What made this a great morning? First of all, it has been a long morning despite the fact that it is presently 8:08, that is because my jet lag has not disappeared resulting in early morning and middle of the night waking. It was rather interesting to be corresponding with a man in Dubai who was also jet lagged due to his European travels. We were operating under the same conditions.
Me: You are so adorable! As you see I still have jet lag as it is 1:30 here and I am wide awake. Actually writing my blog and Air Emeritus. Strange coincidental thing happened with the airlines.
He: I hardly slept too
Me: We are strange partners. But not partners in crime (yet anyway).
As you can see we have fun text conversations interspersed with voice messages. I have finally been able to gain the technical skills to do that. He has the greatest voice, as do I. I am going to start a podcast and it will be called Listen To My Voice. But at the moment I am overwhelmed with the task of moving out of these United States and onto those United Arab Emeritus. The UAE is actually United under the able leadership of the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi (his actual name too difficult to spell at the moment). President Biden tries very hard but he has those Republicans undermining him. There is no such thing as a Republican in the United Arab Emeritus. PHEW. I keep extolling the privileges and advantages of my new home land – I must add No Republicans to the long list. There is law and order, complete safety, respect for women, the tastiest food ever, a very flexible immigration policy and, of course, air conditioning. It is hot there and it must be remembered that I was born in cold Canada. Edmonton was my home where it is winter for about nine months out of the year and one must remain indoors to keep warm. Now I shall live in the UAE where it is SO summer for nine months of the year and one must stay inside to keep cool.
Then magically I came upon an article in The New Yorker about energy – the basic tenet is that some people have it and some people do not. Here is the first paragraph:
“For months, during the main pandemic stretch, I’d get inexplicably tired in the afternoon, as though vital organs and muscles had turned to Styrofoam. Just sitting in front of a computer screen, in sweatpants and socks, left me drained. It seemed ridiculous to be grumbling about fatigue when so many people were suffering through so much more. But we feel how we feel.”
Readers who have never met me do not know this but I am known for my energy. The most constant and consistent compliment received by yours truly is this.
They: I LOVE your energy.
Me: Thanks. No idea where I get it and I am 78.
But at times I suddenly lose it. Grandson has been with me on those rare occasions. I become like a tired five year old, pouting, getting frustrated and almost having a temper tantrum. What is pout? It is both a verb and a noun. The verb’s synonym pull a face, look sulky, purse one’s lips, make a moue, turn the corners of one’s mouth down; scowl, glower, sulk; rare mop and mow, look petulant. As a noun: petulant expression, sulky expression, moue, face, scowl, glower. But it is more than that according to Wikipedia:
Pout may refer to:
A facial expression
Facial expression of air kiss
A commune in Thiès Region, western Senegal
Trisopterus luscus or Pouting, a fish in the family Gadidae
Ocean pout, a kind of eelpout in the family Zoarcidae
Brown bullhead, or “horned pout”, a widespread species of small catfish native to the Eastern United States
Do admit that I have gone a bit off topic here, but it has been fun – well for me anyway.
But back to the topic of energy and The New Yorker article written by Nick Paumgarten, entitled Energy and How to Get It. This is the subtitle: All of us know people who have more energy than we do, but the science of the phenomenon is just coming into view. He discusses his waning energy: “Still, the ebb, lately, had become acute, and hard to account for. By the standards of my younger years, I was burning the candle at neither end. Could one attribute it to the wine the night before, the cookies, the fitful and abbreviated sleep, the boomerang effect of the morning’s caffeine and carbs, a sedentary profession, middle age? That will be a yes. And yet the mind roamed: covid? Lyme? Diabetes? Cancer? It’s no hipaa violation to reveal that, as various checkups determined, none of those pertained. So, embrace it. A recent headline in the Guardian: “Extravagant eye bags: How extreme exhaustion became this year’s hottest look.”
He writes so well!! Well, he has to as he makes a living at it. I do not, although many are encouraging me to profit from my words.
“All of us, except for the superheroes and the ultra-sloths, know people who have more energy than we do, and plenty who have less. We may admire or envy or even pity the tireless project jugglers, the ravenous multidisciplinarians, the serial circulators of rooms, the conference hoppers, the calendar maximizers, the predawn cross-trainers and kickboxers. How does she do it? On the flip side, there are the oversleepers, the homebodies, the spurners of invitations and opportunities, the dispensers of excuses. Come on, man! It’s hard to measure success, if you want to avoid making it about money or power or credentials, but, as one stumbles through the landscape of careers and outputs and reputations, one sees, again and again, that the standouts tend to be the people who possess seemingly boundless reserves of mental and physical fuel. Entrepreneurs, athletes, artists, politicians: it can seem that energy, more than talent or luck, results in extraordinary outcomes. Why do some people have it and others not? What does one have to do to get more?”
