I know. If this were a popular blog, it would be the nine-millionth piece written on this beaten to death topic. I don't have the readership of any major news source or even that of a subway car, but I write what I think about and for me, and for me, the very topic is pretty much why I started this. When I started this a few years ago, it was to be funny, relevant, to keep writing until the day I finally decide to attempt something for people other than my friends to read, but most of all, and this is very serious, it was to give myself a bit of self-therapy.
I've long felt a debate was a bit of a stress reliever. Much like athletics, or sports in general, you exert energy to achieve, win, break personal records, or simply get a workout in. A debate, while not as good for your cardio, does much of the same for your brain. It is not the action that is relaxing, it's the after-effects. One thing is important to note. You can't get anything positive out of a debate if you go into one ready to hold a grudge. That's why I miss some of my old friends, who, despite our difference, we never lost sight of those things that bound us in friendship. Sure, there were times it took a day or two, but usually only for the person who knew they'd lost.
Recently, I've been walking a lot more. For the few who may come across this and not know me very well, this is a big deal. For many years, I was unable to walk without pain. I had ACL tears in both knees in my 20s and then my hip started hurting in my mid-30s. The hip issue got so bad, my knees actually felt fine in comparison. Three years ago, I had hip replacement surgery and while we don't think of going necessary surgery in great moment terms, it was. It allowed me the freedom I'd lost. Over the past few years, I'd walk places I'd normally had to drive to, and over the past few months, I've been taking my neighbor's dog for walks. Some as short as 45-minutes and some as long as two hours. I don't get too caught up in the distance or times, but the other day, I took my first real hike in the woods. I went alone, climbed elevations, and gingerly maneuvered through muddy embankments. I fell once, with my car in sight. I laughed, surprised it hadn't happened five times before. The walk was fun, a bit tiring, but relaxing. Then I came home.
I am single. I have no kids. I do however live with someone I have no connection to, other than a shared living space. I have done this over the past few years, mostly due to monetary constraints. I have some advice for younger people. Make sure you live with someone before you settle down. Anyone. It puts into perspective who you are and even more so, how rare it is for someone to actually know who they are. When I moved in, I was told I was moving in with an outdoorsy, farm-loving, pot-smoking, spiritual dynamo who was "starting over" and going back to school and pursuing a career. Well, some of this is true. She's going back to school. The rest, well, she does also smoke pot, although I wonder what type of pot can be smoked before school, before work, before driving a car, and before doing schoolwork. I've only smoked pot a handful of times in my life and the pot I smoked was not activity-friendly. That being said, over the last few months, as was the case with my old landlords (who I personally liked very much), I learned that the image that she portrayed of herself could not be further from the truth. I won't even get into the fact that she's arguably the least feminist woman I've ever met, despite slamming and shouting about her feminism. Without mansplaining, I'll point to Gloria Steinham's perfect quote: "Feminism is not about 'women as victims'..it's about women refusing to be victims" This quote perfectly sums up everything my roommate is not. She is the eternal victim, whether it be monumental moments in life or something as simple as having to wash her own dishes. Literally, in her own mind, time has a grudge against her.
So where'd that paragraph come from? Well, she does yoga, you'd assume to relax. Yet, within the second of finishing, she's eating. Often, she'll even start cooking, having to take a brief respite from down word facing dog to something offensive smelling stirred. This comes back to my ways of relaxing. There's something about my walks that opens my nasal passages, opens my mind, and often, opens my heart, which has often been blacked by cynicism. I call it being realist, but others call me a cynic, pessimist, or curmudgeon. Regardless of who I am and how others choose to define me, there is just something about taking time out of one's day to do some self-therapy and to come back refreshed, revived, and invigorated, only to walk into a room filled with an air of negativity. It often feels as if I'm in a constant cycle of one step forward, two steps back. The worst, and I truly mean this, her negativity that is voiced is not only constant, but unsolicited. Many months ago, I stopped asking her about her day, how she is, how things are going. I even started avoiding a situation where I might have to speak with her. Much of this also started when I realized she's the poster child for the Dunning Kruger theory. Recently, after one of my walks, she just blurted out "I am having such a hard time in this course, and I'm really fucking smart! I can't even imagine how hard this is for the kids in my class who aren't very smart." It took everything not to say "Difficult. An intelligent person would use "difficult" to express the effort it must take one who isn't as smart to pass a class." Anyway, it's these type of unsolicited complaints, that occur almost daily, and are either about school or work, the only two things she does, due to zero social activities, that wear on me. They wear on me any time of the day, but after I've just done something to clear my mind of my own woes and worries, which are far greater and more serious than which grade I might accrue, I find them, at times, devastating.
Our lives, regardless of our situation, deserve moments of peace. Not just peace in those moments, but a peace that carries on and gets us through the day. Much like a piece of cooked meat (bad analogy for a vegan), these moments need to rest and be allowed to spread throughout our selves, before we're bombarded with our problems, let alone those of others. When you spend time caring for others, finding time to escape the world is tough. This care could be figuratively, but even if your everyday worries take you to thoughts of others (something my roommate never does), it's important to have moments of decompression, followed by silence or just enough time to reap the benefits of your solitude. In a time where essential is the most misused word in the dictionary, these moments and those that follow are essential. All of that in the world which is non-essential shouldn't weigh heavier on our souls and those who push them on us, are too, non-essential.
