#NoNothingNovember: Day 15, “Dead Cat Corpse” or “Why I Exercise”

-Author’s Note- This post was supposed to go up yesterday the 15th, but a power failure killed the draft I had written up and I’m rewriting it today.

Today was off to a great start. The only problem was that the start was the only thing about it that went right. Getting up early this morning to do my run I found a dead cat outside in the yard. Picking up Whiskers’ guts was not how I imagined the day starting.

After making the appropriate calls and resting the body, it was time to get in the shower. I didn’t have time for a run or even some simple pushups, though wielding a shovel tends to break a sweat. Especially when the ground is hard and frozen with the weather dipping low in the night.

The body was still warm when I found it so whatever had killed the thing had done it recently. I asked the people living around me if they heard anything and they, of course, hadn’t heard a thing. Everyone within two blocks had slept with heavy metal blasting all night, apparently.

As for myself, my house is very well insulated from the outside. Outside of lights from passing cars beamed directly into the windows, with the thickness of the walls muffling or muting sound, it’d be hard for me to hear anything short of a grenade in my mailbox.

This is no excuse for it, of course, nor a joke. I hate that the animal lost its life and especially in such a gruesome manner. I’ll be keeping a watch up at night more closely while I’m awake to attempt to limit this.

My biggest concern, however, is not that of a wild animal but the idea that a human in the neighborhood did this. When you get up for a morning jog and find a mutilated animal laying there on the sidewalk, it’s hard not to imagine some sick bastard might’ve got his jollies off of it.

Herakles is not a fan of cruelty against animals, folks. No matter how many punches I’ve taken, guns to my temple, or knife gashes I’ve had- no matter how tough I may appear to the uninitiated, I’ll always have a softspot for kids and animals.

I’m not much for general white-knightery, nor do I maintain delusions of gallant grandeur, I do tend to want to protect those that are innocent or too small to defend themselves.

Attempting to move past the mood of a dead animal to start my day, I decided to jump straight into my work. I ended up moving far past what I had set for production before lunch so heading into lunch I had some extra energy to burn. Good thing for it too as after I ate, I could feel some sluggishness begin to creep in.

To mention, one of the reasons I was so bummed about the dead cat is that I was actually late for my run that morning. I overslept, and coincidentally I couldn’t help but feel that had I woken up on time, I might’ve prevented the incident. Even if it was just something like a neighbor’s dog or a particularly big raccoon I might’ve been able to spook it away. As likely I would’ve gotten bitten of course, but that’s just conjecture.

Nothing I do could help because I overslept. However, I woke up in the middle of a REM cycle so I was feeling tired. Normally, if I miss my regular bedtime I’ll aim for midnight so I’ll have completed a cycle or two by 4AM when I get up. Unfortunately, I slept past 4 and got 5-6 hours instead and that left me feeling worse than 4 hours.

Knowing I was ahead of schedule I decided to do some light in-place jogging to keep my energy high but that just served to give me nausea as what I ate made me sick. I’m starting to wonder if eating at a cafeteria even one day per week is a good idea. Perhaps it’s not that the food is spoiled, or just that it’s too greasy or something compared to a home-brought lunch. Either way, I didn’t get much nutrition out of it.

After work I spent most of the day just doing lifting. Moving boxes of valuables and pictures and the like to a van for a neighbor who was cleaning his garage out and moving it to storage. Herk isn’t a small guy by any measure so I always end up getting wrangled into packing tvs or furniture. The reason I agreed to help, outside of generosity, was that I had hoped to do some heavy lifting to make up for my earlier lack of exercise. No jogging, not even a pushup. Instead I was rewarded with knick-knacks.

After helping them move I realized that I was starving so I set about making some steak and eggs. I’m not sure why, but I felt like I could eat enough protein to put a farm out of stock. Every since I’ve been watching my diet more closely, I feel like I’m not eating enough things that were once alive, even though I know that I am. I guess it’s all in my head. Or my gut. Gut feeling.

After grabbing something to eat I decided to sit down and do some writing. For whatever reason, I was drawing an absolute blank yesterday. I realized later, that I hadn’t drunk as much water, but at the time I was puzzled as to why my mind was blank and foggy.

As I told you in previous posts, I was upping my water intake to help the feeling of grogginess and haziness of thought. It’s helped a great deal with clarity of mind and helping with focus but frankly, something still seems off.

A part of me wishes I could blame it on ignorance, or that I just didn’t “understand” what was going on but the truth is that I know what the off feeling is. Though I’m making a great deal of headway with my writing and hustling, I also know that I’m not where I need to be.

I have a hunger inside of me for success. Not a want. Not a “sort-of-would-be-cool-if” kind of thing. I am starving to be successful. I get up everyday and force myself harder. Every single pushup I think “Now one more. I’ve got more in there. One more. One more. It’s starting to burn. Now is when the workout begins.” Every single foot I’m running I keep thinking “Farther. One foot in front of the other. My legs aren’t about to give up. My mind is. It’s trying like hell. It wants to be lazy. To go home and hide on the couch under pillows and blankets. Fuck that. I’ll tie a chain around that couch and drag it up this hill. Now sprint. Faster. Burn away the failure. Push.”

It’s an amazing feeling. Those of you who do not exercise just don’t understand. Or at least those of you who are left wondering why we do it. I’ll tell you why. It’s not about adrenaline, it’s not about just looking good. It’s not even about maintaining weight; Not wholly anyway.

It’s about feeling alive by feeling like you’re dying. Our ancestors ran for one reason: to survive. They were either being chased by something who wanted to make a meal of them, or they were chasing something they wanted to make a meal of.

Exercise reminds you that you’re alive.

More than that, when you feel stagnant in life you feel like you’re dying inside. The cure to this is to die on the outside too. Or, at least, to feel that way. When you’ve been stationary and you start to push yourself it hurts. Your lungs are on fire. No matter how fast you breathe you can’t pull enough air. You feel like you’re slowly but surely torturing yourself to death. Your pulse is beating the inside of your head so loud you go deaf.

The ringing in your ears becomes a hammering. Your heart is thumping in your cranium. It is pounding like a fist on a face. BAM. BAM. BAM. BAM. BAM

Live! Live, damn you! LIVE!

It is primal. It is therapeutic. It’s good for you. Go fucking run. And go fucking lift.

After getting my work done, I was exhausted. I knew that I had more to give but I also knew that if I forced it, nothing would come.

Part of maintaining your success is to know when you’re making excuses to accomplish things, but also to know that it’s okay to legitimately stop and take a breath.

You are not a machine built to write 30,000 words per day. Evolution didn’t require you to be able to conjugate a verb to throw a spear. You are what you’re made to be. The strong survive and thrive. Part of being the strong is to also know when you need to recuperate.

The finest engine Ford ever built couldn’t run at 100% forever without breaking down. Entropy still exists. Things wind down. Even you. Even Herakles.

I’ll be sure to make up for anything I forgot tomorrow. I’m not letting myself off the hook.

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Even though I did get some exercise, to keep myself accountable I’m going to dock points anyway. So today’s scores are

1) Foregoing of mindless media consumption. 10/10.
2) Having a clear daily plan and deadline goals to meet. 5/10
3) Exercise and write everyday. Period. 0/10

Daily Total: 15/30
Yesterday’s Total: 30/30
Total To Date: 377/450