Yesterday: left the apartment so that the cleaner could take over; had lunch at a nearby Italian restaurant. Ended up eating too much, eating wrong, feeling terrible – exhausted at the end of the day.
The patterns: bad eating, no exercise, television, Internet – by the time I woke this morning I was so angry at myself. I thought of the old seminar rubric, which is approximately: the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result – exactly what I am these days: letting myself slide into a dull and sullen old age, earlier than necessary, and hoping that it will all change, that I will get different results, different experiences – but without bothering to change my own behavior, my own habits.
Madness. Of course on the other side is an instrumentalized care of the self; having come from California, that is acutely familiar in all its many forms. But when the self isn't cared for, it becomes, well, such a mess; any illusion that a teleological approach to one's self is 'bad' is immediately countered by the utter lack of choice, of existence, of experience, that follows upon letting oneself slide.
Being furious at myself is so appropriate: really, I have such an easy life – all the tools for taking care of myself, physically, mentally, and in terms of creativity or fulfillment, are so easily available – and I just leave them there....
Really, really angry.
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