When Biology Becomes You - Into An Orange World (everything I learned about life, I learned from cordyceps, part 1.5)
Have you ever become so involved in something that it overcomes your entire being? It is all you think about. You problem solve it as you go throughout the other more mundane tasks. You dream about it, wake up about it, bite your fingernails about it, get in distracted driving crash about it. Of course you have. It is part of our biology to fixate, some of us more than others, but it is within all of us.
I am a high level fix-ator. For better or worse, I will obsess, become overtaken by newness, by learning, by biology. I got that black lab in me.
Music has long been my top obsession, to the point that my wife says “you don’t listen. You consume.” Maybe its the music that consumes me. Did I start this? Or did biology?
The past month I have allowed a new biology to overtake me. The biology of fighting, boxing. It is infecting.
Here is the basic routine:
Go to bed at 8:30, lie awake rehearsing anxiety for a 4:30am wake up, dream of not knowing anything, wake up at 4:30am, eat a banana, take cordyceps and lion’s mane, drink a glass of water, go to the gym (an unfamiliar place for a nature boy), take more cordyceps, train with class, realize that you indeed don’t know anything, wonder if 40 is too old to learn, go for a mountain bike ride as fun cross-training, crash the bike, realize that 40 is perfect for learning, remember that you aren’t doing biology but are the biology…
And isn’t this just experiencing being alive? It’s easy to become obsessed with the whole existen…
….1*
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testing….
check, test….
…………………
Welcome back to the severity of opinion and expressionless nihilism that is S.P.A. (Sea Pirates of America), your one stop shop for gaslit existentialism so fiery you will forget to perform digestive elimination.
This land is your land, this land is mine, all mine, happy thanksgiving, ya filthy animal. La, la, la, la, fa, la, la.
I will be your tour guide across the forceful gratitude fray and into the ATP filled world of Orange freedom. I will show you ways in which you can, by allowing fungal collusion, regain self-agency and become fulfilled once again.
…… (whoosh)…… ahhhhheeeemmmmm, fleghhhhh-ttteeeeew……
It won’t be long until you feel the take over begin. I would highly suggest you call your loved ones and inform them of how you will present next they see you.
You are welcome. You can make it what you want it to be. You can’t control anything that you believe you are controlling. You are never allowed to stop. You will never go anywhere. You have everything you need. You won’t succeed with only what you have.
If you are hoping to be able to get out of this overtaking, you are merely wishing. You can’t hope upon a star, and you can’t wish yourself across a finish line. We are all overcome.
And if we are wise, we will look at the overcoming as an opportunity to bear down, deeper within, and witness the possibility of a shared community of biology. It is an opportunity to become a part of, not a part removed.
If we are to optimize our existence, we must live with continued curiosity, learning, and overarching kindness.
Learning to box is difficult for the body and the mind. Cordyceps continue to help me show up each morning feeling a bit more supercharged than I myself could manage. The lion’s mane helps keep my brain a bit more organized. The community at the gym and the cause I am fighting for give me purpose to push myself physically and mentally each morning. Every one of these are a mycelial thread with an appressorium aimed at overtaking me and sweeping me up into this newfound territory of Orange World.
… this is Orange World… you are my host… begin familiarization and optimize your organism… no organism may exist here without continuing to optimize…
