Respite and Recharge

 Today, we officially commence April break—the delayed mid-winter break which should’ve happened in March. Not everybody is on April break, but we are. I am. For some reason, my body knew that it’s vacation time and so it started to slow down, sleep in, de-contract (I could’ve just stated “relax”, but we like to be verbose and/or commit grammatical crimes in English around here), and crave salty and sweet. Either that or the “red tsunami” is about to occur. Suffice to say that the absence of a cut-and-dried daily schedule, even for just a week, is certainly something to be grateful for. Not to say that the daily grind is unwelcome—I should be so lucky. In fact, I have a deep regard for what I do. I enjoy it and it’s exhilarating. Add to that is the fact that excluding virtual meetings, the nature of my work entails focused interaction between me and myself. A hyperactivation of my conscious. A process that begins with a task or question as the stimulus followed by some central neuronal activity after which my fingertips begin to talk to a machine using a common language consisting of sequences of symbols resulting to numbers organized in tables or graphs or glaring red error messages if the machine is protesting my unreasonable (or nonsensical) request.

But we’re not here to talk about that. We’re here to discuss my objectives this week: to make bigger than usual batches of cold brew and read some books I purchased on special sale online . Maybe finish that cross-stitch pattern of stacked teacups that I started last year. Or do some leisurely biking at the park. Or bake/cook something new. Paint my nails red. Just rest my eyes from all sorts of  electronic screens. Maybe I’ll wear my contact lenses sometime this week—or not. Or just do what I want to do aside from what I usually need to do, because let’s face it, we all have stuff we need to do no matter what. And almost always, the things we need to do benefit ourselves plus those whom we value. And because we value those we value, ultimately, what we do for them is really a manifestation of our self-serving feel-good motives. So altruism does not exist. Lol. No, I’m not Ayn Rand who says that selfishness is a virtue. Or maybe she didn’t really say it, I’m not sure. I’m dumb. Don’t take what I just said seriously. Symbolic diarrhea.