I have been crying all day.
Not just crying, weeping. Because while it has been raining on and off yesterday, the air is full of all the dust that was trapped in the snow during the winter and is now being blown about in the wind. Not only that, the first of the flowering trees have pushed pollen into the air to make it doubly bad for my breathing, as well as many others.
And while it annoys me, I was reading about an interesting study that evaluated 150,000 matriculation exams between 2006 and 2020 which showed that results were worse during pollen season, even if the pollen count was relatively low. This didn't look at only students with allergies though, so they suspect it would be far more pronounced if looking at allergy sufferers more directly. And they looked at the range of subjects, and the worst results were for mathematics and science subjects.
During pollen season, I sleep worse leaving me even more tired, and then there is the constant irritation in throat, nose, and eyes that affect also. Even though I take allergy medication year-round, once it starts working to lessen the allergic response, its side-effects are more pronounced. And I know that I am definitely "not at my best" when I am disrupted by allergies.
And while the study is interesting for the students, what it also shows is how even slight variations in our environments can undermine our abilities to think. OF course, it is obvious that this is the case, where for instance if we have been drinking even a little alcohol, our faculties can change, but we don't usually pay much attention to what we are "going through" in our daily lives.
Most of us don't.
However, I have been pretty systematic at building my understanding of my capabilities under a variety of conditions, at least when it comes to my writing. Because I write daily, I know what it is to like to write ill, tired, depressed, worried, happy, lonely and under multiple other conditions too, like in different countries, in hotels, while on a plane, waiting for a taxi, or multiple times from in a hospital bed, or by a hospital bed. I know when the words are going to flow, and I know when they are not, but requiring flow or good conditions to write, means that there is no way I would be able to write daily, and possibly even weekly.
"Do what you can with all you have, wherever you are."
ā Theodore Roosevelt
"A professional is someone who can do his best work when he doesn't feel like it."
ā Alistair Cooke
I definitely haven't done what I can, nor am I a professional that does his best work, yet I am consistent enough that I have a pretty good idea of what I am capable of when it comes to writing consistently. Yes, not every piece is great, but the average is probably pretty high overall, which means that I can "trust myself" to put out content that is decent, even in adverse conditions, like being drunk. I have always said "Don't drink and blockchain", but it is more a do as I say, not as I do rule, because I have broken it many times.
This doesn't mean everything I write, you will like or appreciate.
Because I am not writing for "you" specifically in mind. You are coming here and reading, but there is a wide and diverse range of people who come here and read, so what resonates with one, might not land with another at all. What one agrees with, might be hated by someone else. However, the internet has created an environment where everyone seems to take what they read or hear personally, as if it is an attack on them, or supporting them directly. Which is quite strange, if you think about it.
Still though, I have been writing like this for a very long time now and I reckon most people who come regularly who don't agree with me, still feel they can show their disagreement and perhaps the next day, come back and find something they do agree with. What bores one person on one day, that same person might find something great to read the next. This is what I have wanted to create around my blog, where it isn't for a particular type of person who is looking for a particular style or topic, but more for people who are interested in seeing what might be on the menu, even if they might not be that interested that day. It is a bit like an old newspaper without the adverts, you don't know what stories are going to be published, until you turn the page.
And as you can see, while this article started off about allergies and how we are affected by them, it turned into something quite different, because that is how my brain works. It cycles through many ideas where one leads to another thought and by the time I get to the bottom of the page, the piece has shifted from what I thought it might be, into something that hadn't even been in my awareness when I began.
And this is why writing helps me process my thoughts.
If we don't give our brains space to think, we will only process the topics that are in our awareness, pushing all the peripheral thoughts out of the frame. And when we sit in front of a TV screen watching content that feeds us so much we don't need to think, even the brief thoughts we have get replaced by the next piece of information so we never think deeply.
I am not intelligent enough to use what I have effectively, nor professional enough to make me wealthy, but at least I can say that I am able to do what I do, no matter how I feel.
Not many can these days.
Taraz
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