#routine

Day 3 of a routine centered around waking up at 5:50 and going for a run. The first day where I didn't wake up exhausted, having got to bed at a decent time; woke up before the alarm, in fact.

But still wondered what the point of it was.

I've also had a ritual of a morning shot of apple cider vinegar mixed with turmeric and cayenne and ginger syrup. Why? They're supposed to be beneficial. They upset my stomach.

Why do anything? My genuine desire in the mornings is to lie in bed and play Two Dots until my morning meeting, then work until the day ends, then lie back down. Sure, it feels like a waste of a day, but do a couple of pre-dawn laps around Tompkins Square Park magically elevate it? What is comfort worth?

I knew a girl at Cambridge who was half-English and half-German and spoke both languages natively. In discussing useful German words that had been adopted into English (like my oft-used schadenfreude) she lamented that we had not taken in schweinehund which translates literally to pig-dog and refers to one's inner voice that always counsels laziness.

I tend to think I have an especially prolific one.

Working from home with a bed and a window air-conditioning unit mere inches from my workspace does little to muzzle the schweinehund.

I don't think I'm unusual in that; but I do think it probably causes me a bit more agita than the average person and ultimately makes me feel a lack of agency in my own life, which has historically been the underlying issue in any of my life crises. Because it puts my present constantly at odds with my desired future. Obviously my past-self never aspires to spend hours on my bed playing a game on my phone or watching Instagram reels. Just like my present-self never sees any appeal to getting up early or running laps around Tompkins Square Park.

All of which is to preface that yesterday I decided today would finally be the day where I force myself back into a routine of more intentional days. As much as I (or the schweinehund) try to talk myself out of early morning exercise, the inherent value of the thing itself is secondary to the initial, immediate conquest of getting out of bed much too early and doing something miserable.

I aspired to six laps around Tompkins Square Park (having calculated that each one is roughly 0.55 miles, so six would be something like a 5k), but settled for two today (with a third walked in-between) since I've gotten even more out of shape than I was the last time I settled into this sort of routine.

There wasn't any sort of euphoria in it. Nor in the breakfast afterwards, nor the Bible reading nor DuoLingo rounds, nor the shower, nor the New Yorker readings over coffee. Mostly there's just a low-level tiredness. But if there's a point to any of this, it's that the pleasure of the present-self doesn't amount to much. It isn't lasting. I know that last night's self that worried whether I would have the wherewithal to get up with the alarm would be happy. And I imagine that tonight's self, feeling deserving of the bed he crawls--exhausted--into, will be as well.