A Workaday, Humdrum Life
Wake up. First things first, Oura ring. Check sleep metrics. Mediocre. Chug Alice functional mushroom lemon water next to Leesa mattress on Thuma bed. Box breathe, 4 minutes. Jungian dream analysis. Had a dream about a crocodile who spoke with the voice of a young Humphrey Bogart. Look up meaning on dream analysis app. Meaning relates to feelings of inadequacy caused by parental overpraise. Identify emotion. Process. Crush. Out of bed. Turn off Loftie white noise. Turn on Dayglo sun lamp. Process daily todo list. Set into mental data structure. Identify internal mechanisms of abstraction that allow you to access information when useful and ignore when not. Prioritize mechanisms.
5 pushups. Perfect form. 5 more. Perfect form. 5 more. Form breakdown on the 14th. 5 more. Mediocre form. Stop. Sit on the floor, grab Hokas from the place you keep them that’s intended to be within arm’s length when you’re sitting on the floor after you’ve done push ups. Lace them up. Bunny in hole. Round the tree. Double knot. Nice and tight. Up, keys, Apple Watch, out the door. Strava on instantly, hit the ground running. Stop at the red lights, jog in place. No headphones. Do it raw. Do life raw. Headphones for weak people who need them to drown out the panting. No panting for you. Slow, measured breaths, drawn through the diaphragm. Each sensation of foot slapping pavement a reminder that you exist.
1 mile. Birds out, chirping. It’s early. Pass a woman jogging the other direction. What if, but no, she’s gone. It could have been good, beautiful. She’s gone. 2 miles. Dogs out for walks. Dial in. Be present. Air feels good. Clean, clear. Temperature ambient against skin. Lock in. 3 miles. Now we’re cooking. Kids out, heading to school. Funny Tshirts. Videogames=1, sister=0. Poor kid. Wonder if he even has a sister. 4 miles. Thinking about the rest of your day. Drawing your attention back to your breath, your presence in this world. Attachment the root of suffering. 5 miles. You feel like the wind, moving through the world silently, cutting through the air like a knife. A shadow, flitting by pedestrians, leaving them with a whisper of a sensation that someone was just there.
Front door. Already? Yes, it’s been long enough. Time for the day. Up the stairs. In your chair. Open laptop. 14 hours of anime while gooning. Collapse into bed while surrounded by your own filth. Time to do it all again tomorrow.
Nabeel’s Footnote
SOunds about right