8/9/2020

 i've been feeling a bit sick lately. no, nothing serious. just a stubborn headache. my wife thinks it's from caffeine withdrawal, and she might be right. i do consume a lot of caffeine, even on my days off. whenever this happens, i tend to get a headache on a spot of my forehead, just above my right eye. and there's a feeling of general nausea in me. i also notice i sweat more, especially around my forehead. and my eyes- it's hard to describe, but they feel sunken and burnt. whenever i look in the mirror when i feel this way, there are shadows around my eyes. either that, or the rest of my face just gets pale and wan.

in response to this, i've been neglecting some of my routines, and just generally lounging around. it gets hard to do each successive thing on my list. instead, i tend to vacillate, and scroll through my facebook feed over and over again. it's funny. nothing much changes in it, but i keep doing it, over and over again, as though in anticipation of something new. it's a really pathetic existence to do that, but when i feel ill, i guess that's the best i can manage- besides being completely unconscious.

*****

with some of my plants, i feel complete despair. the caterpillars have completely ruined my zucchini plant, and they have done a number on the kabocha too. the cucumber plant, fortunately, is still doing well, and is actually producing more cukes... on the other side, my tomato plant is still good. i think i may have damaged the eggplants. there was some sort of infestation of mealy bugs in them, so i sprayed them with an overly concentrated soap water. i think the mealy bugs got taken care of, but the solution was so soapy that i think it damaged the leaves too. there was a general shedding of a lot of leaves in both eggplants. now, it looks like that trauma is over, and the new healthy leaves are starting to grow back in.

i'm thinking of propogating the plants i have, so that i have an increased yield. as things stand, it's hard for my wife to make anything significant with, say, 1-2 tomatoes at a time. i'm hoping, eventually, to produce enough for my household, and then, maybe have some surplus to either donate or sell to others.

i'm working on composting (vermicomposting and heap composting), and hopefully, i'll do a good enough job to produce something that can really improve the soil at my house. as they say, "feed the soil, not the plants."

*****

i feel like i'm floating in my job. i've been going in every day. we're supposed to watch these videos and stuff, and i do, but (honestly) half the time my mind is elsewhere. i guess i could use the excuse that everything seems to change from one day to the next, so why put in all this effort to prepare? but that's not sufficient. i guess things haven't really hit me yet. i guess that's why i'm so - i don't know - floaty.

*****

i wonder about getting old. getting? i AM old.

is getting old simply a shifting of interests and priorities?

or is it a progressively smaller and smaller "locus of control"? do you still have the same desires and yearnings, only to have them circumvented by an increasingly smaller set of abilities and propensities? do we just turn into "hungry ghosts?"

do we just stop hoping, and talking about our feelings, because we know that there's no use in such conversations any more? do we just focus on the day to day... the little aches and pains... the daily weather? because to go beyond that would just wound us with the fact that mortality casts its shadows over all our hopes and plans?

i would like to be a peaceful person when i get old. i would like to also be relevant, somehow. i know that that is contradictory, but i still hope it. i would like to be someone who is wise, and has some mysterious influence on the turning of the world.

i'd also, if possible, like to remain desirable. but then, maybe that is just my young mind talking. after all, is youth the real "hungry ghost?" i've kind of passed beyond the gate of satiation a few times, and maybe i understand that, although desire is "real," it is ephemeral, and hence, not lasting or eternal.

but maybe that's the point. the ephemeral has its own eternity... the apex of existence.

i guess the reason i would like to be more buddhistic is that it posits the possibility of having EVERY moment be the apex of existence. i suppose i would like to really realize in my bones this understanding: to be able to walk on the ground, but be six feet in the air. but i guess i'm still immature, in that i am still tied down by my desires.

oh well.