May 19th, 2012: A well-rounded program requires rest. It’s the only part of the program I’ll admit where I have regularly struggled.
There is some science that indicates an increased craving for carbs (mostly just straight-up sugar) results from fatigue. It makes sense to me, it’s a quick energy source to get your ass moving when you just don’t feel like you have the energy. Maybe this is why I have such a difficult time battling the demons when tired.
They say 7-8 hours of uninterrupted sleep is optimum. I don’t have memory of even coming close to that, not one single night, in the last decade. I worry too much, or I have too much to do that I didn’t get done that day, or I have dogs that have to pee or a little boy with nightmares.
What it amounts to is that I’m a middle-class working father, and unless something gives in, there is no fuckin way I’m getting 7-8 hours of sleep every night. I have nothing that I can quit doing in the name of more rest without the whole house of cards collapsing.
You know what this means? It means I’ve just got to cowboy-up for another 20 years, at least. It means I better find a way to make it happen on 4-6 hours of sleep every night, without caving to the craving. It means I put my head down and work and stay in the trenches.
I’m not doing this just to do it. There is an end to this tunnel, or a goal at least, and then I suppose it starts to really get tricky. Eyes on the prize, even when the eyes have such dark circles around them that they look like two piss-holes in the snow.
May 19th, 2020: Fearless is easy when fatigue is absent. I learned how quickly running out of gas turns you into baby-bitch, especially when the chips are down.
I actually knew it a long time ago, I just couldn’t put my finger on what it was. I’ve experienced it in the mountains hiking, in the mountains hunting, in the mountains fighting fire, in buildings in cities fighting fires, in fistfights, in football, in wrestling, and in boxing. To a more chronic and not so dramatic degree, I’ve experienced it in academia.
It’s that’s moment when all your shit talking becomes just that – talking. It’s that moment when all the professing you did about what you were going to do becomes only another load of crap. When you’re winded, you’re wasted, and now you better prepare yourself to take an ass whooping.
I always shake my head when I hear a boxer proclaim that he intends to go out on his shield, like a true warrior. Then, when he gets tired, all you become witness to is just someone who didn’t train correctly and talked a whole lot of shit. It pays to train to swim in deep water.
But what about the kind of fatigue I wrote about in the 2012 blog post this day? The kind of fatigue that only a bed can remedy. I still haven’t figured this one out, though I no longer give in to inevitable cravings for carbs (usually it’s donuts I daydream about). I do know that getting the proper amount of rest is just like diet and exercise, in that it requires discipline. I actually think it’s a part of this trinity – but I always forget, like I do the “holy ghost” when I say in the name of the…probably because I can’t properly define it.
Where does rest end and laziness begin? How am I supposed to get all that I need done in the time that I’m supposed to get it done and still get to bed on time? The stupid thing is that I usually don’t get it all done anyway, and still get to bed too late, and wake up too damn early. Oh well, just another thing to figure out as time goes on, and on, and on…
