Habits and other things

Yesterday I ran out of floss. Today, after I brushed my teeth, I still automatically reached up into the medicine cabinet and tried to take out my trusty floss holder, then felt bewildered and just sort of off for not being able to floss. I'm not saying this because I'm some sort of floss freak, but because that made me realize the simple power of habits. And subsequently made me think about the power of subconscious habits, whether they're mental or physical. I think forming good habits is incredibly important. I think this makes me sound like everyone's mom. But there's merit to that! Floss. Run. Get shit done. Maybe more importantly, mental habits like not immediately writing people or things off, asking positive questions throughout the day, focusing on the proactive.

I feel like you have to dedicate yourself wholly to what's being prescribed (positivity) or run the risk of feeling "oh I failed at asking positive questions, it's so hard, I just want to sit and eat and wallow! Wallowallowalllow." Or maybe what i mean is, what's the difference between momentarily not being positive because it actually is hard to sustain, and being negative? Habits are hard to cultivate, too, without turning into a robot, or feeling prisoner to the obligation. There are definitely times where I just want to say, fuck it I am so tired why can't I just let myself fall into bed and go to sleep. But then I end up  in the bathroom flossing, grudgingly. At that point, maybe a truly advanced human being (I bet Siddhartha Gautma had excellent personal hygiene, or maybe he just would've been unnaturally clean bc he was enlightened and had transcended cavities) could say, "here is the habit and here is me flouting it this once, for the sake of the greater good of my body i.e. sleep." Maybe a truly advanced human being never feels obligated to perform habitual actions but instead does them willingly, joyfully. The snots. As I'm not a truly advanced human being yet or ever, I don't know if my habits (even good ones) rule me or I them. I don't have that many obvious habits, I don't think.

What's that Wisconsin law firm commercial? Habush, Habush, and Rottier. Habit, habit...

So yoga's actually quite difficult. For one thing, I never pay attention to the Sanskrit name of the asana we're doing, which means I'm usually lost until she says the English name or I sneak a look at my better attention paying classmates. And for another thing, the big thing, it requires a lot of energy/flexibility/strength. Downward facing dog my ass, downward facing all the blood in your body rushes to your head and it feels like it's going to explode more like it. I really don't like downward facing dog or mukshasnfjasasana or something like that. What I do like about yoga though is making a tree pose or warrior pose and I can pretend I'm rooted strongly to the ground while my arms point cleanly through the air. It feels like I'm drawing up power from the ground and my limbs are long magnets. But as I was telling Becca, I think I'd rather sleep in than become yogically enlightened.

It's weird because this semester, I don't really have enough classes to feel like I need to work. We got off Neuro 629 on Thursday for Obama, because Peter the professor feels "Seems to me that seeing a President is a pretty big deal (after all, we've only had 44 in our whole history!) and even tho it is a campaign, a President is special here..like him or not.  So, feel free to go without missing class." That pretty much sums up that class. Peter's the type to mutter dry comments to himself as he lectures, and though the material is ridonk, we don't even really have tests. My two neuro seminars are just interesting, interesting, interesting, o and pizza! There will be pizza on Thursday this week. Pizza and basically no work, just musing write-ups. That leaves ochem and ethics, one of which I've taken before and actually discover I like, and the other which I haven't gone to that much...ethically ambiguous.

Um. Tomorrow I have a busy day--class, class, lab, lunch with Albert if there's time, then off to St. Mary's to shadow. Slow Food Cafe is having breakfast this week!! Homemade nutella stuffed french toast was on the menu, so we're gonna go to that I think. Why is breakfast the savoriest meal of the day? I love potato latkes and potato anythings. I'm tired now bc I had yoga, biked back and forth six times, then went for a run. It was a perfect run. I can't use words to really explain the feeling, but it had to do with the cool air and the pure sky, faintly pink and faintly darkening as the sun set over Lake Wingra, the trees flaming different colors, the still waters reflecting sky and leaves and everything being so quiet. Quiet, and wide, and darkening. I love the repetitive sound of feet on gravel or ground, over and over, eating up distance like a patient monster. 

I think the only times I really feel peaceful & my head is quiet are when I'm outside doing something physical. It returns me to myself, to what is really important. It's like I afterwards, I stand on a mountain instead of overwhelmed in a valley where I can't even see the sky. I think I'd probably be depressed if I didn't have that, so I wonder, what do other people have? What are the serenity sources that other people have to draw upon and are they as constant, as renewable, as mine?