I need to work harder and do more things. No matter how much I do or how many irons I have in the fire, I need to accomplish more and try more stuff.
Since there are only so many hours in a day, I must take advantage of each and every one of them. Fortunately, when I slow down and become emotionally or mentally exhausted, there is always caffeine to pick me up. Hooray! Another cup and I'll be able to give der Führer maximum effort!
Der Führer, of course, is my own insane drive to accomplish N+1 things where N is the number of things I'm accomplishing now.
It's all nonsense, of course. To borrow from Ecclesiastes,
Vanity of vanities! All things are vanity!
What profit have we from all the toil which we toil at under the sun? One generation departs and another generation comes, but the world forever stays. The sun rises and the sun sets; then it presses on to the place where it rises.
Shifting south, then north, back and forth shifts the wind, constantly shifting its course.
All rivers flow to the sea, yet never does the sea become full. To the place where they flow, the rivers continue to flow. All things are wearisome, too wearisome for words. The eye is not satisfied by seeing nor has the ear enough of hearing.
To zoom in to a much smaller time scale than generations, your body carries a limited amount of fuel in the form of hormones, sugars, fats and so forth. There is a maximum rate at which it can spend them. When the tank is empty, it's empty and you've got to rest and consume in order to restore it.
Vanity of vanities, coffee is simply a turbocharger that burns your fuels faster. The tank still empties.
At the end of such a day, when a massive amount of stimulants have been consumed, what is there to do but consume depressants to counteract the remaining stimulants that have nothing to stimulate besides your jangled nerves? Crack open a beer and get to work calming down. And then another and another.
Bah. It's all vanity. No matter how much we accomplish, never does the sea become full.
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| But wouldn't it be glorious if we really could fill it? Maybe we can! Let's try again tomorrow. |
2 comments:
Yeah, that's one reason why I don't use caffeine (the other is the appalling taste). All it does is shift the period when a person is most alert and productive to a different time of day, it doesn't actually allow them to accomplish any more. And with practice, I think that most everyone can train themselves to wake up alert in the morning without caffeine, as long as they set a reasonable sleep schedule and stick to it.
And there's also the point that caffeine is definitely psychoactive. It has to affect the user's personality, probably not in a good way, whether they admit it or not.
You might want to look at what your goals are. Short term, mid term and long term. Me, I kind of like keeping myself busy with little technical problems. Long term goal is to not deplete my capital so I leave something for my kids. Are you trying to accomplish something, or are you just keeping yourself entertained? Don't underrate entertainment. It you aren't entertained, who knows what kind of mischief you will find to amuse yourself. And I like a decent cup of coffee, though I try to hold it down to no more than two a day.
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