noticing this

And just like that, I think I solved my cough – like a story resolving itself in the second act, only to reveal later that the initial conflict was just a barrier from really seeing another one.

I had a cycle of colds for years, so my body got used to coughing and throat-clearing. I learned yesterday that the more you cough and clear your throat, the more your body makes mucus to protect your throat. So what had been happening because I was sick started to happen because I had been sick, and never stopped. Up until yesterday I was clearing my throat every few seconds, and it was always a major pain and source of anxiety that mucus would interrupt my voice. But knowing that now, I’m making the effort not to cough or clear my throat, and a little over a day into it, I already feel a lot better.

In Denmark some months after my nasal turbinate coblation (stab, zap, shrink) surgery, I wrote

Everything feels pure now. Loving is no longer an apology.
The Gods kept my medicine
from me for a while, but now, I am cured – 90%. I am still missing
one last balm. One day, that
may give me too much abundance of health
and lead me to lose myself again.

If that tingling sensation in my throat goes away by letting what is likely to have been damaged heal, then I will be ecstatic, freer to use my voice than I’ve been in at least 3 years. The pressure in my right ear and the physical tightness in my throat might both be related to this, so if it solves them too, then as far as I know, I will have overcome all the physical conditions that I’ve been struggling against, and this, largely because of the time that I had to myself during the Watson, in which I started to notice and address my own problems. I was so motivated by my physical challenges that I made lifestyle changes that are so drastic, spartan, unconventional, that I should have a great chance of living healthily and happily for a long time due to intentional, internal modification of biochemistry through lifestyle choices and practices.

And yet I worry.

I’m hit, at the same time, with the unstable position of my future travel, with the instability of my finances, and my – what is, essentially – wildly unstable current situation, in an environment where the values for taking time, remaining humble and pursuing experience rather than achievement, and above all, listening to and following my gut, do not feel like values that are supported.

When I think of my irons in the fire now, I’m increasingly getting struck with doubt, and much of it because I don’t feel much support in these all wildly challenging – writing a novel, starting a youtube channel, developing classes – endeavors. And because they take a huge amount of time, two months in, I look at the progress I’ve made, and see that it is appropriate progress, and yet, have doubts about whether the two months I have left here will be enough.

I envisioned a different life for myself, and I intend not to forget it.

Jedi

maybe I can call what came before for me
my Anakin Skywalker phase: obsessed with the ego,
placing undue value on power, prestige, wealth,
accomplishment
and not yet seeing that my passions
and the lies therein
were leading me on a path toward the creation of pain:
psychological pain for myself and others.
Imagine this Dark Side: Phi Beta Kappa and going to
Harvard to become a lawyer,
but still not knowing why I do what I do
and still relying on the gifts of the market
to satisfy me.
I would not have been satisfied
were I even to become a great academic or lawyer in that
image.
I would still be shooting in the dark,
unaware of living.

Knowing this, I don’t need what my ego wanted before.
The way of the light side is subtle, small, and unassuming.
This path paves itself.