I’m still on that weapons tip. Well, as much as I can. There are other things in my life that are not good, but I’m trying not to think about them at the moment. In yesterday’s post, I rambled about weapons, life in general, and why I need this. By ‘this’, I mean weapons. I’m feeling very bleak about the world right now, for personal and political reasons. I am not pleased with the state of, well, everything. Weapon forms are one thing that actually fill me with joy. They give me meaning and hope. Well, maybe not hope, but something positive to focus on.
Back in the day, Marie Kondo was hot for about ten seconds. Her phrase ‘sparks joy’ seemed to be everywhere (you should only keep something if it ‘sparks joy’ in you), and I will admit that I got sick of it. But, I will say it fits for the weapons. The weapon forms definitely spark joy in me. And that’s something I don’t have much of these days.
I’m having an ongoing issue with Xfnity, and I have no clue how to solve it because it’s impossible to get a person to talk to. I tried to the last time this came up and could not talk to an actual person. I did what I could to mitigate the issue, but it’s come up again. And I’m going to have to go through the motions to try to fix it, knowing that it’ll fail. And that because they’re a fucking monopoly, I can’t switch companies.
I’m going to do what I can to deal with it, but I’m probably going to end up throwing money at it. I’m not happy about it, but that’s really all I have. And, I’m tired. I just don’t have the energy to deal with it. There’s a saying that sometimes the best thing you can do is throw money at a problem.
My brother and I have had a friendly argument about this. He is all about saving money. (Except when he isn’t. He has his passions, just like anyone else. But he is unusually frugal in most aspects of his life.) He will spend hours doing something if it will save him a buck or two. I, on the other hand, would rather spend a few extra bucks to save time. I don’t think one way is better than the other–it’s just a matter of what you value more. For the longest time, my brother insisted that his way was best. I tried to get him to see that saving ten bucks, but ‘spending’ an extra two hours really wasn’t that cost efficient.
The better argument would have been to point out that he was thinking like my father. My brother told me before becoming a father, he decided that he was going to be the opposite of our father. This was because I complimented him on what a good father he was. He was very involved in his kids’ daily lives in a way my father never even dreamed of. My brother drove his kids everywhere, engaged in activities with them, and was an actual father to them.
In this way, though, he is like our father. And, to be fair, our mother to a certain extent. I have not completely escaped from it, either. We are all frugal on the daily, but we each have our weaknesses. Mine is DoorDash and weapons.
When I do the weapon forms, I’m completely absorbed in them. It’s a great way to focus and do something physical at the same time.
Side note: I have heard all my life that exercise is good for you. I’m not denying that, but I rebel against the almost punitive attitude so many Americans have towards it. It has to hurt for it to mean anything. If you’re not aching afterwards, then you’re doing it wrong. ‘No pain, no gain’ is something many Americans say with a straight face, and ‘just walk it off’ is a thing, too.
I have also heard all my life that once you make it a habit, you’ll start to enjoy it. This is not true. Or rather, they are missing ane important aspect in that aphorism. If you already hate the exercise you choose to do before you do it, you’re not going to ‘learn to love it’ by doing it repeatedly every day with grim determination. Or rather, it’s highly unlikely.
I hate running with a passion. Hell, I even dislike walking at a brisk pace. When I was in the East Bay for a year, my form of exercising was walking four miles a day. I hated it with a passion. Loathed it. Did it every day for a year, and hated it even more by the end of that year. On the other hand, I used to turn music on and just dance. That was fun. I could do that for hours a day and not end up hating it.
My point is that when people wax poetic about exercise, they neglect to say that you should pick something you actually like. Otherwise, you’re probably going to hate it even by the time you’re done. I did not enjoy Taiji when I first started (the second time around. Well, the first time, too, but that was for different reasons).
I’m so low right now. Honestly, the weapons are one of the only thing still keeping me going. i know that my mental healt has taken such a beating. I need to do something about it because I am not in a good place. I know therapy is the answer, but…well, I don’t want to get into it right now. I’ll just say that I don’t find it nearly as helpful as it should be. I’ll talk more about that in another post. I’m going to wrap this up having said very little new about what I wanted to talk about. That’s how it goes sometimes.