lid of the pressure valve

We all need a way to release the pulsing hot pressure that affects us on a day to day basis. everybody feels pressure in some way or form and we all have different responses, some adaptive and others a bit more maladaptive to our situations.

The Orang Asli tribe is indigenous to Malaysia. They're a tribe who have been subjected to forced conversions to Islam and encroachment of their forested territory. A conflict averse community, from a young age the members are taught to avoid physical violence and confrontation at all times. Each adult models conflict averse behaviour, and the children lacking any examples of violence, demonstrate very little tendency towards it. Problems that arise are generally solved at intertribal resolution sessions.

This technique and lifestyle while effective within their tribe with likeminded conflict avoiders, is drastically ineffective when faced with outside interference. When the tribe has run into conflict with invading forces or conquerers their level of internal stress has risen and they have tended to suppress the instinct to fight. Unsurprisingly, this tribe has suffered from high levels of stress induced and stress associated diseases. The members of the tribe who have most successful adapted to the stressful encounters that they were unprepared for and who have largely avoided these diseases were the ones who embraced the regular cultural dance sessions. These sessions were unique in that they were the one time when the Orang Asli tied themselves to a deep rhythmic drumming and danced with dynamic and erratic movement to the point of exhaustion, releasing all their pent up stresses and frustrations.

I'm an internalist. my emotions, pain, and stress, both physical and psychological, get packaged up and my defuser is my sport, most especially the zen component of my sport...swimming. This year I didn't have it in my life since my shoulder injury brought me to a forced vacation from Triathlon competition. Being a water baby, the feel of the water has always brought me a yoga like zen. Luckily, I could still run and bike which allowed me to blow off the steam that would have sent me totally off balance if I even made a feeble attempt to suppress it.

Personally, I can't exist without regular hard physical exertion and lots of fresh air. I sink into an anxious depression very quickly if I go longer than a day without some hard effort. If I could sell this method in a bottle, I'm sure we'd have far healthier populations.

We need the high heart rate and the healthy sweat to rid ourselves of the emotional toxins that we collect on a day to day basis. If we don't release them then we set ourselves up for all kinds of physical ills that appear in the longterm. Our bodies function in an equilibrium and even if we don't think that we're affecting ourselves by throwing one component off, our bodies respond.

I guess to some extent we need to prioritize finding a pressure release method for ourselves as preemptive self-care. Maybe packaging and selling that could be the next big thing in middle east peacemaking. Probably more so than massive israeli-palestinian conference calls for compassion. My cellphone is a genius at stress inducing...

disappearing act...

I haven't actually disappeared nor have my thoughts dried up,but I've been falling into bed like a magnet hugs a fridge, holding fast to the sheets. Lately when I get home around 12am, I just haven't been able to burn the same midnight oil as I usually do and still make it up for the early mornings, so for the past week I've been giving in a little bit and going to sleep when I get home.

Lots to talk about and lots on my mind weaving webs of concern so tomorrow I shall reindulge in my little bloggy diary entries. I taped a song that I taught myself on the guitar and i might post that for giggles and break my all word, multimedia adverse, blog mould...depends on how into self humiliation I am tomorrow :-)

small reminders

Often we need reminders of why we do what we do, in order to continue doing just that. They may be miniscule but draw us right back into the exact space that we need to be in psychologically to achieve our best. I know why I chose my field of work and I receive positive reminders almost everyday but in other areas of my life reminders come less frequently.

Reaching for the top in any discipline demands dedication, focus, sacrifice, and a willingness to suffer, but the rewards are multifarious. There are times when your goals may make you feel like you're in a isolated bubble that no one knows about or can fully identify with and this can make you want to give everything up, especially if you're a social creature. But when you step away, as i did this year, and then take a tentative step closer again it can seem so Technicolor delight.

I absolutely love racing. Love it. Love the adrenaline,the camaraderie,and the feel of having your daily pound of flesh paid in hard training come together in a zone performance. This is why it's difficult training on my own and going long periods without racing. I get my best performances racing either every weekend or every other weekend during a season. I have a performance arc that takes three consecutive races to take effect and brings me to consistent results by the fourth race into the season. I had lately started to forget why I'm so addicted to the sport and racing.

All it took was one ride with the team where I was feeling surprisingly good...thank you 5am expresso barista... and click...I can't get enough again.

Team bike practice is a different animal than riding on your own. The pace is fast and furious for 130 to 180km and you get hit with surges on the climbs and rabbits taking off on tricky technical descents. When you ride well, you hear it from your teammates who are quick to compliment for strength, finesse, fitness, or speed, even if you yourself have visions of an albatross on two wheels and a carbon frame.
Ideally you should be able to ride at your anerobic threshold during the ride to get the most benefit and this can compare to straight out race simulation of the type you can't hit on a long solo endurance ride.

