January 9, 2007
Sick Days are for Amateurs
There is a Kids in the Hall skit called “Work Pig” (ep #401) where Bruce McCulloch plays a workaholic businessman named Don. Not too long into his morning at the office, his heart stops. There is a surreal sequence wherein he removes his heart from his chest, pours coffee over it, and yells “Get back to WOOOORK!”, inciting the heartbeat to return. He then places the heart back in his chest, smooths out his shirt and tie, and gets directly back to business.
There is absolute dedication, and there is over dedication. I’m trying to find the balance between them in my work. It’s been confounding in my search for self to see an apparent drive toward constant work and yet still be such a big fan of indulgent pleasure. The two never seemed to fit together. Only after years of living can I see with hindsight that my true pleasure is usually work. The times of mindlessness and absorption in physical pleasure seem to feed on themselves, driving me further in hopes of never going back to the real world. But nearly every single time I wake up the next morning, I find myself voracious for the opposite. “Get back to WOOOORK!” the inner voice screams, and I obey with excitement and renewed focus. I am theorizing that my extremes in these areas are causing the dichotomy. Overwork (despite how it charges my inner batteries) begets overconsumption, and vice versa. Perhaps I’ll cut down to just 12 hours of work a day?
I’m fighting a cold, which is probably more of an ego dasher than an annoyance. I pride myself on the quality of food and other substances that I put in my body and in my environment. I rarely get sick (two little cold per year usually) and when I do, I feel betrayed by my body. “Look, I break the bank giving you organic, whole, raw foods and cootie-free products, so how the fuck did you let some generic cold virus in?” Stress, is the reply. “As soon as you chill with the worrying and get back to Tae Bo, we’ll talk.” Oh, bother. Back to work.