Stranded Alone with Couch Thoughts

“Be crazy! But learn how to be crazy without being the center of attention. Don’t worry; you will survive, and you will have a lot of fun.”  

– Paulo Coelho (taken from the book Veronika Decides to Die)

I woke up in the morning a couple days ago to see everything blanketed by about 10 centimeters of new snow. There was a slick sheet of frozen rain under all that snow, so walking and driving was somewhat treacherous for the past couple days. I'm pretty sure, even though the weather reports are predicting plus six Celsius daytime temperatures later this week, that most of this stuff will be staying on through until next spring. What I'm most thankful for right now, with the way my back is now, that I don't have to be responsible for shoveling and clearing any sidewalks.

I'm a little better than I was before Halloween. I can at least sit down and stand up more comfortably, and I think I might be able to put my shoes on today without feeling an urge to scream.

This past spell of forced immobility to avoid extra pain wasn't all bad, it didn't tax my wits and sanity as much as I thought it would. In fact, it was a bit enlightening in some ways.

Firstly, my limited movement made me think with a little more empathy about the people I serve. Secondly, I became very grateful (and very overwhelmed even), as to how many possible things I still have the ability to do (that involve no extra cost), even while confined to a bed or couch to help to keep making my life an actively enriched and engaged one. I'm not saying that I'd be any better than anyone else at adapting, or adjusting, to a situation involving temporary or permanent physical disability. I'm saying that, left to my devices, I'm a little more reassured that it would even be harder to completely bore myself. I'm realizing though, with great frustration, that injuries seem to occur during days that are my scheduled time off (times like now, and my last entire summer vacation) after long stints of activity, and I seem recover just in time for my scheduled work days. What a bloody waste! No wonder it feels like I'm burnt out half the time. Perhaps the stage was already being set for me being rendered useless by my own clumsiness, which was caused by exhaustion, fatigue, and unrest, and thus an accident like this was coming inevitably.

I could have chosen to wallow in bitterness and self-pity, or to do as much as I could within my restrictive limits. I chose the latter. The extra forced stillness gave me more focus for taking personal inventory, and examining motives; mentally scratching the math/home economics itch again for making some optimizations, and playing around with some recreational calculations. Reviewing my interests and consumption habits, I've been figuring out things like*:

• The number of varieties of the kinds of homemade pizzas I could make using the kinds of dough, sauces, cheeses, plus a choice of any three from the list of the other toppings, that I like (1.797 x 10¹⁰).
• My estimated personal annual coffee consumption. I buy and use about 5.2 kg of (whole) coffee beans per year for home use; I'd like to reduce that to 4.0 kg or under.
• The amount of paper I have moving into my suite per month taking up space (flyers, free newspapers, junk mail, packing material, etc.) I figured averages about 4.7 lbs (2.14 kg) per month. Is it really worth having that kind of mass to sift through for the two or three slips of general purpose coupons that I use? (economy of space vs. economy of savings)
• Is it a cost effective measure to make my own kvas at home? Unfortunately, the answer is no: considering the rarity of the kind of rye bread I'd need, the amount and cost of sugar needed, and the energy/time to make it from scratch, even in bulk production to reduce overhead costs, it's just cheaper to get the genuine, quality assured, Ukrainian or Russian kvas from the East European import store, $4.50/imported 2 L bottle vs. $7.70/homemade 2 L bottle. If this stuff was taxed like regular alcohol (retail beer/wine/spirits), it then might be worth the trouble. 
• The cost per serving of the Coconut Pumpkin Soup recipe I recently made and shared with a friend ($0.48)

Even with just lying still on my chesterfield and thinking about all those unique and lovely flavours I thought, the savings, the abundance of possibilities, and potential for future experimentation with these simple things put me in a much more content mood, even despite the inclemency outside. My back even relaxed more and hurt less. Sometimes you have to peer into the crazy side of things to have a contrasting context to create a realm that serves your own sanity. I'm happier with thinking and preparing for things, with a few crazy twists, to avoid and prevent creating waste of time and money, and detriment to one's health, sanity, and environment. I find it is ten times more progressive, gratifying, and entertaining, than getting lost in and surrendering to impulsiveness, instant gratification fantasies, and dreaming of some get rich quick schemes. So long as one can reel oneself back into reality from the daydreaming, back into the present moment, there is no harm in it. It's a hell of a cheap way to spend a bit of an afternoon to relax at the very least.

On the world stage, with final thoughts on reckless impulsiveness and being unprepared for loss. I have to note the kind of idiocy I've been witnessing on the news about what has been happening in New York, with the storms and power outages there. It's beyond ridiculous and shameful that one of the "richest" cities in the world would have the kind of society where people would instantly lower themselves to resort to looting stores in an event as minor as a power outage, like the end of the world was coming to them. That makes me also mindful of the comparatively far worse disaster of the tsunami/nuclear reactor breach in Fukushima, Japan last year; seeing people on the news, some of whom having lost everything in that destructive event, yet astonishingly remaining for the most part calm, and still being civilized and orderly enough while queuing up for water, food rations, and other aid. Proof again of the power of calmness, in a place where perhaps it was due to a Zen ethic being more pronounced and established.

*- All costs calculated in Canadian dollars.