Transcript
So this is NOT the video I wanted to make this week. But hey, we pick up pieces and we hammer them into some kind of shape and we just keep moving forward, cause the world ain’t stopping for nobody. Game on!
Intro
Greetings good humans and welcome to Tabletop Alchemy, where sometimes, sometimes things go awry and we do what we do best – we roll downhill, with or without the punches. And we thank our patrons for keeping the faith on into this new year that may or may not be one of the best – we’ll have to wait and see, right?
And yeah I probably sound a little different today, I don’t know, we’ll get that.
So, this will sound like a familiar story I’m sure. Everything was going great, I was getting stuff done, day job had a break in it for the holidays, I had this one thing I was pretty excited to work on and then, wouldn’t you know it, I got the flu.
Just from the folks in my own orbit here, seemed like a lotta people came down with this crazy holiday fever thing too. So, fun fact, I rarely get sick. I don’t know why, I’ve just been lucky. That may be changing, as things do, but rarely is not never. And this particular flu thing hit me like a literal Mack truck. I remember watching the clock on my stove when it happened, in literally 20 minutes I went from feeling absolutely fine to bone shakes and shivers. An hour later I was in bed with some kind nutso fever – I mean, it was boiling under those blankets. And I still wasn’t warm enough. And then like 8 hours later the fever broke and then I was just bed-ridden for like the next 36 hours.
The weirdest thing through all of that is I was starving. I kept having to get up like every four hours and make a burrito. Black beans, salsa and cheese, only way to roll a burrito. Anyway, during this bout of illness, I observed something that’s always been there, I just happened to notice and pay particular attention to it this time.
So prior to being sick, I had all these projects I was working on, right? I got my photos I been working on, I got some Silver Bayonet stuff coming up, I’ve got some miniatures I’m ready to talk about, I got some other things in development, one of which I thought was gonna be today’s video. And I’m like pretty excited to be working on this stuff, to the point that I was kinda having trouble sleeping. My brain would be racing and I couldn’t wait to work on this or that, and not sleeping probably had it’s own detrimental effects on my health.
But anyway, when I was down in it, I mean, down in the bottom of the barrel, I distinctly remember thinking that all this stuff I was working on, all this creativity and desire and quest for art, all this stuff just sounded like utter nonsense. I remember thinking how none of it was worth a damn, everything was a waste of time, I didn’t even like half the stuff I was doing, it was all just garbage. And it didn’t matter one bit if it all just went away. Cause I was sick right? I mean the only thing I wanted was to sleep and to just not feel like trash.
Now, as I came swimming slowly back up out of the sweaty sheets and I was able to get out of the bed and actually start feeling better, I paid close attention to those thoughts I’d had regarding all my projects. And I watched as those thoughts shifted and changed back to the way I’d previously felt, about those projects. Like my enthusiasm returned, I stopped thinking they were a waste of time, generally my emotional response to those projects returned to “normal”.
And I find this super fascinating. It means a few different things, I think.
Now, strangely enough, as I write this, I’m going on my sixth day of vertigo. Which is unfortunate. I’ve been lucky for most of my life, where I haven’t really done anything to “maintain health”. I was born thin and energetic and I’ve just never really had to worry about health issues. And I know that that’s literally just a win in the genetic lottery, has nothing to do with any choices I’ve made or anything like that. And now maybe there’s some damn chickens coming home to roost, I don’t know.
But this vertigo nonsense is independent of the flu thing I had. I know this because I got my first bouts of vertigo a couple months ago. Feeling dizzy for no reason, it’s so bizarre. But there’s a difference between the psychological feelings about projects and creative enthusiasm as affected by the flu versus this vertigo garbage. In the depths of the flu, boy, I really felt like all the creative stuff was nonsense and just not worth pursuing and stupid and all kinds of darkness. With this vertigo, it’s not really affecting my mental chemicals I guess. It’s making it harder to work on things absolutely but it’s not causing my fundamental FEELINGS about those creative endeavors to change.
One of the biggest bummers about this whole observation of my flu-affected mental state is that I’m coming to the realization that exercise and eating healthy may be an unavoidable necessity. Yes, we can laugh at that but what I mean is that it seems like to just be able to maintain artistic enthusiasm is going to require some level of physical health and physical health maintenance. Which, trust me, is not something I’ve ever wanted to consider.
I was perfectly happy to be unhealthy as long as I would still be enthusiastic about making and doing stuff. And we all know how much of a pain in the ass exercising is and god forbid, eating healthy, jeez! It’s one thing to have dabbled in those arenas just on whims or cause I felt like it right? It’s another thing to have to consider HAVING to do those things.
Forming new habits is one of the most difficult things to do – well, specifically forming new HEALTHY habits is one of the toughest things to do. I mean, it’s super easy to form unhealthy habits, we all know that.
