I’m tired.
Kathleen and I are on our way to Benja’s for some delicious food. Up to this point in the day, I’ve been going full speed. I hit the shop a little after 7 am, worked until 5 and then busted ass to get my riding gear together to be able to do a quick ride before the sun went down. When I got home from the ride, all I could think about was the hole in my stomach and filling it with some Pad Thai. But then, like that inevitable rock drop into the perfectly still pond, the day’s fatigue hit me. I almost fell asleep on the drive to the restaurant.
Have you ever been too tired to fall asleep? All you can think about is hitting the mattress with a nuclear force, but once you lay your weary head down on that sack of feathers, your mind fades out and away but you cannot sleep. Your body flickers. The pain of your muscles trying to relax keeps you moving. You are past sleep and when you wake up the next morning, you will not be refreshed, recovered or recuperated.
It’s a point that I cannot draw on a map, or describe how long the physical activity must be to get me there, but I always know when I have passed it. There is a point where the uncomfortable becomes ordinary. At first you will think this is a bad idea. And then you will keep moving right past where the “average” human being would have stopped. You begin to revel in the distress you are feeling. The fiber of your being is stressed and it fills you with bipolar sensations you thought you could do without.
A couple of weeks ago, for one reason or another, Shelby and I were in my car headed to the Gap for what most would call scrambling, but we refer to as climbing. And for some other reason, I felt the need to jawbone about the ideas rocking around in my head. You see when I ride my bike, I think a lot. Thinking causes me to think more and eventually when I feel the thought is sufficiently ripe, it has to be hatched from my head or I explode.
So I was jawboning about being comfortable. The very idea is the mission statement of our culture. Everything we have, everything we do and everything we have created is for the sole purpose of making sure that we are comfortable. Never mind the rest of the world, but me, I have to be comfortable. The concept of being comfortable is so entrenched in our collective psyche that those who choose to do things that are outside of that zone are considered crazy, weird, Type A personalities, etc. Even to the extreme that being uncomfortable is the only sin you can commit.
I’m telling you that being uncomfortable is ok. Hell, it’s something that you should seek for, even if that means swimming directly upstream against everyone that is around you.
Being comfortable makes us weak. We can only stand temperature variations of about 3 degrees and walking more than a block leaves you breathless. Leaving that zone of comfort, that haven of inactivity, is where we grow. There is an entire spectrum of sensations outside of those we consider “good.” It is important for us hominids to experience those sensations or we become more or less soft, round impersonations of ourselves.
“It feels like burning!” – Super D.
When we ride, we should go uphill. It should be hard and it should make your legs feel like they are about to be ripped off. The day after a good ride, your legs should be described as lead and climbing stairs should bring a deep rooted burn that will make you smile because you know you earned it. And most importantly you will understand that being comfortable is ok, as long as you are tired from being uncomfortable.
An asymptote is a line or point that another line/graph approaches but will never meet. This approached line becomes its own imaginary line of demarcation that will never be crossed, never touched, but will be infinitely moved towards.
It’s no secret that I like to drink. As I was hitting the wall of reaching past that point where being tired turns into exhaustion, I realized that the feeling is similar. I’m a nightcap kind of a guy. I enjoy a shot of whiskey or a beer before bed. It helps keep the thoughts in my head from banging around all night. I enjoy drinking because it makes me relax and I can fall asleep easily. It makes me tired. It’s a synthetic substitute for actually becoming so uncomfortable that I am completely spent. When you fall asleep from exhaustion there is a feeling of euphoria. It’s the Zen of overexertion.
Much in vane with drinking, finding that Zen and then not going past that point is a difficult line to balance. It’s easy to be on the “not enough” side of the line and it’s seldom that we go way too far with it, but to find that perfect spot where you are just euphoric and then fall asleep. That is a line of perfection that is often approached but rarely found.
My fingers feel like they have been scraped across a cheese grater. My left foot is still broken, my shoulder makes me cry when I sneeze and my legs have a deep fatigue I have learned to ignore. But I will find that point where I can collapse and pass out.
I’m looking forward to the euphoric state of comfort…