since approx becoming a dad I keep asking “why is life so hard now1, and can I do it better?” and one answer that’s formed in my mind is “yeah I absolutely can, I just have to keep all the tanks full.”
imagine I’m a fancy sports car2. I have all sorts of tanks: gas, oil, uh windshield wiper fluid, engine coolant, transmission fluid, there are probably a lot of others3. Everyone does, but some people are like beat up 2007 Toyotas and they can run just fine with low oil and old transmission fluid, but I need everything to be in perfect condition. One high maintenance machine4.
It certainly feels like it! When I’m generally ok, I can handle all of this. when I’m not, well.
so what are all my tanks?
A non-exhaustive list that’s hopefully slightly more detailed than Maslow’s Hierarchy:
- food. downside is I eat a lot, upside is I don’t have allergies or anything.
- meat might be a subset of this; I think I am healthier when I eat occasional meat than when I don’t
- maybe kind of a lot of water
- exercise and movement
- biking. I can’t really get myself to do anything else cardio-wise regularly and I get sad when I’m not on a bike
- lifting? I haven’t ever really quit since I started so I don’t know how much I need this but it feels good
- walking, stretching, and general movement. it’s true that sitting for 8 hours feels bad
- sleep. I don’t know what I need; I used to think 8-9 hours but maybe 7 is ok now?
- feeling connected with T
- nature, I think. this one is tough because I never feel like “I need nature more” but it seems to help
- sun, maybe? I don’t think I get SAD but I probably need sun so I try to get it whenever I can
- work with a purpose (but the purpose can be as small as “helping out a friend or acquaintance”)
- pop-culture dopamine. I have only a pop-culture understanding so when I say “dopamine” I mean “the little feeling of ‘ooh I got a thing’”. Sometimes I satisfy this with video games and it actually feels right, not like just numbing
- friends
- 1-1 conversations with close friends
- interactions with small groups of semi close friends
- interactions with a wider world of mostly acquaintances, like a party or conference
- meeting new people (may also be satisfied by the party/conference, or other ways)
- social status. I need to feel high-status in at least some of these interactions
- puzzle solving (this may just be pop-culture dopamine + high status, not its own thing)
- not too much acute stress or interruption, even if it’s unimportant - e.g. I can get overwhelmed by getting texted too many times in an hour
- not too much chronic stress; this is harder to define but I notice if my job or marriage or house or whatever goes into a difficult phase
- alone time: an hour or two to myself, with no responsibilities, in a quiet environment each day
- (redacted)
- (redacted)
really?
I don’t know. I vacillate between:
- I can keep it together, if I manage all these things
- I could keep it together, if I could manage all these 20+ categories, but that’s not humanly possible
- this entire post is BS; what I need is unrelated, like “I need to stop trying so hard” or “I lack The Vitamin5” or something.
note for myself for posterity: actually this month has been really good, until approx this last week. maybe that’s why I haven’t been posting ↩︎
of course I wanted to make this about bikes instead. but no, that’s the point; cars are obnoxious high maintenance machines with 1000 tanks. bikes are simple and good. I wish I were more like a bike. ↩︎
I’m not even sure if these are all real. if you know cars and can give me a list of all the tanks you have to fill, please do ↩︎
tumblr post: “My deepest darkest fantasy is that I collapse on the street and I am rushed to the hospital. They perform a bunch of tests and find out that I am severly deficient in some kind of vitamin. Then I start taking the vitamin and I become the happiest cleverest person alive because all my problems were caused by this one deficiency.” Reply: “Moreover, everyone gathers around to be tremulously compassionate and discreetly admiring: all this time, you lacked the Vitamin? And yet you persevered?” ↩︎
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