I do love this article as it is so scientific, so rational, so intelligent! Here is more of it.
“Energy,” though, is a misnomer, or at least an elision. What we commonly call energy is actually our perception of the body metabolizing carbohydrates or fat as energy. Energy isn’t energy. It’s our experience of burning energy, converting it to work. It’s a metabolic mood. As Richard Maurer, a doctor in Maine who specializes in metabolic recovery, and who encountered me one day last summer as I mumbled about a shortage of it, told me, “ ‘Energy’ is a useless term. It is not the perception of stimulation. It is just the capacity to generate work. I think of it as only relating to potential. If a patient says, ‘I want more energy,’ maybe the doctor should just write a scrip for methamphetamine. But that’s false chi.”
How can one help but not love this analysis which differentiates me from a cadaver; “The main distinguishing characteristic between a cadaver and a living, thinking, feeling individual is the flow of energy through the body,” he said. “The cells are the same, but without the energy flow it’s just an inert blob.”
But it does become fun in places, scientific but fun as it discusses two people meeting one another, loving each other’s energy, and therefore, divorcing their spouses.
“People are somewhat gorgeous collections of chemical fires, aren’t they?” Harold Brodkey wrote, in the story “Angel.” “We are towers of kinds of fires, down to the tiniest constituencies of ourselves, whatever those are.” Some years ago, without thinking, I introduced two friends of mine, B. and M., to each other, in a loose crew of people meeting up in a bar before a concert. B. and M. were both married. “I love your energy!” B. told M. Everyone laughed: such cheese. The next day, he called me and asked for her number. Such trouble. M. began referring to him, when discussing him with others, as “Energy”; she liked his, too. Their marriages didn’t survive the radiative flux, and B. and M. now live together, in a gravitational field of their own, otherwise known as Essex County, New Jersey. (When I told M. recently that I was writing about energy, the kind you feel, she said, “Talk about how annoying it is that everyone says they are tired. Tired is universal. We are exhausted until we die.”
Read this! It explains it all, well it does to me.
“B. and M.’s energy is of a different, albeit related, category—the kind you project, or perceive in others. This one has something to do with vigor as well, but also charisma, aura, and temperament. It has a spiritual dimension, to those who perceive or credit such phenomena, and a social one. In some circumstances, good energy may just be a matter of radiance, of good skin, teeth, hair, posture, which are in many respects themselves functions of robust health. Or it may comprise kindness, attentiveness, optimism, humor—the ability to make other people feel good about themselves. There may be intangibles at play. Pheromones, assurance, electromagnetics, pixies.”
In the end it is rather simple and does explain my energy. “It’s all a matter of attitude, they say, as though attitude were not itself determined by energy. Think positive! It takes energy to change habits and alter circumstances. One can adjust certain knobs, but it can feel like a chore to deduce which knobs do what.”
You must read the article in its entirety (or not). Quite honestly, it is rather tiring to read the entire thing, but you could give it a try. But you have no excuse because I am giving you the link: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/11/08/energy-and-how-to-get-it?utm_source=onsite-share&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=onsite-share&utm_brand=the-new-yorker.
The photograph (I hope) is of my iWatch. Grandson drove me to the Apple Store in Abu Dhabi and with the technician’s help downloaded a new face for it. As you can see it is a unicorn which is somewhat prophetic. Members of the Royal Family of Qatar gave me a unicorn on New Year’s Eve 2019 and member (s) were in touch last evening. Honest!!! As I say, I always tell the truth but sometimes I exaggerate. This is not an exaggeration.
I was going to write about some negative things that happened to me yesterday – but not going to. How can one be positive about the fact that I was actually kicked out of Marin Jewish Community Center by the Director for no good reason at all and that my leasing of a Lexus IS turning into something phenomenally expensive because I am leaving the country and turning it in. Well, this is how. Marin Jewish Community Center became my Mecca while here in Marin County – how in the world can a Muslim have a Jewish Community Center as her Mecca AND I am leaving anyway – so who cares? I shall have no sad memories and yearning to be there thanks to this woman. Everyone else was great but she is quite horrible – well she was to me anyway. And the car? Perhaps I will go and get other appraisals done and give them really bad publicity if their appraisal is out of line. It cannot be that much work and other appraisal places can be provided to me.
I hate being a victim – that is tiring. Have you ever met an energetic victim? I never have. They are drags, low energy drags. Think about it.
