Well, so far so good. I feel a lot better than I did yesterday, though I am still very tired.

But it’s a better kind of tired, the kind of sleepy tired that feels like it leads to nice, safe, relaxing, gentle, soft-feathered sleep instead of the deep dark dragging down drowning kind of sleep.

This morning, I had a fairly nasty episode of Irritable Bowl Syndrome. This particular mode of attack is seriously unpleasant, and happens (I think) when I have a blockage so bad that the contents of my intestines back up into my stomach like a clogged storm sewer backing up into the street.

It is very nasty and makes me very nauseous, although due to an odd genetic quirk I inherited from my mother, I have strong nausea resistance, so it doesn’t usual actually make me throw up. And for some reason, it also makes me sweat like crazy, which is generally a good thing, because these attacks usually also involve a low grade fever and a very distinct feeling of overheating, and general heat stroke type symptoms. So the sweating is good, it cools me off and makes the whole thing more bearable.

I think carbonated beverages may be a factor too. It might be that the real problem is a large ball of carbonation trying to rise through a badly clogged system, and that causing something rather horrifically like a bubbling swamp to happen in my poor guts.

Luckily, I was able to stay calm during all this badness and keep a grip on my emotions and remind myself that I had been through the same many times before, and that I knew all I had to do was hold relatively still, breathe evenly, let the bubbles rise and do their damage and dissipate, and if I just hung in there that they would eventually all be gone and I would feel a lot better.

And yup, that’s just what happened. It was very unfun, but I am pleased with my performance in keeping my cool. One thing that suffering from Irritable Bowel Syndrome my entire life has taught me is that freaking out about it only makes it far, far worse. If I can stay calm, I can just ride it out and make it through with minimal pain.

Even when I was a little kid, I had what they called at the time a “nervous stomach”. if I got too excited about something, or too anxious, I would become physically sick.

No wonder I grew up to be so dependent on maintaining calm. Emotions make me ill. How’s that for a fucked up Skinner box to grow and develop in? To this day, when I imagine what it would be like if I had all the health, both mental and physical, that I want, I imagine myself as fundamentally calm and centred at all time, which would in turn make it safe for me to feel more emotions and not be so god damned numb all the time.

Because despite how I depend on a very low intensity life to control my mood, a big part of me really wants to feel things. I think our bodies and our minds know what should be felt, and register a deep wrongness when the right feelings are not there. Whether it’s your foot or your feelings that fall asleep, you kno somethign is terribly wrong somewhere, and while it can be painful to get feeling back, it also feels really good. The warmth flows back into what was so recently cold and dead and numb, and that feels amazingly wonderful. LIFE!

So often, whatever makes me really feel strongly is beloved to me, even if it makes me really sad, because at least I am feeling something, and for a time I am fully alive, and some of my incredible wasteland fillfed with frozen emotion melts and the glacier I live under becomes a little lighter.

Part of me wishes I could just melt it all at once, total catharsis, and gamble it all on myself surviving the flood to be so much cleaner, stronger, clearer, and more joyful when the waters abate and I am left on dry ground once again.

But if there is a way to trigger total catharsis, I don’t know it, and that is probably just as well. As tempting as the thought is, I imagine that, realistically, it would be at least equally likely that your mind would either be smashed to pieces by the flood waters, or the whole structure of your psych would collapse without all the emotions propping it up anymore.

I don’t know. Might be worth it, though, to get rid of all your crap at once. Like Hercules diverting a river to clean out the stalls of the man-eating horses during one of his Labours.

Have I mentioned how much I loved mythology as a kid? Myths are great stories. To me, there is no better testament (so to speak) to the power of writing and language than religion. From a certain angle, all religion can be seen as a product of some very powerful storytelling, so powerful, in fact, that in an era before the concept of fiction, the stories overrode the usual filters of perception and become real and true to people.

After all, powerful storytelling is so evocative that it really seems real while you are experiencing it. It is not that hard to imagine that in a time before everyone grew up immersed in fiction of various forms and had to learn the difference at quite an early age, the sheer immersiveness of strong storytelling would create the feeling that one had experienced something real and true.

And in a world before the post office, newspapers, or even literacy, and without the full scientific method (and knowledge) for examining the plausibility of a statement… one can hardly blame them for believing it.

And all because someone came up with a really powerful, resonant, affecting story that really moved people.

We writers wield incredible power at times.