This morning's ride under the november sun came with reminder written all over it.

headache hell

I need to work tonight but can't think straight or curvy for that matter. There's only one cure when I'm not feeling well, and that used to be someone's warm touch. Having my back rubbed, by someone I cared for who had a healing touch, when I felt awful, was the only cure for me. My consolation for now and the future is that at the very least I have my duvet all to my self.

eeechhh

Hydration, glucogenation, and caffeination are taking their affect on my neural pathways but my killer headache remains and I'm feeling on the edge of being really sick. Today as I was walking back home in the middle of a torrential downpour, some random musician guy started chatting me up as we waited in a puddle for the crossing light to turn green. he was cute, and said his music was kind of a mix of the beatles and ehud banai. He's coming out with a new hebrew compilation this month. Being the ex-music geek that I am, I had to know more but it comes at the risk of owing to balance the information equilibrium.

He asked what I do and I was as ambiguous as possible so to not encourage him to think that he could pick me up, but he kept walking beside me and telling me about his music. We ended our walk at the same place as he was going to a birthday party for a musician friend of his at the bar next door to the little bauhaus walkup that I call home. He asked if I would come and join but I begged off. I have a weakness for talented, sensitive, moody, whippet smart musicians, and it's best to stay as far away as possible lest I break my benedictan chastity vow and get unwillingly drawn into the relationship red zone which I will avoid come hell or the most beautifully tangled melodicist cum lyricist in Israel. I've laid down the gauntlet and no one shall cross. I have few free minutes to myself anyway. Many israeli men will try to pick up a duck billed platypus if it means there's a possibility of immediate nocturnal gymnastics.

My biggest asset is my lack of romantic entanglement. I can offer my superiors all of myself in time and effort because I can work day and night and weekends without worrying about the need to run home for dinner. It gives me an edge.

I experienced this in play today as we had a midday conference, where two of the female doctors in attendance had their babies with them as they were all coming back from maternity leave. The entire meeting involved baby cries that wouldn't be tolerated anywhere but in Israel, where family accommodations are common. listening to the babies cry, I realized that I need to capitalize on my freedom to work whenever and wherever without limitation, because this will help me climb in a profession where there are few women at the top.

I used to want a family, not marriage, but a family of my own. This desire shocked me because there was only one person who I've ever felt that I wanted that with. I have a strong maternal instinct and this is definitely one of my weaknesses, but one that I can channel through my profession. It doesn't have to be channeled through reproduction.

catatonic

My brain hasn't been functioning very well for the past while. I'm too tired to think clearly and have inserted toothpicks to keep my eyelids open this afternoon. It's interesting to me how we choose to manage our levels of fatigue in a working environment as we may function inefficiently but at least we're functioning. How ideal is this? It's not the gold standard approach to professionalism and productivity but I can't seem to justify closing my eyes long enough to feel sharp instead of fuzzy when I open my eyes once again. This continous state of fatigue affects learning and I can attest that when I was training hard, and thus physiologically required a greater amount of sleep than the average person, and wasn't able to get as much as I needed, even when sleeping in for a while to 6 or 630am, I could sit through an entire morning of hebrew class without even knowing the topic.

Mind you, no one else in the class knew the topic of the day either. It was a class A waste of time. There are few other things I hate more. Maybe it wasn't just brain malfunction.

I'm longing to go home, unwrap myself from my clothes, and envelope myself in my warm white duvet. Too bad for me. It's not going to happen until after midnight at the earliest tonight.

Two stripes and a Star of David

Canadian Israeli filmmaker extraordinaire, Igal Hecht, screened his docu-quest this past week in Tel Aviv. The film played at the Jewish Eye Film fest in Ashkelon and at various locales around the world including the Toronto Film Festival. His newest release is THE FLAG,and friends organized a special showing of it at one of our cozy apartments in central tel aviv. The turnout was fantastic and Igal entertained questions for over an hour afterwards while we munched on homemade pecan squares and whole wheat fig cookies.

The idea behind the film was to take a provocative look at how the israeli flag is seen by various demographics. Igal travelled through Israel to get differing and emotive perspectives from everyone from the druze community to anti-zionists in mea shearim ( he was chased out...and gave me my first glimpse of Igal actually expressing anger outwardly. He's probably among the gentlest of people that I know. ) It was a ton of fun and I had brought a bunch of friends along with me to support Igal with the film that he had injected so much of himself into.

His personal perspective is almost aligned with mine in that he believes in preservation of the state but also in universal human rights and freedoms. Many people believe that these exist in mutual exclusivity when it comes to Israel, I'm not of that opinion. I'm also not much of an apologist for the state of Israel and I don't think that's helpful at all to the cause of peace in the region, so it's refreshing for me to see films that reflect a staunchly Big C conservative left wing. In any other region that would be an implausible categorical definition. Nothing is implausible or impossible here.