Struggle is the meaning of life

Me: (watching a contestant on X-Factor) I find her really annoying.
Her: I wanna kill myself.

The wife got me a cane for my injury, which made life immensely better for me although I do think it makes me look slightly ridiculous.

A recent Wall Street Journal article entitled Dirtier Lives May Be Just the Medicine We Need notes that while we’ve destroyed a litany of diseases (tuberculosis, polio, cholera, malaria, etc), we may have replaced them with modern illnesses (asthma, eczema, hay fever, Crohn’s disease, etc).

The hypothesis seems to be that the body must struggle against something. And if it has nuthin to struggle against, it begins to overreact to the things around it.

As an aside, reading my FB feed, I’m starting to think I know a lotta crackpot conspiracy theorists. But I digress…

Bring this up cause my mom is – justifiably – upset that that I got injured yet again.

Her: Why can’t you do something safer? Like cycling?

And of course, nothing is ever safe.

Was gonna tell her that the nature of man is to struggle against something. That there’s this Swahili saying that goes: Life has meaning only in the struggle. Triumph or defeat is in the hands of the Gods. So celebrate the struggle.

And without the struggle, the body and mind will find its own thing to struggle with.

But my Chinese isn’t good enough, and I don’t have the words. So instead, told her I’d consider it.

My wife’s taken to calling me Old Man Logan and took the picture below for her blog.

It’s hard to argue against that characterization.

Forgot to mention that, after I left the gym, took a cab back to my pad. When I got out, a stranger holding two grocery bags looked at me trying to hobble outta the cab.

Him: Can I help you?
Me: No, it’s fine.
Him: (walking to me and leaning down) I insist.
Me: (Putting arm around him) Ah, the kindness of strangers. I’ve got to remember I’m not 17 anymore.
Him: (laughing) You and me both, friend.

Location: home, for the past five days
Mood: slothful
Music: Don’t go looking for trouble, it’s looking for you
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