[Rowing Machine] 2019: Week 18 {236.0} “Bye, Bye, Rower!”

I kept this mini-rower for one month more than its usefulness because I needed a viable option. The gym I found is an effective stop-gap, where, within its hours of operation, I can row well consistently, so I don’t need this squeaky rower. I still want a nice rower I can use at any reasonable hour for those days I’m anti-social, but at least I’ve been able to burn off some superfluous energy – mentally, anyways.

I couldn’t sleep well for the first month in my apartment.

There were at least two nights where I might have went to bed at 3AM, or maybe didn’t sleep at all, and I was really starting to feel the effects of not being able to dispell the stress I’ll accumulate as I live life. In rowing column entries of past, I’d talk about “exercising to exorcise the stress demons” and it’s a concept that I like because, with a little wordplay, it arrives at what I believe to be a central truth of life: what comes in must go out. Blockages in the pathway can cause issues.

Stress is a constant of life. Management is about releasing it.

I write to reframe broad stroke experiences in my life. If I were to keep personal journals anymore, I’d write about events in extreme detail, but I don’t think that’s necessary for me, because those thoughts scream at me in my mind until I figure out their answers. Writing details like that can help with that, but in those sorts of “I feel awkward over this situation, let me think it through” is my mind’s way of coming up with the answer, whether it’s “I was subtly rude to someone because I was stressed out and I took it out on them” or “this person was subtly rude to me because they were stressed out over something else.”

Those were two examples that I would have written about to relieve stress.

The thing is, though, there’s only so much writing you can do to reframe things from a mental perspective. There’s also the physical perspective, where, I believe that sometimes you’ve just gotta tell your brain to shut up. That’s where superfluous energy comes in, and to quote George Gurdjieff in full: “Laughter relieves us of superfluous energy, which, if it remained unused, might become negative, that is, poison. We always have plenty of this poison in us. Laughter is the antidote. But this antidote is necessary only so long as we are unable to use all the energy for useful work.”

I think of it as laughter, exercise, or anything to get outside “yourself.”

During my most recent rowing set, with my brain empty other than thinking about whether I should row for 10 minutes or 15, at one point, I was listening to the chain go back and forth. It sounded a bit like “yeah, boy!” Almost like my mind was saying attaboy for rowing.

Saying bye-bye to one rower, “in exchange” for another, wasn’t bad.

Endtable:
Quotes: Quoted above.
Sources: My fitness experiences.
This week’s weight: 236.0
Last week’s weight: 234.0
Difference: Two pounds heavier. I’m not sure how this happened because I thought I’d been good with my fitness all week, but I guess I’ve been eating too much. I’ve gotta work harder at this now. Fewer calories; more exercise.
Inspirations: Donating that mini-rower and realizing that my insomnia has gone away. I wanted to tie all that together.
Related: Past weekly column entries.
Photo: My last rowing set on the mini-rower.
Written On: April 28th [30 minutes]
Last Edited: First draft; final draft for the Internet.
My big goal is writing. My most important goal is writing "The Story." All other goals should work toward that central goal. My proudest moment is the most recent time I overcame some fear, which should have been today. I'm a better zombie than I was yesterday. I'm not better than you and you're not better than me. Let's strive to be better every day.