i almost used the word "schmuck" there. that's a word you never hear/see in the pacific northwest. it comes up a lot in ohio. so that's interesting.
i decided a week or so ago that in the fourteen day run-up to the beginning of the semester that i was no longer going to drink anything with caffeine in it. i figure once things get started and my health and sleep schedule spiral down the tubes, i'll probably have to give up giving it up...but, i wanted to be off of it for at least a little while.
after my great, research-driven epiphany of last year (i.e. learning that caffeine doesn't have any bizarre, unnatural side effects aside from pretty wild conjecture on the part of a few scientists and a lot of hippies), drinking a lot of coke seemed like the thing to do (aside from the very real scientific scariness that is phosphoric acid's ability to melt away pretty much the entire interior of your body). however, science and all aside, like any drug it allows a pretty impressive number of reasons for abuse.
a few that are of particular interest to me are: 1) causes inability to have negative emotions, 2) at the extreme end of things, causes inability to have any emotions, 3) eliminates the need for a decent amount of sleep, 4) eliminates the need to do reasonable amounts of work over a reasonable and sane amount of time, 5) many more involving other things that i won't go into.
basically, it lets you do whatever the fuck you want with regard to not taking care of yourself. which is already pretty much the thing i'm worst in the world at. it's similar to the awesome (and downright fucking wacko) behavior of some people i know who treat dehydration headaches with tylenol or advil instead of water. seriously? come on, guys.
i'm convinced that caffeine not intrinsically, chemically bad for you, but just like a cigarette or alcohol, it's there when there's something or other looming over you, saying "hey, you could man up and deal with this...or, you take some of this shit and forget about it". so as nice as it is to have caffeine for the oft-insane hours i actually HAVE to keep for my job, i'm once again becoming exceptionally leery of it.
even after a week "off", i've noticed a very enhanced awareness of certain things. like, for example, if i'm awake for more than 16 hours, i start to get tired. i need to sleep. i didn't sleep enough last night, and with no caffeine, by the time it got to be about 3pm, my body was like "fuck dude, i need to sleep more". so i had to take a nap. the other day i was working on a project for work for about five hours, and after that long, rather than ignoring the fact that i was working too hard and downing more coke, i acknowledged the fact that your brain probably isn't supposed to do one thing for that long and i went for a walk to clear my head.
my near-complete insanity for the last few weeks has made me realize i really need to try to reestablish some kind of baseline. some sort of middle ground to at least occasionally visit to regroup instead of bouncing back and forth between giddy and depressed like a manic ping-pong ball. caffeine certainly doesn't help that. it gets me going when i need to get going, but the fact is if i was being more responsible with my life and what exactly i was doing with myself i wouldn't need it at all, though i'd probably still occasionally drink a bit every few days because hey, it's not bad for you and if you're not using it to ignore the fact that you're miserable or that you're failing with the insomnia thing, then it's kind of fun. occasionally.
another good side benefit for y'all is that i'll probably have less stream-of-consciousness rants on my blog the less i drink. so high fives and filtered water all around!
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