jmtd → log → Chronic

I've been ill for around 18 months. I started off ill, and more recently became more ill, so that I'd mentally divided my illness into two distinct periods. The truth, it turns out, is not quite so clear-cut. My more recent period of malaise spurred me on to seek a different treatment, which has restored me to a state of well-being which I had honestly forgot existed.

It's quite possibly a combination of the desired outcome of treatment and also a side-effect of the drugs I'm on at the moment but I feel both mentally and physically the best I have in a long time. My mind is burning with ideas once again. Responsibilities and chores that used to sap me now seem less daunting. Having acclimatised to a steady-seeming state of being, which turns out to not be "well", I'd started to wonder if, in some respects, I'd reached the limits of my abilities. The knock-on effect of that was, to me, to consider what the future held, in many regards, including in terms of career.

There were some benefits to my prior state of being. I'd begun to learn how to relax, how to wind down, how to not bite off more than I could chew. In particular I'd stopped worshipping at the alter of multitasking and started to give proper attention to one significant task at a time, with corresponding improvements in my productivity.

These useful chunks of self-discipline have fallen to the wayside a little bit now. I'm enjoying a holiday in the body-and-mind landscape of my past. I don't feel too guilty about it. I think I deserve it. But I mustn't linger here too long, lest I forget those hard-won lessons.

I've not managed to follow through on a lot of things I've tried to pick up over the last year and a half: software half-finished; Debian committments uncompleted; and I've felt a lingering sense of guilt about that, but at least I now have an explanation.

Currently reading: Chronic City, by Jonathan Lethem.