1 – I am happy that I am not working in any type of a manual labor job.  Right now I can kind of zone out at my desk in a Sudafed induced coma.  If I had to be all “Deadliest Catch” right now and pull up crab cages and avoid getting tossed into 33 degree water I would be dead in a week.  Being physically worthless at a desk job is only mildly aggravating but in most other jobs it can either be a severe handicap or much, much worse.  I have not used a “sick day” at work for actually being sick in about 10 years and I am not going to start now.  Unless I have vertigo and/or lose a limb I can come into work and gut it out for a few hours on almost any conditions.  All that I need to be able to do is stay upright for a few hours which for most ailments is do-able.  That allows me to use my days off in a more useful fashion – like vacations, sleeping in and smoking crack with my homies.

2 – When I am sick I always vow to not take my health for granted.  As I am rendered useless on the couch clutching a box of Kleenex and trying to gag down soup I think about myself when I am healthy and wish I was that person.  In those dire moments I make a pact with myself that I will never take being healthy for granted – that I will always have a smile on my face whenever I have my health and nothing will bring my down.  Cut to a few days later and I could care less about my health and I am pissed off at something else even though I am healthy (almost like my mental state has been normalized or something).  Being sick is such a quick rearrangement to your “normalized state” that it is difficult to get used to and by the time one is used to it the sickness is gone.

It is amazing how much your physical status effects your mental one.  I usually think of a clear separation between my mind and my body (or souls and bodies, whichever you prefer).  Being sick is an effective way to see how much our bodies and our minds are connected.

So basically I am calling a sick day today – and yes I am complaining, and no, you can’t change the subject.  Enjoy your health readers!

I call it the Theory of Normalization (if someone has already thought of this idea – fuck off) and it specifically deals with how people perceive their current state of being.  What I am proposing is that a person always feels exactly the same about their current state after a short period of “normalization” no matter how “positive” or “negative” that state is in relation to their previous state.  So I guess in short the theory could be put simply by saying:

“A person’s perception of their current state of being after a period of “normalization” is the same irrespective of the external variables.  A person will always have the same outlook on their current  state based on their internal cues that create a baseline for the positivity or negativity of any situation.”

Are you with me so far?  I think I kind of lost myself but an example will probably help explain my thought process. First, I would first like to explain what I mean by a period of “normalization”.  This is the period of time immediately after a  change event in someone’s life before they have internalized the event and integrated it into their perception of their current state.  For example, if someone is single and they get someone pregnant, there is a period of shock and ambivalence after they are aware of an eminent change in their current state.  Once they have integrated the change, then that event is normalized and part of their current state.  At that point they are able to imagine future states and take take into account the event that had occurred and it is part of their normalized current state of being.  This is not just for major event but also for even minor changes to the current state.  The more minor the event for that person the more quickly it is normalized.  For instance if someone dented your car in the parking lot you would normalize that event more quickly than if you found out that you won the lottery.

Another more fully fleshed out example will help clarify the process and the conclusions one can come to from the theory.  Say a person, call him Bill, is married, working at a company making decent money with no kids.  Bill has a perception of future states that may or may not come to fruition.  He may get divorced, he could lose his job, have a child or get a job promotion.  Internally Bill would attach a positive or negative significance to each of these scenarios while he played them out in his mind.  In reality though all of those future states are the exact same and would leave Bill with the same perception of his current situation once he has normalized them.  So in actuality one does not need to focus on the events that are happening in their lives to determine their level of satisfaction and happiness.  One would need to focus on improving the perception of their current state disregarding their external environment.

This leads to some dramatic changes in how one views life and the circumstances one finds themselves entrenched in.  Instead of dreading being let go from your job or fantasizing about winning the lottery one would focus on how one perceives their current state.  That is the only way to achieve a more lasting positivity in a dynamic existence.  Once a person is able to understand and come to grips with how they approach any situation they can be free of most of the anxiety that is attached to normal every day life.  This is the thing that people look for when they find their “center” or meditate – it is a world where the external circumstances are stripped away and all that remains is one’s perception of those external events.  When all that remains is one’s perception then they are fully in control of their existence.

As a side note I think this theory helps explain why people find drugs so appealing.  This is the lazy-man’s way to alter the perception of their current state temporarily, or in some cases permanently.  The introduction of drug into the body dulls, or heightens the different mechanisms we have to process our current state effectively changing our perspective from the way we perceive our “normalized” condition.

Again, this is the first time that I have actually put these ideas in print and I know there are bound to be some logical errors that I have made.  It is something I hope to expand upon over time but at its core it is a simple way to simplify and understand the perception of one’s existence.