I have had weeks in which I (accidentally) maintained a healthful diet – usually just bread, fish, rice, peas, carrots, eggs, give or take a few items. This usually happened due to having eaten all the fun stuff and having put off shopping too long.Here I learned that there is a difference between balanced nutrition and imbalanced nutrition. I notice that I lost during those weeks the urge to snack. I did not yearn to go to a restaurant. It seemed that the problem of food had been settled. I thought about other things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But now, on the other side, I see that it is satisfying to want a snack and then to get that snack. It is much more interesting than not wanting one and not getting one, even if the end result \u2014 not wanting \u2014 is the same.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It is a perversion, and perhaps the fundamental one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I sometimes have false awakenings in which I believe I am another person in another point in history. The problems and the fears that that person has, I take quite seriously. The kinds of petty domestic scandals that I ordinarily find ridiculous seemed quite compelling in the context of a life that makes them likely. Parents with wayward children wring their hands and wail. Women with inconstant lovers cry. A boy who has lost a favourite toy is devastated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There is a perversion that most people have, which is to seek out and dramatise problems which we then struggle with. It is fear of spanking \u2014 or a faith-affirming, order-restoring spanking \u2014 that directs and rescues impoverished attention. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
But I remember how seriously I took these situations, and it was no less serious than I take my own situations. My own situations are no less petty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And what is my current situation? It is having enough awareness to see one’s own mental poverty, but being too mentally impoverished to do anything about it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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