Little Lessons From Total Exhaustion

If I have learned anything during the past few weeks of relentless overworking and overtraining, it is that exhaustion is a state of blissful weakness. Fatigue weakens the Will, but it also concentrates it, focuses it on the essentials: on breathing, on being, and on staying alive. Naturally, this cools the mind—if you let it.

In a state of total exhaustion, you have no energy to think unnecessary thoughts, no energy to feel unnecessary emotions, and no energy to give a fuck about anything other than your conscious breath. This is freedom through strength, whereby all strength is gone. It is a freedom of nature, and that is what I have learned to appreciate it as. Ad libertatem naturae!

Now the time has come to restore balance: to let the body heal, let the nervous system recover, and let the Will regain its strength. This is the moment where many people revert to drugs. O, am I tempted to do so myself! After all, I feel like shit, my head drones painfully, and my body moves like a sad bag of mashed potatoes. But I keep my hand away from the pills and the weed and the kratom. I will accept no exogenous force to help me heal myself. I even stay away from coffee and tea. I shall seek no easy escape. My Will brought me here, my Will will get me out of here. And if I were to alter my consciousness artificially, I would deprive myself of all the potential growth ahead of me. No, I will not alienate myself from this natural state of my mind.

Thus, I embrace the chilly coolness of my mind, embrace the transient limitedness of my Will, and embrace the wisdom of my self-healing body. I just have to give it the serene, mindful attention it demands—and deserves.

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