What a stressful yet uneventful day.
Last night, I wanted to avoid the uncomfortable feeling of thinking about exams so I stayed awake and read manga until the afternoon and then woke up at night. That's one day I'll never get back.
When I woke up, I didn't want to spend any money on take-out. This was a tough decision for a foodie like myself but pursuing immortality or even basic financial security is expensive.
Since I still live with my family, I recently made a promise with myself to not spend more than around $35 a week on food for most weeks. Yes, you heard that right! I said "most weeks" because I don't trust myself to always follow through. Sometimes, the week gets too stressful.
The family house is full of snacks and half-eaten meals so I managed to prepare a tasty dinner with some effort. I could say with certainty that eating is one of the highlights of my day. It's so simplistic but the rush of dopamine from watching carefully chosen online videos with the purpose of escaping reality for a temporarily bliss while slowly savoring a delicious meal is hard to top.
On top of my monetary restriction, I've also recently placed a dietary one. So far, this has helped me to meet both goals simultaneously.
Over the past couple of years, I managed to reach my highest weight yet. Despite being considered tall, I still managed to eat enough to somehow build considerable fat. Food happens to be one my main escapes from reality. It's not a feat to be proud but I managed to creep quite close to 300 pounds.
I've since lost tons of weight although I'm still overweight. However, I didn't and still don't panic because I have a tendency to yoyo-diet. My all-or-nothing mentally allowed me to go from fat to extremely skinny and then to fit within the span of at most a couple of years. I do hope to break it some day though this cycle has repeated multiple times.
Regardless, with my restriction I aim to eat around 1500 calories a day. This is because it's the lowest caloric restriction that the average adult male can maintain while maintaining their health. I actually over-ate today but you'll know why soon.
When it comes to weight loss, the simplest and most guaranteed way to lose weight is by counting calories. Although frowned upon, this weight loss can occur regardless of what you eat as long as you don't pass your calorie limit. However, be warned that eating unhealthy foods will still punish your body, affect your mood, and burn significant muscle if you don't also engage it.
Being conservative, I burn around 2000-2500 calories a day depending on factors like my current weight and physical activity. To give you an idea, one pound is around 3500 calories.
With my diet, I've managed to consistently and easily burn an average over 1 to 2 pounds a week, even leaning more towards the higher end. Since I usually have a deficit of anywhere between 500 to 1000 calories a day, this also fits in perfectly with the calculation. It doesn't reflect so accurately on the scale but it does over long periods of time and pushing through it requires a rare patience that I've somehow developed from my long yo-yoing escapades.
Another motivator for losing weight was remembering an interesting research paper I once read about caloric restriction and it's possible relation to immortality. I thought that taking the initiative with this could perhaps help me on my pursuit.
In the research paper, it was mentioned that a group of rats were compared based on caloric restriction and life span. Those who engaged in a relatively significant caloric restriction also lived significantly longer than their counterparts. This may not apply to humans with certainty but it definitely shows the potential value of dieting. Not to mention the many health benefits and potential issues avoided by not being overweight, such as diabetes and heart disease.
After my tasty but transient food escapism experience, I was out of calories to consume. It was night-time, I only just woke up, and I had an exam to attend in the evening the next day that I hadn't yet studied for. Definitely not a great start to the day but I figured I could use my anchor to rush and study last minute if I had to.
I wasn't too fond of the upcoming practical exam in the evening since it wasn't particularly relevant to my near-future work life. The exam would consist of a timed lab in a programming language that I'd likely never use or specialize in. There are many sayings that claim that every difficulty or struggle leads to some form of growth and I'm sure that investing my time might allow me to learn something but I don't believe that this is truly the case.
I deeply believe in the saying that "if you don't use it, you lose it". Even when I've seriously studied for exams and succeeded, I've had a tendency to forget the content after less than a year unless I've actively been using it and consistently maintaining it, in which case the exam didn't contribute much at all. The struggle of maintenance is another rabbit hole that we can leave for another day.
It would be nice to say that I studied and then went out with friends and had some life-altering experience but as usual, I spent several hours alternating between reading manga, jerking off, watching videos, posting my thoughts on forums to distract myself and then repeating the process.
Not only are my forms of escapism hedonistic and somewhat reckless but I wonder if being so open on forums will be bite me later if I ever need veiled public support in my pursuit of immortality. Well, it's too late worry about that now.
The decision to take be proactive with my last term of studies was further evaded by my unnecessary curiosity stemming from the pity-party of the previous day regarding old friends from way back in High School. Some were highly successful and potentially making low-to-mid six figure salaries, and other were already parents or even married and then divorced. Was I envious?
I always wonder if I'm on the right path. I've noticed that I know tons of information but lack knowledge. Information is refined and compiled data. It can make you seem knowledgeable but genuine knowledge allows you to form a model of reality based on experience. It provides a much better anchor to reality. I'm aware of this flaw in my view of the world and at times I do have the drive to change but there hasn't been much to show for it execution-wise.
Being self-aware and temporarily hard-working is a curse. Self-awareness gives you the illusion of progress and having things in control while temporary hard-work provides the framework for giving up. There are many ways to interpret this and hope I change my mind in the future. For now, I believe that it feeds the loop of long-term inaction.
I can't help but a remember a response from a classmate in one my childhood emails that resonated with me: "You may be good at studying but there's more to life than that. You'll see when you grow up. Anyone can try hard for a while."
The sun was creeping up, signaling the morning and reminding me that I got nothing done. I had tons of studying to do and at this point, I knew that I wouldn't have the chance to sleep before my exam.
