Thinkin’ (Again)

BeWare of the White Sox Gang...
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Thinkin’ (Again)

At last, I can think again.

For the last two days, I’ve been stricken with some mystery virus that had overcome my estranged wife, our oldest and myself. Each one of us had had all, or most, of these symptoms: intestinal discomfort, episodes of wanting to vomit, general malaise (queasiness), sinus headaches, overall body aching, and what felt like being on the brink of a respiratory infection.

In the process, I endured a full day at work, and although I could push paper alright, I lost my ability to think clearly, write creatively, and ponder the general meaning of the universe.

By the time the boss said, “Go home and rest…because I need you to come in tomorrow,” at 5 PM no less,” I could think of nothing more than sulking my woes away in bed.

Actually, I did subsequently think of other things along the way, including:

— “What am I doing here?”

— “I don’t want to work anymore.”

— “Just 25 years more…before I might be able to retire."

— “Genius is a painful realization.
(Speaking of which, (oh, I might get in trouble for this…) I need (need) to convey (i.e. prag (1. v. paternally brag)) that recently one of the family took national tests for third grade academic aptitude and placed in the 99 percentile across the board (a perfect score in one of the three categories) and I am very-very proud of him. I promised my (ex)wife not to mention it in my “blog” and I truly-really had the fullest intentions to not do so. Alas (alas, alas, alas), prag (2. n. the compulsion to brag, because of paternal pride) got the best (worst) of me. Sorry Dom. If I could have written this with invisible ink or used a much smaller font, I swear I would have...)”

— “Resign yourself, you’ve got no choice. Go home, rest and get better, because tomorrow you’ve got to show up at the office—the bills and obligations (and the boss) demand it.”

Thus, I went straight home, tidied up a bit, and made a makeshift welcome poster for my flatmate’s gurlfriend who was visiting from China and whom I was supposed to meet (but now knew I wouldn’t, after all, because I was about to quarantine myself in my bedroom for the rest of the night). After feeling as if everything was in order, I showered, took a horsepill of a multivitamin, drank a tall glass of juice, and then sank into bed to sweat out my ailment for the next 12 hours.

Subsequently, I did shake off much of the debilitating ailment, and, as is the tradition in these cases, I immediately began pledging “Never again, never again,” or at least, “I’ve got to take better care of myself.” Because, God knows, I’m not getting any younger.

Part of the reason I took so ill was that I was recovering from a game of soccer on Saturday morning, in which I ran non-stop up and down the field -stop for forty minutes. I was having so much fun that I completely ignored that age was becoming of me (I’ll turn 40 on Thanksgiving this year). In fact, I joked often with the much younger players amongst us, purporting, “Although we might excel in terms experience, our age and vices weigh in to put us at a much greater disadvantage.”

Thus, a day later, my immune system was shot, and the virus took advantage.

Nonetheless, regardless of my understanding of what was happening to me, I was still compelled to declare that I’m giving up all vices and living a healthy-conservative life, so that I might prevent these traumatizing events in the future, as well as not have to eventually feel that euthanasia is a better alternative to dying of depression, loneliness, ennui and the STDS that are all the rage at nursing homes these days.

Hence, I embraced my lack of hunger the last two days, especially since now that we’re back to wearing suits at work (and no longer wearing looser, more comfortable khakis), I’m feeling that things are a bit tight around the waist.

Problem is, although having to hold on to a warm and sticky subway pole this morning was not very reassuring, I am feeling better now. So, even though I’m only 10 pounds away from my ideal weight of 165, I’m lacking the proper motivation, which I’ve long attributed primarily to a chronic bout with ABD.

Moreover, albeit the 12 hours of reclusion seemingly killed the virus, I’ve still got the ennui, the job, (insert euphemism for marriage-gone-bad here), and the hefty weight of bills and obligation to contend with. Hence, sooner or later, I’m liable to foolishly thwart the pursuit of my ideals and aspirations and will begin to rely on my vices all over again as a means of escaping.

Oh, well. At least, for now, I can think again.

*

The man of genius is he who understands incomparably more about other beings than the average man. Goethe is said to have said of himself that there was no vice or crime of which he could not trace the tendency in himself, and that at some period of his life he could not have understood fully. The genius, therefore, is a more complicated, more richly endowed, more varied man; and a man is the closer to being a genius the more men he has in his personality, and the more really and strongly he has these others within him. If comprehension of those about him only flickers in him like a poor candle, then he is unable, like the great poet, to kindle a mighty flame in his heroes, to give distinction and character to his creations. The ideal of an artistic genius is to live in all men, to lose himself in all men, to reveal himself in multitudes; and so also the aim of the philosopher is to discover all others in himself, to fuse them into a unit which is his own unit.
— Otto Weininger—