I tried not to make this a lecture or a rant.

You can tell me if I succeeded.

It bothers me more than it probably should when people eat nothing but garbage. It always hurts to see people make the same mistakes you have.

Especially when, like me, you’re at the end stage of that and therefore suffering the very predictable effects of eating all the wrong things such as obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, stents in my heart, and (arguably) depression.

So I kind of feel like the ghost of Jacob Marley from “A Christmas Carol”, screaming at people to change their wicked ways before they end up like me.

Of course, realistically, I know the chances of convincing anyway to change are very low. People tend to have their lives people around things like their pleasures and removing one of those pleasures upsets the entire structure of their lifestyles.

They will have to replace that reward signal somehow.

Which brings us to the matter of addiction. Brains are wired to seek the strongest sources of reward and things like junk food exploit that by being unnaturally rewarding and hence a source of fixation.

Nature did not plan for the advent of Doritos.

So when trying to improve their diets, people have to contend with the withdrawal symptoms of cravings for the old bad foods.

That’s why I advocate for my “additive” diet. Don’t deprive yourself of anything because that will just convince the stupid part of your animal brain that you’re starving and we are only as in control of ourselves as we are sated.

It’s like our animal brains have our big human sentient brains on a short leash and only lets them think they are in control if the big brain does a good job of feeding the smaller and much older one.

So when cravings go unmet, no matter how self-destructive they are, the degree to which we can control ourselves dips and we “cheat”.

The only solution is to deprive yourself of nothing. There will still be withdrawal when the adding of the good stuff leaves less room for the bad stuff, but it won’t be nearly as severe and will be way easier to handle.

I mean, you can’t “cheat” on a diet that doesn’t forbid anything, right?

As far as I can tell, there’s no system solution for bad nutrition. Not one we are likely to adopt, anyhow. The nutritional extremist in me dreams of things like banning refined sugar in manufactured goods so that companies are forced to switch to much safer artificial sweeteners, but there’s no way that would ever happen.

Big Sugar would shut that shit down HARD.

More realistically (kinda), if someone could invent the killer sugar substitute that would taste exactly like the real thing but be perfectly healthy, in theory that would give the products that use it a market advantage.

Then again, we already have Splenda. That’s even made from sugar, so Big Sugar wouldn’t even get cut out of the deal.

And I don’t see Splenda based chocolate bars flooding the market.

So I dunno. One of the hardest things to do in the world is to get people to change. Change is scary and hard, doing what you’ve always done is soothing and easy.

Says the guy who keeps living the same day over and over again because he can’t bring himself to change anything at all.

At least my days create things. Without this blog and my videos, my life would truly be pointless and I would be even more lost than I am now.

I want to get out of this holding pattern I am in. But I am in no hurry.

It’ll happen when it happens. Or not.

More after the break.

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Investing in myself

It’s not easy.

I am trying to learned to direct my overflowing mental energies into my own psyche and its health and stability, and so far it’s been rather painful.

A lot of deeply frostbitten and palsied parts of me have to wake up and thaw out still, and that’s a lot like slapping and shaking your hand after it has fallen asleep.

It’s something well worth doing because it will get you your hand back, but there’s a lot of that pins and needles feeling in your immediate future.

And I’ve had a large part of my psyche – possibly more than half of it – asleep for a very long time indeed.

The hardest part is and is going to be the attitude adjustment. Shifting to directing my energies into my own happiness and wellbeing on a much larger scale than before feels like I am trying to pop a cramp that has been there for almost 50 years.

My mind doesn’t want to go there.

Well too bad, brain, because you’re doing it anyway. Fuck it, it’s only pain. Pain sucks but it’s temporary and if you’re a lot healthier for the rest of your life afterwards, it’s hard to say that it wasn’t worth it.

So I am well beyond giving a shit about psychological pain. The fear still grips me, though that is slowly fading, but the pain doesn’t faze me at all.

If anything, in a perverse way it feels good because, like with my sleepy hand example, the pain signals something coming back to life and warming up, and that feels good even if it’s accompanied by pain.

So wake up, ye sleepers! Spring has come, the long winter night has ended, the sun is high in the sky, and it’s time to crawl out of your musty fusty burrows and shake the dust out of your fur so you can run out and play.

And I know the sunlight hurts your little eyes, but that will soon pass, and you will be amazed by all the beauty you can see now that you’re awake.

Isn’t that a lot better than hibernating your life away?

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.