Neanderpundit

I spent the day and change before the NOR shoot visiting a friend in Arkansas.

I rode on his Yamaha Rhino through some pretty damned rugged territory. We went to places called ancient bluff, and Satan’s cellar. I wanted to take pictures, but I have neither the skill nor the equipment to do justice to the places I went.

So I soaked it all in. I looked at it all, and thought, this is how this place has been for ten thousand years. Other than a few tire tracks and cigarette butts, which will be gone before the end of the year, this place is as placed by the hand of God.

You could see crude stone walls, laid by hand by farmers a hundred years past, an occasional arrowhead by a hunter potentially far older.

it was a damned difficult place to have to leave. The smell of the evergreens and the sound of the running water will be loose in my head for a long time to come.

But I had shooting to do, and friday morning, I left intending to do it.

My office has a back door- an employee entrance- that looks sort of like this.

The push bar across the bottom is about belt buckle height, or maybe a little above.
For the last ten years, I have opened that door by walking up to it, my belly pushing the bar, and walking out.

Today, after a week away, and a few more pounds lost, I walked up to that door full tilt….

and pasted my face into it with all my might.

yeah, yeah. My gut is no longer big enough to push the door handle open.

Shut up and help me wipe this blood off the door, willya?

I have fought for ages with my inability to lose weight, and the surgery has put me on an entirely new track. I have now the tools required to do what I want to do.

In conversation with Pascal yesterday, he asked me how it felt to no longer desire the food that betrayed me for so long.

Boy, did HE not get it. But no sleight to Pascal, he doesn’t understand because he never fought that particular battle, and has no frame of reference. Most people don’t.

So here it is: The Tripod of Overindulgence.

One leg of the tripod is Desire. It’s a big powerful leg.
The next leg is Ability. Less powerful,but Ability can be easily grown.
the third leg is Finance. We must be able to afford what we desire.

In other words, overindulging in anything, be it hookers, snickers bars, tofu, single malt, horseradish, or heroin, depends on three things: Our mental desire to overindulge, our ability to overindulge physically, and our pocketbook.

You may not desire to nail the hooker, but your dick may still work fine, and you might have a big checkbook.
You may desire the hooker, but your dick might not work, despite your large checkbook.
You may desire the hooker and your dick may work fine, but lack the cash to pay the piper.

If you have the cash, the functional dick, and the desire, you can get the hooker.

All my life, I have loved to eat. And I still do. I still desire to eat buckets of food.
All my life, I have been able to- as Beldar put it- consume mass quantities.
All my life, I have had the type of work that has allowed me to eat as I pleased.

By short circuiting that cycle, by limiting my ability to eat, I kick the tripod over.
The desire that I still feel could potentially overcome my inability, make me eat enough that I swell my new, small stomach pouch, and get fat again or fail to lose the weight, but that is a struggle I’m willing to face. As powerful as that desire is, my desire to overcome the issue is stronger. And now I have the tool to make it happen.