After years of accumulated sleep debt, I can't afford to stay up more than usual. I also hadn't slept too well the night before so this is where I had to break some of my restrictions for the day.
Knowing full well that my exhaustion and current circumstances were due to my own incompetence, I sighed, wore a hoodie, and left to drive the car. At a red light, I noticed a line of bright High School students crossing the side-walk. With nostalgic radio music playing, I sighed once again. What have I been doing with my life?
Upon arriving at a nearby coffee shop, I ordered two large coffees with no hesitation. I rarely drink coffee since I can't sleep afterwards, and get anxious and jittery but in some cases, it's a potion of potential. For example, before an important deadline, it can grant you several hours of leeway.
Well, things didn't go as planned. The first cup of coffee kept me awake for my continued manga binge. It was now just over two hours before I had to leave for college and I still hadn't reviewed much. I only briefly watched a lecture mentioning the exam materials and then pinpointed the most crucial study points.
The closer I was to the deadline, the more stressed I became, and the more I wanted to escape. However, though I hate to admit it, having very limited time made studying more exciting. The prospect of succeeding despite such low commitment serves as a challenge and also addresses the potential hurt of investing tons of time and effort into a pursuit that may fail anyways. It's a cowardly approach to life but is common chosen.
I just barely finished reviewing before leaving for the exam but had to tighten my travel time as a consequence. I couldn't find the car keys through no fault of my own but by giving myself such a short grace-period before leaving, I wasn't able to resolve the situation.
Instead, I borrowed the keys to the other car which wasn't yet registered for parking at my college and rushed to the road while intermittently drinking from the second cup. I felt awake yet exhausted and only a slight continued chest-tightening away from a heart attack. On the way, I even missed a regular turn and had to take a detour which took an additional ten minutes. What a mess!
I was running low on time but I still made sure to take a quick picture of the car's license plate after parking. It's part of the process of registering a new vehicle to the system and it would be annoying to deal with a parking ticket.
As a man, speed-walking behind a woman when it's dark has a weird connotation. You don't want to be weird about it but it's in the air. If they're walking slow and you don't have much room to move, it also makes life unnecessarily harder. You don't want to freak her out while coming up from behind her but when you're in a rush, you sometimes don't have the option to play mental gymnastics.
The stuffy indoor hallway followed by my lack of sleep and rushing made my eyes bloodshot and watery. With confident strides, I followed the usual shortcut to class while making a mental note to register the new car for parking before writing the exam.
As though to re-affirm my buried insecurities, the large crowds followed by my unintentional teary eyes made me feel like a victim. It felt like my own physiology was working against me to expose a cowardice that only I knew. I kept a neutral expression. I wished the exam was from home.
With minutes left to spare, I opened up my battered laptop and completed my parking registration then entered the class and sat at the only available front seat. The full warrantee for my laptop has long already been paid yet I've been postponing the date to fix it. It's a relatively new laptop but looks like an ancient relic.
I planned to have my laptop fixed or replaced after graduating but I worry that the process of setting everything up again might set me back a while, especially considering that I'm on a time crunch to find work as well.
The practical exam was a pain but I somehow managed to get my code running. I had no idea if I checked off all the requirements but if I don't ace it then I sure did pretty well. Since I didn't study much, and it was open-book, I used a lot of sample code to make it work somehow.
The class was over and I was packing my bags. As if repeating a tradition, I casually asked a fellow classmate on their performance. The conversation went through the usual pattern of saying that it was okay but tricky and that they're not really sure how they did. This usually ends up being pretty vague. I also asked a couple of other classmates on their performance. It's nice to vent.
I noticed that the stress and coffee mixed together made my voice hoarse and my body jittery while I was talking. Even if I wasn't nervous, I was sure portraying it. I tried to ignore this.
However, once you notice an outward flaw and have the expectation to be otherwise, that's when it's game over. Your mindset spirals and a basic interaction with no stakes becomes a mirror of insecurity. .
I then brought up a concern to a fellow team member about a lab on the way out of class and all the insecurities exploded at once. For no outward reason, I became a nervous and bumbling wreck. I just wanted to get out of there yet she was talking her time to calmly answer and ask for clarification on my questions. I just wanted an out. I was defeated by my own mind.
Small inconveniences happening in quick succession can temporarily paint reality as hopeless. I bumped into another classmate and we walked to the parking lot together. I tried to stay positive and keep it together but for the entire walk, I felt like I was being judged hard. Is this really the "strong-willed" mindset that someone pursuing immortality should have? I opened the car door but noticed a wet paper over the windshield then cursed under my breath.
At home, as usual, I briefly greeted my family, hurried to close my room door, lights, and curtains and then hopped on the bed with the laptop facing my chest while lying down. I need to deal with parking ticket and I'm exhausted but I can't sleep because of the coffee.
My mother passed by my room and asked me for the password to the Wi-Fi for her touch-screen tablet. For some reason, she couldn't join despite knowing and tapping in the password. I entered it once and it worked.
I remember reading that as you grow older-at around forty and up, your oil and sweat gland function reduces and the most common skin problem is dry and flaky skin. It's called Xerosis. It makes touch-screen devices like tablets tougher to use and adapt to.
I cherish the chance to become wiser but I dread old age. For now, it's a ticking time clock, paired with the likely loss of my mobility and mental faculties. Unless a miracle happens and I also position myself to take advantage at the right time, I may also one day end up facing this seemingly inevitable fate.
It's late and I have another exam tomorrow evening that I've yet study to for. For now, I'm really craving some manga. Oh, how foolish.