Tag: Health

Touch more: a manifesto

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Starting at puberty, it becomes socially unacceptable to exchange touch with anyone but romantic partners. This is bad. Touch is calming. It’s connecting. It’s fundamental to proper growth and development. Touch should happen more. 

On a road trip with a friend, I hadn’t touched another person in a week. That’s a long fucking time. A week without touch is a cruel punishment that I wouldn’t subject on any animal. It’s not even a sexual thing – I just wanted physical contact. I asked if I could lie on my buddy’s lap. He said sure, so I did. Our conversation continued. I felt human. It was great.

Why does our society suppress touch? I understand the moratorium across gender and the requirements that touch be consensual. But why is it weird (or labeled “gay”) for guys hanging out to touch each other? We’re primates. Primates touch. Even gorillas – the biggest and strongest among us – pick nits out of each other’s fur.

I’m not sure why, but I don’t like it. I also can’t see a good reason against it, so I’m going to touch more.

When is it okay to avoid the world?

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At 9:11am, the morning’s not-funniest time, I slipped 50mg of caffeine past the tape on my mouth before crawling back into the safety of my dreams. Another hour-and-a-quarter passed before my bunkmate awoke, only after which did I first leave my bed. How much of this time was spent avoiding the world?

I’m coming off a cold. Perhaps that’s why I’ve been sleeping so much. I’ve also been emotionally exhausted, overcoming a childhood trauma and rebuilding after a breakup.

My bed is warm. My bed feels safe. In it, the world feels far away. My mind moseys, wisting aimlessly from place to place. I like that safety. I like that oblivion. I live for that vacuum between conscious and gone.

I understand hypochondriacs.

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I struggled through five doctors over ten years before one correctly diagnosed me with obstructive sleep apnea.

It’s subjectively difficult to tell if something’s wrong with you because corroboration requires a doctor’s agreement. If they don’t see a problem, perhaps nothing’s wrong. Then again, perhaps they’re incompetent, or perhaps you didn’t communicate it clearly. Most doctors see a lot of patients, and communicating a subjective experience to a second party is very difficult. And even if you can’t get second-party confirmation, it’s still really your experience.

I pee frequently. Frequently enough that my friends comment on it. This causes me concern. I don’t know that there’s a problem, but I suspect something’s up. I could see a urologist, but that’s a minimum of two visits at inconvenient times to someone who I’ll probably conclude is incompetent.

Some doctors are great. Most are god-awful. It’s hard to know before seeing them. I’m delaying, which isn’t the logical choice, but it’s easier than calling medical offices. I’m solving my sleep now—one issue at a time. I hope I don’t come to regret waiting.

Fasting isn’t difficult, but it is trying. 

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(Context: I haven’t eaten food in the last 72 hours.)

Fasting isn’t difficult, but it is trying:

  • It’s trying to get something to eat and then not.
  • It’s trying and failing to fill the void inside you that food usually patches over.
  • It’s trying to slow down and succeeding and enjoying that success.
  • It’s trying to speak French with the Uber driver from Ethiopia and not minding the embarrassment when he sticks to English.
  • It’s dancing with the devil and winning for a step or two.
  • It’s trying to wrench up gunk from within your soul but, digging deep, not even finding a soul.
  • It’s trying to find God in the man with the megaphone and instead just achieving an intense, god-like focus.
  • It’s molding yourself like a wet ball of clay.
  • It’s trying to define a self while also trying to change it.
  • It’s trying—and succeeding—to sleep peacefully, because nothing else matters when you’re hungry.

Embrace and love your nerd-dom

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Embrace and love your nerd-dom. All successful people geek out about stuff. Whether it’s sci-fi, sports, music, art, or math, they’re passionate and driven, and that’s a good thing.

I grew up a self-hating nerd. My interests were swayed by society’s judgments. I spent years getting over that, understanding it’s okay — desirable, even, to be passionate. I’m still struggling with it–with judging my loves.

It’s even desirable to be into super nerdy stuff? Absolutely. Sci-fi, e-sports, board games, and reading. Philosophy and sports and theater and art. All things I love. All things are great. Bill Gates is into bridge and board games. Steph Curry likes organizing his garage – how’s that for a weird nerdy hobby?

Every topic has passionate zealots and harmful stereotypes about them. It’s good to have passion. Passion moves the world forward. Do your passions, no matter how you judge them.

An Uninformed Yalie’s Notes on Suicide 

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“It’s not about death as a good choice, per se: more a rejection of all that exists and a disbelief in underlying capital-V Value that prompts a strong and visceral disgust of all that I find. And, so, without any importance to be found, the act—suicide—becomes as equally rational as it was previously irrational: trading the next terrestrial 60 years for that same time spent in that void I’ll reach eventually is just as fine as not. No value is no value is no value, and what’s 60 years to a rock.”

Yes, I wrote those notes (lightly edited for clarity) as an undergrad dabbling in nihilism. And know what? They’re bad—morally bad. That line of thinking breeds Columbines and Unabombers. They’re also wrong. Meaning is made. Even if Value is a construct, that means it’s constructed. That means you can make it! And just because you make it doesn’t mean it’s not real.

But golly, could I write. And for a nihilist, I sure had passion.

Everyone’s fighting a battle you know nothing about 

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I hate my sleep apnea.

Hate, hate, abhor.

I can’t breathe when I sleep so I awaken repeatedly,

Nap on the daily,

and feel beat.

A lived life must be more than annoyance and suffering.

 

Ten years a-questing

To fix breath, life force, qi.

The first doctor declares me a statistical anomaly,

Second finds nothing

In a test improperly run.

So I find the right team—

The world’s experts, wouldn’t you know?—

Who spot it immediately, can solve it in a day…

As soon as I can get on their booked-years-out schedule.

 

The process is the punishment,

The surgery the solution.

I Want Jaw Surgery so I’ve been Lying to Doctors

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I’m on a decade-long journey to improve my breathing. Eight years ago I began meditating; two years ago I had my septum un-deviated. Both made my list of top-10 life decisions. 

In dance lessons today, I noticed a clear difference between dancing with my mouth open and dancing with it closed.

  • Open, I was calm, relaxed, focused, and accepting.
  • Closed, I was jittery, jumpy, and quick to anger.

In short, I learned worse when I could breathe worse.

Medicine is the only industry I know where we avoid optimization. Doctors don’t understand, “I want to improve my daytime breathing.” If they don’t see a clear problem, they refuse to improve. Perhaps it’s their promise to “do no harm,” which doesn’t recognize some large upsides are worth the risk of harm.

More than just doctors, most people think about medicine this way. In every conversation (save one) where I’ve mentioned my desire for surgery, my co-loquitur has responded as though I’m nuts: “Why would you undergo surgery if your life is fine?” Even a 0.001% improvement to a person’s daytime breathing would be transformative. My life is fine. It could be better. And sure, as I tell them, “using a CPAP is annoying.” I just exaggerate how annoying it is.

If I’m lucky, surgery to rotate my jaw forward a few 5 millimeters will be done by February or March. If I’m unlucky, it could take a year more, perhaps even longer, because orthodontists are confusing, deceptive, and opaque… and because I may have chosen the wrong one. Until my cut date, I remain a mouth-breather.

When my jaw is fixed, it’s not as though my whole life will be fixed. It is, however, that my whole life will be improved. I’ll have a new jaw, a better jaw, a million-dollar jaw. I’ll dance with my mouth closed and cry tears of joy.