Another thing this observation has made me realize is that my empathy for folks who are experiencing depression or, now, other physical ailments, is really deepening. Like, if we know that the physical chemicals or whatever is going on during unhealthy moments or illness or whatever, if we know how that physical ailment affects our own enthusiasm and ability to imagine and just positivity, man, it’s gotta suck to be under the influence of those chemicals all the time. And by extension, it’s just less of a surprise that some folks just don’t feel creative or inspired.
And what do you do to fix that sorta thing? I have no idea. I mean, I just had a flu, which goes away on it’s own. I don’t know what you do when you have something that doesn’t go away.
Now, speaking of something not going away, it’s been almost a week since writing that portion of the script and what happened is that the vertigo got pretty intense. There was one day I couldn’t open my eyes for more than like 10 seconds. That was the day I learned that my Spotify account includes audio books. I listened to Stephen King’s novel Holly. It was fine, I really liked the narrator, I thought she was pretty great. Now I’m onto Warhammer 40k’s famous book Xenos, which is the literary debut of the famous inquisitor Eisenhorn.
Thankfully it was just that one day I couldn’t open my eyes but still, things have been fairly tough on the buck up and do things side. I was reading about how some folks get stuck with in this state for weeks and months and that was kinda freaking me out too. And of course everyone I know was like why don’t you go to urgent care, why don’t you go see a doctor, yada yada yada, right?’
I don’t like going to doctors, that’s about it. I have various opinions on certain things having to do with the US health care system but the bottom line is, if I’m gonna be perfectly honest, I’m basically a procrastinator at heart. I always just want stuff to get better on its own. And from a lot google searching I’ve done regarding this vertigo stuff, it basically seems like you end up just having to wait it out anyway.
But, one day my mom of all people – who doesn’t even live in this state – found a physical therapy doctor who specifically does house calls for people with vertigo. Now when was the last time you heard of a doc that does house calls? So I gave that dude a call and he was super cool on the phone and he literally came out the next day and examined me. And pretty quickly he was able to physically demonstrate and explain what I have, which is vestibular neuritis. Which in turn is universally believed by most doctors to be a viral infection of the inner ear, and it could have been triggered by that crazy flu I had. Even tho Doc Smith, the guy who made the house call for me, said that the fact that I’ve had these previous periodic bouts of vertigo is kinda weird.
Anyway, he showed me some exercises to do to basically help my brain re-align with the infected ear signals I guess, I don’t know, but here’s two things are pretty fascinating – one, learning what I have, being able to put a name to it, vastly improved my … I guess will to persevere, maybe. And two, the exercises actually helped like right away. I did the exercises after he left and I did ‘em the next morning and then I was able to drive to the store to pick up some groceries and I hadn’t been able to drive in over a week.
Now as far as the symptoms go, they haven’t gone away, and I asked the doc, like, hey man, so there’s not like a pill or antibiotic or some kind medicine to kick this stuff outta my head and he was like, no, not really. It’s gonna wear off on its own but you can really help move it along by doing the exercises.
So this kinda gives me something to grasp ahold of, right? So now I feel like I can fight back I guess for lack of a better term. So while I still feel dizzy even right now, I can get up and go do whatever I wanna do. I even got out my old rowing machine and dusted it off and now I use it every evening, like I did three years when I got it. And the rowing machine strangely doesn’t affect the vertigo at all. As long as I’m just looking straight ahead I don’t even feel like I have vertigo while I’m rowing. And I asked the doc if it would be okay to use that machine and he said yeah anything cardio I could do that didn’t make me feel like vomiting – of which I’ve had very little during this whole debacle – any cardio would just be great, helps get blood flowing to the brain, and of course is just generally a good thing to do anyway.
So now I know I just gotta push through this, wait it out. But since I’m breaking out the exercise machine, I guess I’ll be looking at my diet and see if I can foster some new habits on the flip side of this whole thing.
Cause losing my enthusiasm for my artistic and creative projects, that was just a stretch too far, I did not enjoy that one little bit. And to see it change so drastically from one way of thinking to another and back all based on just this physical virus attacking me, it was just startling and interesting. I mean, we’ve all heard the podcasts and news stories about how head injuries and other weird things can change a person’s entire personality but damn to witness it in action from the inside, even just a tiny fractional version of that, well, unsettling and fascinating I guess sums it up.
I mean, it’s a pretty weird concept to acknowledge, right? That you might find yourself wanting to paint more Space Marines just because you did some pushups in the morning. That sounds stupid and facetious but it’s crazy that it’s actually not. It’s pretty real. Which doesn’t make it any less bizarre, right? Although, it’s probably from a wider generally holistic view of life, it’s not bizarre at all, it makes perfect sense.
So, I’m kinda looking forward to seeing what some exercise and maybe a tick healthier diet does for my hobbying. Such a weird concept.
So, again, this wasn’t the video topic I had scheduled for today but life sure likes to throw them curve balls, don’t it? So I guess, uh … keep an eye on your own creativity, inspiration and enthusiasm, see if you find any correlations to your physical well-being, and consider what that might mean.
See ya!