I like to think that I’m in control of myself. I rather take pride in my rationality and ability to solve problems; it’s pretty central to my self-image. So, I don’t know if two recent incidents constitute a karmic telegram to stop kidding myself (Remember telegrams? The last one (physical—not karmic) was delivered about ten years ago, apparently).
Of course, any sense of control is an illusion, and often a dangerous one. The ability to “go wild” seems to have all manner of positive psychological and physical benefits (at least in doses and with some limits); as evidenced by popular dance music for centuries. Alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs are much to the same end. Regardless, the illusion has provided me with no small sense of self-satisfaction, even if part of me can also acknowledge the costs. And beyond satisfaction, a sense of security, both situational and ethical. So, on to recent history….
Incident #1: Last month, I was doing some yard work (man-of-the-land that I am!) when I apparently disturbed a ground nest of yellowjackets (wasps) who swarmed me instinctively. Before my “normal,” control-predilected self was aware of this, my amygdalic brain started flailing my arms—foolishly, I later learned—and propelling my legs away quite rapidly. A few seconds later (real time; or an extended period as it seemed in the moment), I was in the house with—mercifully—only four stings on my hands and wrists. By the time I had dashed to the computer to do an internet look-up for appropriate remedies, grabbed appropriate creams and dunked my hands into ice water, I caught my breath and realized that my flailing had left my glasses out in the yard in the spot of the initial onslaught.
For the next several hours, I felt drained physically. Mentally, I didn’t feel scared (I did retrieve my glasses), but a touch wary and with a definite preference for “hunkering down.” I spent some time observing myself. I guess I don’t fire off the brain chemicals and short-circuit my normal, well-processed thought processes very often. In fact, I can’t remember the last time I reacted as instantaneously/intensely. As a result, it was strange to recognize the guy who moved through this situation in this way. I don’t regret acting the way I did; not that “I” had much control over what I did. So, both in the moment and in the aftermath, some quite apparent demonstrations of Steve not being “in control.”
Incident #2: Almost a week later, my wife is starting to feel increasingly bad: fatigue, aches, respiratory inflammation. We had, for three and a half years, avoided being caught by the COVID bug, but our days of innocence were gone. I followed about two days later. Fortunately, for both epidemiological and pharmacological reasons, we only had a few days of being miserable and are both more-or-less returned to normal health.
Nonetheless my two-ish days of moderate misery: spaciness, comprehensive body aches, a bad sore throat, and occasional chills/fever were, for me, remarkable. I’ve been quite fortunate to have avoided acute illness over my life. Other than a couple of out-patient procedures, a light-to-moderate set of cold/flu infestations, and an increasing prevalence of age-appropriate chronic physical conditions, I have been pretty healthy.
COVID presented in me in a manner similar to colds/flu, but more severe. Since I’ve had colds/flue since I was a kid, at one level it wasn’t remarkable. And yet…even though the chances of severe complications was small, it was different. It was new. Or, perhaps I just looked at it (i.e., me with “it”) differently. I was regularly aware of struggling to clear my head, to wake up from my (more frequent) sleeping and deciding (repeatedly) that I didn’t have to or want to. When sitting at my desk, I was “just fine” to sit there vacantly and not do much (if any) work (once I had emailed my students with the revised class schedules for the week).
I didn’t have a chronic condition, but I could see that I could very easily feel the same way indefinitely. I got to wondering whether I could be like this if in some time—for any number of reasons or conditions—my limited acuity and attention (…and self-control) would become my “new normal” and possibly terminal, if indefinite state. What if the reduced sense of connection with the world: my characteristic interests in ideas and affairs, my role in managing my life was “as good as it got.” Perhaps I would mind, perhaps I would be upset with my new smaller world; but perhaps that’s just the current me standing up now when—by definition—that Steve wouldn’t be present anymore.
I’m not sure how to characterize how I feel about such a prospect. Not “scared,” certainly not “resigned to it;” aware, as I say, that any idea of such a future is more projection than prediction. It is all well-and-good to declaim: “Rage, rage against the dying of the light.” But that presumes a certain level of synapses and energy levels to spark such rage. A noble dream, but not everyone’s reality.
So, to return to where I started, this mild-to-moderate COVID bout gave me a second taste (and a hint of a third) of not being in control of myself I the way I am used to thinking. One due to a hyped-up system, the other due to a spaced-out processor. I take from these two (+) situations an appreciation of how much I rely on my constructed sense of myself, the fragility of that control, and a question of whether to lean on it as much as I have. Or, as T.S. Eliot asked (and the Allman Brothers affirmed): “Shall I eat a peach?”
