears turned out to be silly and baseless. I don't understand why it's always so hard. I write down what a good time I had, in the hopes that I'll remember next time. Maybe it gets easier eventually.

Now, I'm back in my lonely little cave. I'm exhausted, it's great to be out of the heat, put my feet up and not worry about anything.. but it's weird. Going to the park to hang out with people feels like pretending I'm a normal human being for a few hours, only to shamble back to my dismal lair, where I can dispense with such illusions.

Pretending to be human is so hard. I don't know that I could keep it up for more than a few hours at a time. Martial arts is my hack for being able to do that, but sometimes I think the humans might suspect something. Which concerns me, because when they suspect someone of being a mentally ill loner, they can go in all sorts of horrific directions with that.

There's this new guy at my gym, and as we sparred, I couldn't help but notice the hatchwork of old scars up and down his left forearm. Mine are similar, but much older. They're hardly noticeable at all any more. I wanted to say something, about how I might relate, but wasn't sure how that would go. I opted not to risk it and kept the conversation to kickboxing.

I don't know how much of my alienation just has to do with a life consumed by clinical depression, but when I see someone else's battle scars, I tend to think aha, maybe this is someone who might get it. Otherwise, I expect people to be patronizing, at best. Better they don't know anything about me at all.