I've long felt a debate was a bit of a stress reliever. Much like athletics, or sports in general, you exert energy to achieve, win, break personal records, or simply get a workout in. A debate, while not as good for your cardio, does much of the same for your brain. It is not the action that is relaxing, it's the after-effects. One thing is important to note. You can't get anything positive out of a debate if you go into one ready to hold a grudge. That's why I miss some of my old friends, who, despite our difference, we never lost sight of those things that bound us in friendship. Sure, there were times it took a day or two, but usually only for the person who knew they'd lost.
Recently, I've been walking a lot more. For the few who may come across this and not know me very well, this is a big deal. For many years, I was unable to walk without pain. I had ACL tears in both knees in my 20s and then my hip started hurting in my mid-30s. The hip issue got so bad, my knees actually felt fine in comparison. Three years ago, I had hip replacement surgery and while we don't think of going necessary surgery in great moment terms, it was. It allowed me the freedom I'd lost. Over the past few years, I'd walk places I'd normally had to drive to, and over the past few months, I've been taking my neighbor's dog for walks. Some as short as 45-minutes and some as long as two hours. I don't get too caught up in the distance or times, but the other day, I took my first real hike in the woods. I went alone, climbed elevations, and gingerly maneuvered through muddy embankments. I fell once, with my car in sight. I laughed, surprised it hadn't happened five times before. The walk was fun, a bit tiring, but relaxing. Then I came home.
I am single. I have no kids. I do however live with someone I have no connection to, other than a shared living space. I have done this over the past few years, mostly due to monetary constraints. I have some advice for younger people. Make sure you live with someone before you settle down. Anyone. It puts into perspective who you are and even more so, how rare it is for someone to actually know who they are. When I moved in, I was told I was moving in with an outdoorsy, farm-loving, pot-smoking, spiritual dynamo who was "starting over" and going back to school and pursuing a career. Well, some of this is true. She's going back to school. The rest, well, she does also smoke pot, although I wonder what type of pot can be smoked before school, before work, before driving a car, and before doing schoolwork. I've only smoked pot a handful of times in my life and the pot I smoked was not activity-friendly. That being said, over the last few months, as was the case with my old landlords (who I personally liked very much), I learned that the image that she portrayed of herself could not be further from the truth. I won't even get into the fact that she's arguably the least feminist woman I've ever met, despite slamming and shouting about her feminism. Without mansplaining, I'll point to Gloria Steinham's perfect quote: "Feminism is not about 'women as victims'..it's about women refusing to be victims" This quote perfectly sums up everything my roommate is not. She is the eternal victim, whether it be monumental moments in life or something as simple as having to wash her own dishes. Literally, in her own mind, time has a grudge against her.
So where'd that paragraph come from? Well, she does yoga, you'd assume to relax. Yet, within the second of finishing, she's eating. Often, she'll even start cooking, having to take a brief respite from down word facing dog to something offensive smelling stirred. This comes back to my ways of relaxing. There's something about my walks that opens my nasal passages, opens my mind, and often, opens my heart, which has often been blacked by cynicism. I call it being realist, but others call me a cynic, pessimist, or curmudgeon. Regardless of who I am and how others choose to define me, there is just something about taking time out of one's day to do some self-therapy and to come back refreshed, revived, and invigorated, only to walk into a room filled with an air of negativity. It often feels as if I'm in a constant cycle of one step forward, two steps back. The worst, and I truly mean this, her negativity that is voiced is not only constant, but unsolicited. Many months ago, I stopped asking her about her day, how she is, how things are going. I even started avoiding a situation where I might have to speak with her. Much of this also started when I realized she's the poster child for the Dunning Kruger theory. Recently, after one of my walks, she just blurted out "I am having such a hard time in this course, and I'm really fucking smart! I can't even imagine how hard this is for the kids in my class who aren't very smart." It took everything not to say "Difficult. An intelligent person would use "difficult" to express the effort it must take one who isn't as smart to pass a class." Anyway, it's these type of unsolicited complaints, that occur almost daily, and are either about school or work, the only two things she does, due to zero social activities, that wear on me. They wear on me any time of the day, but after I've just done something to clear my mind of my own woes and worries, which are far greater and more serious than which grade I might accrue, I find them, at times, devastating.
Our lives, regardless of our situation, deserve moments of peace. Not just peace in those moments, but a peace that carries on and gets us through the day. Much like a piece of cooked meat (bad analogy for a vegan), these moments need to rest and be allowed to spread throughout our selves, before we're bombarded with our problems, let alone those of others. When you spend time caring for others, finding time to escape the world is tough. This care could be figuratively, but even if your everyday worries take you to thoughts of others (something my roommate never does), it's important to have moments of decompression, followed by silence or just enough time to reap the benefits of your solitude. In a time where essential is the most misused word in the dictionary, these moments and those that follow are essential. All of that in the world which is non-essential shouldn't weigh heavier on our souls and those who push them on us, are too, non-essential.
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