to experience in life -- and if that's true, then life really isn't so bad.
To diagnose is to begin to recover.
* I've been working way too fucking hard. I thought it was just
rudeness on the part of my officemates to say "What, you're
here already?" when they came in in the morning, and "You
work too much" when they left at night. I was easily putting in
double 8 hour shifts in front of the computer without much to
speak of for breaks. Sheer idiocy. However...
* I don't have enough other things to do. Basically I live in
a "mono-culture" of coding and "individual" projects. I haven't
yet established the relationships with the people "down the
hall" that would make it possible for me to get work done
by "going down the hall" to talk to them. Yes, I can stay
home and read books and whatnot, but that form of engagement,
while not entirely "invalidated" seems to be regarded (by
me and others here) as "ancillary at best". Well, I think I
need a bit more of that kind of "ancillary at best" engagement.
* I don't have a particularly nice chair. That said, I'm starting
to feel "comfortable" enough in my new office environment to
make requests that will allow me to be more comfortable still.
Asking for a new "ergonomic" chair, asking for a new laptop.
It's been historically hard for me to put in requests (to anyone)
that actually validate my work and/or my existence via
other means than the "reverse prestige" that accrues to me
automatically as (alternately) a hick, a geek, an inner city
kid, a virtually unemployed bohemian, etc.
* I spent too long reading Zizek when I was sitting on the
toilet. I think this says something perplexing. Basically
that the "anti-ideological" stance of the casual Zizekian is
perfectly embodied by this momentary act of over-stretching
the anus...
And why is that? I think maybe it has to do with the
interesting interface between necessity (one must after
all take a shit) and inutility (feces is waste matter). In
face of necessity, the anti-ideolog seems inclined to give
a middle-finger salute. You say this is necessary? OK,
maybe I'll go along with you, but I will subvert the process
to my own ends. And similarly for non-useful or at least
not-immediately-useful things (e.g. Hegelian dialectic),
they are to be embraced and recovered/detourned into
entertainment, self-criticality, and ultimately "greater
health" (in a Nietzscheian sense...).
* Finally, I think it's possible to look at this symptom as
entirely "psychosomatic" -- related to childhood anxieties
about anal rape at the hands of my, in my mind,
overly-attentive grandfathers (may they rest in peace),
which I suppose can't be ruled out as a possibility just
because I don't remember it. And it's somehow this
presumably-fictional-but-who-knows psych-out that
is reactivated as a symptomatic inattention to the
needs/desires of my real body.
Case closed. Yeah??
1 comments:
It's funny; when I got hemorrhoids in high school, my first suspicion was that someone was drugging and raping me in my sleep. I was only marginally sane at that point I guess.
They got worse at New College.
If all these techniques fail, there are a few more direct methods which have helped me. A plain unadulterated cotton ball strategically placed can cut down on friction and distribute pressure (downside: can fall out which is kinda icky and compromising). Preparation-H seems to help although there are claims that it's a placebo and that any lubricant would work just as well. Finally, witch hazel is an old-as-dirt anti-inflammatory which is sometimes used for this purpose.
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