This was written around April 2014.
I’ve always been underweight, my whole life. I suppose I’ve had a rather unhealthy relationship with food, I’m a very picky eater and I don’t know how to cook. I sorta plan to learn- I intellectually know that it’s a good idea and will probably improve my life significantly, but it just feels a little overwhelming… I know even then I ought to break it down into baby steps, but I have so many other plans and priorities all at once. You know how it is.
Anyway- what I do remember is, I was between 62 and 64.5kg for several years, from when I was 16 to 22 years old. I know this because at several points in that time I used to hit the gym to try and build some muscle, gain some weight. At my best, I managed to hit 65kg, which was always an exciting milestone for me… yet before long I’d slip on my diet and fall back below 65kg.
So it was a huge surprise for me to discover that I now weigh about 78kg. I somehow put on a good 13-15kg without really noticing or realising it, seemingly in a 1 year time frame. I don’t even really see the weight; where did it go? I still look pretty skinny. There are two explanations I can think of, probably both working in tandem.
Firstly, I must have stopped growing taller- I read somewhere that a large part of a teenager’s caloric consumption is used by the body to build the skeleton. My skeleton must have finished growing by nos.
Secondly, I must have imperceptibly changed my diet. This is a consequence of the two big changes in my life- moving out of my parents’ place, and starting work. I eat pretty hearty lunches with my colleagues, and I eat dinner with my wife on most evenings. I must have been missing more meals as a teenager- I’d often skip dinner, for example. It dawns on me that I’ve actually been starving myself for most of my life, and I didn’t realize it because I grew accustomed to being hungry, and because I lose my appetite when I’m anxious, nervous or scared (often happens when I have deadlines to meet, and I’m not on track.)
In relation to that, I tend to feel weak, lazy and lethargic because of my eating habits. I think I get low blood sugar levels, which make me slightly sleepy or faint, and I’m very unproductive when I’m like that. I don’t think this is a new thing, I think I’ve actually suffered from this since I was a teenager but I simply accepted it as how life was supposed to be. I thought everybody got lethargic and tired the way I did, and it didn’t occur to me that there might be something wrong with me or the way I was doing things.
Small causes, big effects
Sometimes it’s crazy to think about how geography affects civilization and geopolitics- such mundane, physical things affecting human lives, causing pain, suffering, anguish. But that shouldn’t be surprising at all. We are all physical creatures, with our own biology and chemistry. Our moods are affected by our physical activity, by our diet. I’ve always thought I don’t have any problems- I’m young, I’m healthy. A little unfit, maybe, but because I’m lazy rather than any deeper issues. Issues are for other people, issues are dramatic and powerful… or so I thought.
On hindsight though, it’s clear that I had and continue to have some issues that need to be resolved in order for me to live a happy, fulfilling life. Thinking about “bigger things” like politics and philosophy are fun, interesting, but if I wanted a better life, a better diet, better sleep, better exercise, a system of writing practice, etc would do me a whole lot more good than just thinking. And the two aren’t mutually exclusive. Getting better at the basics puts you in a place where you think more clearly, etc.
Small things are unsexy
Somehow, talking about small causes is just unsexy. Thinking about them is unsexy. Taking the trouble to apply them to yourself is unsexiest of all. One of my greatest weaknesses goes roughly as follows: If I can understand the intellectual argument for something, if I can understand the logic of something, I’m done with it. I don’t need to do it. I don’t need to try it out for myself. It is right, it is good, yes. I accept it without trying to incorporate it into my own existence. So I know all the good things to say, and I know all the good advice to give people who are going through rough times, but it never fully occurs to me to full-heartedly take my own advice, because I convince myself that these aren’t particularly rough times. I’m not particularly going through a crisis. But that’s how life goes, isn’t it? Every moment is now. Nothing is ever serious enough to warrant intervention, until your entire situation is different and you’re far too entrenched, too far gone.
I’ve written quite a few blogposts about the importance of baby steps, of doing little things that add up into big things. Yet I have so much trouble adapting that to my own life. I have so much hubris. I think I’m above it all, I think I’m beyond it all. This isn’t a permanent thought- I think it when I’m up, and then I suffer for it when I’m down, but once I’m out I feel like the next time will be different. It’s the classic procrastinator cycle that hundreds of thousands of people on reddit and tumblr relate to wholeheartedly. (Unrelated: I’m getting annoyed by how little I’ve been working on my personal writing. I should sit down and measure how much I’ve written, exactly. I’m simultaneously impatient for big things to happen and averse to doing tiny things that don’t seem to make a tangiblr difference- again, even though I intellectually know that big things are the sum of small things.)
How many times do I have to talk about small things before I make real headway on getting them done? How much headway do I need before I satisfy myself with the amount of effort I’m putting in? I’ve been doing pull-ups at the playground downstairs from my flat, and I’ve been reading more, and I haven’t missed any actual deadlines at work. I’m making progress on all fronts, but I’m still dissatisfied because I’m still so aware of how much I’m allowing to slide. I could be so much more.
Baby steps. I have to assume that this will take years.