Of course, any sense of control is an illusion, and often a dangerous one. The ability to “go wild” seems to have all manner of positive psychological and physical benefits (at least in doses and with some limits); as evidenced by popular dance music for centuries. Alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs are much to the same end. Regardless, the illusion has provided me with no small sense of self-satisfaction, even if part of me can also acknowledge the costs. And beyond satisfaction, a sense of security, both situational and ethical. So, on to recent history….
Incident #1: Last month, I was doing some yard work (man-of-the-land that I am!) when I apparently disturbed a ground nest of yellowjackets (wasps) who swarmed me instinctively. Before my “normal,” control-predilected self was aware of this, my amygdalic brain started flailing my arms—foolishly, I later learned—and propelling my legs away quite rapidly. A few seconds later (real time; or an extended period as it seemed in the moment), I was in the house with—mercifully—only four stings on my hands and wrists. By the time I had dashed to the computer to do an internet look-up for appropriate remedies, grabbed appropriate creams and dunked my hands into ice water, I caught my breath and realized that my flailing had left my glasses out in the yard in the spot of the initial onslaught.
For the next several hours, I felt drained physically. Mentally, I didn’t feel scared (I did retrieve my glasses), but a touch wary and with a definite preference for “hunkering down.” I spent some time observing myself. I guess I don’t fire off the brain chemicals and short-circuit my normal, well-processed thought processes very often. In fact, I can’t remember the last time I reacted as instantaneously/intensely. As a result, it was strange to recognize the guy who moved through this situation in this way. I don’t regret acting the way I did; not that “I” had much control over what I did. So, both in the moment and in the aftermath, some quite apparent demonstrations of Steve not being “in control.”
Incident #2: Almost a week later, my wife is starting to feel increasingly bad: fatigue, aches, respiratory inflammation. We had, for three and a half years, avoided being caught by the COVID bug, but our days of innocence were gone. I followed about two days later. Fortunately, for both epidemiological and pharmacological reasons, we only had a few days of being miserable and are both more-or-less returned to normal health.
Nonetheless my two-ish days of moderate misery: spaciness, comprehensive body aches, a bad sore throat, and occasional chills/fever were, for me, remarkable. I’ve been quite fortunate to have avoided acute illness over my life. Other than a couple of out-patient procedures, a light-to-moderate set of cold/flu infestations, and an increasing prevalence of age-appropriate chronic physical conditions, I have been pretty healthy.
COVID presented in me in a manner similar to colds/flu, but more severe. Since I’ve had colds/flue since I was a kid, at one level it wasn’t remarkable. And yet…even though the chances of severe complications was small, it was different. It was new. Or, perhaps I just looked at it (i.e., me with “it”) differently. I was regularly aware of struggling to clear my head, to wake up from my (more frequent) sleeping and deciding (repeatedly) that I didn’t have to or want to. When sitting at my desk, I was “just fine” to sit there vacantly and not do much (if any) work (once I had emailed my students with the revised class schedules for the week).
I didn’t have a chronic condition, but I could see that I could very easily feel the same way indefinitely. I got to wondering whether I could be like this if in some time—for any number of reasons or conditions—my limited acuity and attention (…and self-control) would become my “new normal” and possibly terminal, if indefinite state. What if the reduced sense of connection with the world: my characteristic interests in ideas and affairs, my role in managing my life was “as good as it got.” Perhaps I would mind, perhaps I would be upset with my new smaller world; but perhaps that’s just the current me standing up now when—by definition—that Steve wouldn’t be present anymore.
I’m not sure how to characterize how I feel about such a prospect. Not “scared,” certainly not “resigned to it;” aware, as I say, that any idea of such a future is more projection than prediction. It is all well-and-good to declaim: “Rage, rage against the dying of the light.” But that presumes a certain level of synapses and energy levels to spark such rage. A noble dream, but not everyone’s reality.
So, to return to where I started, this mild-to-moderate COVID bout gave me a second taste (and a hint of a third) of not being in control of myself I the way I am used to thinking. One due to a hyped-up system, the other due to a spaced-out processor. I take from these two (+) situations an appreciation of how much I rely on my constructed sense of myself, the fragility of that control, and a question of whether to lean on it as much as I have. Or, as T.S. Eliot asked (and the Allman Brothers affirmed): “Shall I eat a peach?”
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