2024-08-30
Really, the entire purpose of these wvs is to ramble, or at least to write my thoughts freely, and so in a way, nothing here constitutes a ramble, in the sense of something that is in a way disallowed, or unwanted for the wv, given that it is allowed by the very nature of the enterprise. Oh, to overthink.
This will be number forty. It's hardly 100; it's just an arbitrary number ending in a zero. Somehow, it still feels impressive to have even made it this far: 4% done. It's taken a year (well, nine months) to get to this point. There is some sort of imagery about childbirth, and creation, to be found there, but I don't really want to bother to try phrase it.
I've been going to the gym since April, so now five months. I'm not sure how my "gains" compare to others, nor do I exactly care, but I've noticed a definite leaning up of my arms, which are what I have mainly focussed on. When I tense, my arms are a lot tighter now, and less squidgy. Of course, there is still a long way to go; in fact, I don't really know what I want to achieve from it. I will pursue it into next year, I have decided, and will try to make good progress. This will be I suppose achieved by aiming for progressive overload, or trying to increase the weight that I can lift well and without excessive difficulty. I can tell it is increasing gradually, but of course it does take time. I've also shifted only recently from machines to free weights, and have found that my knowledge of my body, and of the exercises that I am performing, is increasing by way of that. Taking the difficult route, of sorts. At least, the one that requires a bit of learning.
The main thing that I dislike at the moment is my stomach, that is still quite large. I will need to remedy this by losing weight. Ideally, I can get to the point of a six-pack or at least just some prominent core muscles. Really, the visual display is more for myself, that I feel good about myself, than anything else.
I'm going to - potentially to celebrate, I might argue - go for a walk after this. It's already dark of a nighttime, it now being September, and is already as I write at gone-nine completely black out (except for street lights). It's amazing in a way, and lovely, and I so very much enjoy walks of a nighttime. It has an odd allure to it, the idea of being almost entirely alone, and seeing the city when there are so few people about. The night has a strange reputation within culture, as something of magnificent beauty, and associated with those times of coming back from clubs late at night, drunk, a modicum of precarity or danger, and an association with crime, drugs, rape, murder. Yet, going out for walks at this time, it has a completely different idea; there is still a certain worry associated with it, even though I've no fear of the dark. Perhaps it is inherently human to fear the dark in some way. Yet, it is tranquil, unlike the day filled with cars and noise and pollution and throngs of people, and relaxed, and timid in a way, reticent. It is a time of retreat, introspection, thought, relaxation. I can almost walk just to walk, where during the day I feel almost unjustified if I do not walk to somewhere, from somewhere, with the destination as the object, not the walking itself.
Duties are quite tiresome. I noticed in the garden that some of the plants are looking a little dehydrated, and the allotment (out of sight, out of mind) is likely in a terrible state. I have yet to really put much effort into it - I was planning to this week just gone, but have not - and it is really not in a great state, I know. I am not particularly bothered. I feel as if gardening, and tending to the plants that seem to need endless protection, and do not really offer me anything this year (a few tomatoes and that's it) is really quite tedious. Of course, in a way this is me becoming burnt out with it due to the poor harvest this year, and the prevalence of slugs as a pest, and the like that really destroyed my harvest a bit. Still, I will have to take care of it - from tomorrow, definitely - and return to a position where things are on a good track. I want the gardening to, next year, be something I can almost be proud of, be something where I do not need to investigate huge great swaths of time to it and still get something approaching a good harvest, and enjoy my time doing it a little more. In a way, part of it is because I have decided not to do several things such as strimming that would make my life easier (less slugs) and am still undecided on what I need to do in terms of paths or other things. Really, it doesn't matter, because I just need to get things done, and maintain them, and the maintenance is the important part. I had a fantastic tomato crop last year, but have not had such this year. Next year, next year, I tell myself.
Next year, I guess I really do just want to carry on with what I've begun this year. Allotment (started last year), guitar (started this year), gym (started this year)... I am really changing a lot as a person in the past few years, with something fairly major each year. Perhaps, this is a result of my changing a lot as a person, and growing up. I also want to begin to try motorcycles, because I do enjoy them, and it would afford me a little freedom in terms of doing motorbike tours, or going to the Lake District or other places on holiday where UK public transport is... lacking. That is the whole UK, really, and so if I want to live here, I do just need to give in a little and try to go with it. Of course, this in no way means using it for every journey, which is horribly wasteful; in fact, I would want to find some way to offset the fuel that I pay to BP or Texaco or whatever. Well, a lot of the money is actually tax to the government, but still. It is bad what is happening to the environment. Of course, I ride a train every day, so I really can't speak. I do wonder whether it is actually something I should do, or if it is giving in to a bad thing.
And then to 100, and 200, and so on. I do want to keep this up, as best as I can, though I worry it's going to slip at some point, or I'm going to get busy with other things, or not going to be able to come up with ideas. I suppose the good is that I don't need to write anything overly impressive, and of course nobody is really going to read this. So, here's to fifty. I'll be there soon, and then I've a hundred, or whatever, and nine hundred and fifty left. A lot of work, but I'll get to thirty and think, wow, I'm at XXXX, and realise it's because of a lot of small bits of work that have piled together into a sizeable corpus of mostly rambling, and occasionally something halfway acceptably written.
With that, I'll go for my walk. Have a good one.