Schrödinger’s Interview

Hope.

It’s such a silly thing.

I had a job interview yesterday-over the telephone-and I was told I would get feedback in the next 2-3 working days. The interview did not go as well as I had hoped and so I am understandably nervous.

Today I opened my email and there is one from them. I was not expecting to hear back from them until Monday or so but there it was. The excerpt of the email I can see without opening it says:

“We have enjoyed learning about your strengths…”
I have no idea what is next. It could be.

“…and we are pleased to inform you that you have progressed to the next stage.”

“…but unfortunately…”

I have not opened the email, I am too nervous to. This is silly because what has happened has happened. Refusing to open the email will not change the outcome, is it not best to just open it and see what it says? But hope is such a silly powerful thing. By not opening the email, I still have a chance. I have simultaneously been successful and unsuccessful in the interview. By not reading it, I can hold on to this shred of hope that I am dangling on, and prolong my blissful ignorance for a bit.

When I was at University, I would see a email notifying us of our grades and not be able to open it for the fear of disappointment. I would ignore it for a while and then psych myself to just open it. This is the way I-and many people-deal with the possibility of unsavoury news.

At the moment I am fine; I am watching television, eating, and laughing. If I am asked about the interview, I can say “oh I don’t know yet” There is a possibility I have been rejected but there is also a possibility that I have not been so I exist in this delicate balance propped up by hope. Reading the email and finding out I have been rejected will ruin this delicate mood.

Yet whether or not I read it now or ever will not change what is in it. I am doing myself a disservice by not reading it because I am reducing the time I have. What if the email contains instructions that must be followed swiftly? Yes it is daft, but I have to protect this feeling; after I open the email I would either be exponentially happier or become quite low in spirits.

I hit snooze and burrow further into hope. Just five more minutes, then I’ll read it.

No interests. No place to go

“The problem was you had to keep choosing between one evil or another, and no matter what you chose, they sliced a little bit more off you, until there was nothing left. At the age of 25 most people were finished. A whole god-damned nation of assholes driving automobiles, eating, having babies, doing everything in the worst way possible, like voting for the presidential candidates who reminded them most of themselves. I had no interests. I had no interest in anything. I had no idea how I was going to escape. At least the others had some taste for life. They seemed to understand something that I didn’t understand. Maybe I was lacking. It was possible. I often felt inferior. I just wanted to get away from them. But there was no place to go. Suicide? Jesus Christ, just more work. I felt like sleeping for five years but they wouldn’t let me.”

Charles Bukowski

In pursuit of wellbeing…still

I have been on my healthy gluten free lifestyle for a week. It seems longer.  I do not know what counts as early days but I do not feel as great as I hoped to feel. I wonder if this has nothing to do with what I eat and if I am in fact falling ill. Another theory as to why I feel generally shitty is that I currently (and always have) lead a sedentary uninspired life. Perhaps I would feel better if I was more active and at least ventured outside everyday.

By the second day of being gluten-free, I started researching new diets and I came across the low carb high fat (LCHF) diet. I tried to do that instead but it is a bit difficult for me. I am fine with giving up rice, in addition to everything else I have given up, but it is hard for me to only have protein and vegetables.

I have now decided to just go for the Whole 30 diet. It seems intimidating at first- no grains, no legumes, no dairy, no sugar- but now I realise it is not that bad. I can have yams, plantains, sweet potatoes and all the protein I want.

My goal is to stop having acid reflux and to stop being bloated. I hope whole 30 does it for me because I am sick and tired of being sick and tired.

Is anyone also on a health cleanse? Are there any diets, recipes e.tc you would like to share?

 

To An Athlete Dying Young

On the many occasions that I bemoan the fact that we all have to give up our youth someday in exchange for grey hair and weary bones, I console myself with the thought that old age is preferable to its only other alternative-dying young.

On the surface there might be nothing desirable about dying young-I for one do not want to die ever- but there are situations where it may not be the absolute worst thing. For some people, it is better to die young than to live out old age in ignominy, feebleness and complete dependence on others.

Dying in one’s prime also immortalises a person’s  legacy before the person has a chance to tarnish it or before the person fades out into irrelevance and is forgotten.Many people achieve a lot and then manage to live long enough to ruin these achievements. Life is so fickle; one day you are the most celebrated sportsperson/artist in the world; the next day nobody but the IRS remembers your name. A person who has died in the middle of a standing ovation never has to worry about becoming a has-been.

Thinking of this made me remember one of the first poems I was introduced to in literature class: To An Athlete Dying Young by A.E Housman. The poem is about an athlete who died when the ovation was loudest. It is a beautiful poem and it so aptly describes what it is I am trying to say.

The time you won your town the race

We chaired you through the marketplace

Man and boy stood cheering by,

and home we brought you shoulder high

 

Today the road all the runners come

Shoulder-high we bring you home,

and set you at your threshold down

Townsman of a stiller town

 

Smart lad to slip betimes away

From fields where glory does not stay

And early though the laurel grows

It withers quicker than the rose

 

Eyes the shady night has shut

Cannot see the record cut

And silence sounds no worse than cheers

After earth has stopped the ears.

 

Now you will not swell the rout

Of lads that wore their honours out,

Runners whom renown outran

And the name died before the man

 

So set, before its echoes fade

The fleet foot on the sill of shade

And hold to the low lintel up

The still-defended challenge-cup

 

And round that early laurelled head

Will flock to gaze the strengthless dead

And find unwithered on its curls

The garland briefer than a girls.

 

A. E. HOUSMAN

 

In pursuit of well being.

It started about four years ago I recall. The feeling of food stuck in my throat, the food coming back up and me feeling like I would throw up- but never doing so, the constant need to burp to reduce the pressure, the lethargy, the tightness, the awful discomfort.

I did not understand what was happening to my body. I tried explaining it to a doctor but I don’t think she understood what to diagnose from “my head feels tight”. Googling my symptoms narrowed it down to acid reflux, heartburn, coeliac disease and oesophagus cancer.