Give me an inch....
Mood:  happy
Topic: 2008

This is precisely why I don't let myself write.  Because eventually I will get turned on by some idea and I won't be able to quit.  As painful and scary as it is to sit down to write when I am feeling uninspired, it is infinitely more painful to WANT to write and not be able to because "real life" has a schedule to keep and I am required elsewhere.  

I have been in a state of agitation, bordering on distress, all day--in part, I think, because I was dying to get back to my notebook, and in part because of the small but potentially life altering revelation I made last night.  I have been practically mainlining Mountain Dew for the past six hours, caffeine-free, but the full sugar version.  And on the drive home from work, I considered my eat-what-I've-already-bought dinner options--salad, veggie wrap, sandwich, or whole wheat spaghetti with meatless meatballs--and then opted to stop at Food Lion and buy a Digorno Pepperoni Garlic Bread Pizza and a Nestle Crunch bar.  I have eaten the Crunch bar and the pizza is in the oven.  I won't call this a binge--if I'd bought a pint of Ben & Jerry's Phish Food it would be a binge--but I would say I am probably asking my food to serve a purpose for which it was not intended and that I could probably be making better choices.

In fact, I could stop and make a better choice right now.  I could get up, with eleven minutes still left on the oven timer for the pizza, and I could make myself a really tasty, low fat, vegetarian salad in a whole wheat wrap and choose to eat that instead of the pizza.  Or, I could decide that I'm really not hungry after drinking four 16 oz. bottles of Mountain Dew this afternoon, take the dog to the park, and decide what (or whether) to eat when I get home.

But, now, there are only 8 minutes left on the timer and I know that when it buzzes, I am going to slice the pizza (to which I've added pineapple, green olives, and jalapenos) and choose to eat at least 1/4 of it.  I will eat it mindfully, maybe with water even though I still have one more Mountain Dew in the fridge, and at some point I will probably realize that the pizza doesn't make me as happy as I thought it might when I drove to the store to buy it, and, at this point I don't really need it to make me happy because I am home now! and I am writing! and I have written myself back to a place of calm--in only 24 minutes!

But, the rest of the day....

It seemed so odd to me that figuring out the major source of my major depressions and minor unhappinesses would make me antsy and uncomfortable and send me towards food (or Mountain Dew, which doesn't really qualify as food).  [Okay, 4 Mountain Dews in one afternoon is extreme, but I would have known I was really in a crisis if at any time today I got up from my desk and drove to Taco Bell instead of eating the frozen Lean Cuisine I had brought for lunch.  I didn't do that.  So, mini good for me.]

Then, while I was researching the Vedic goddess of the Dawn, Usha (or Ushas), for the divination project I am co-writing, I found the most wonderful quote on the website www.vedah.com:

When the divine consciousness [Usha] dawns on us, it cannot last very long because the human vital which clamours for excitement cannot appreciate the bliss of the divine consciousness which is suffused with calm and is untinged with sorrow.  The ordinary human mental personality which loves to wallow in doubts is not comfortable with the certitude offered by the divine consciousness.  Thus Usha, the divine consciousness, recedes from the human and in its place, naktas, the night or the ordinary consciousness takes its place....

...There is a constant rhythm and alternation of night and dawn, illuminations of Light and periods of exile from it....