Remarkably, it was only when I started to study Experiences and Design that I realized the glaringly evident biological fact: mood can affect our perceptions and actions. If we’re in a good mood, we tend to be more generous, forgiving, and perceive positively ambiguous situations. Hashtag epiphany. Yay.
This is how mood disorders set off a downward spiral. You wake up in a bad mood. Small irks become ire. Hostility and enmity pervade every crevasse of interaction. You feel all the more validated that living IS but slowly dying and life is misery. And you would be correct because that is how your mood has predisposed you to perceive things. Perception trumps reality pretty much all the time.
This is one of the things that fall under the “duh” category of self-explanatory. But when you really measure your life against it under a magnifying glass, you fall far short… like “living healthy”, and “eating well”, and “practicing gratitude”, and “I support women”, and “I’m not racist”.
I used to rely on alcohol as my mood booster. I drank to relax, drank to sleep, drank to work up the energy to talk to people, drank before a big presentation at work. I drank when I felt good. I drank when I felt bad.
Then my health fell apart and I stopped. Nothing dramatic. There was no intervention. No self-help groups. I just stopped. I have consumed less alcohol over the past 26 months than what I used to drink in a single week. The downside is, I have also written less over the past 26 months than what I used to write in a single week. (Ok this part is hyperbolic… less than what I wrote in a month, maybe).
For the past year (before Covid-19 gummed up everything) I’ve been searching for mood boosters to replace alcohol.
I’d like to say that sex works… but it’s been so long that I might well consider myself a virgin at this point.
Ice Cream was great… and for a while, I had ice cream at the frequency with which I used to drink. The problem with that is, I currently retain the same mass, but occupy approximately 30%-50% more volume.
Then I tried running and injured my knee, my foot, and probably my ego. It turns out one’s body doesn’t work the same way when it’s all inflated and wobbly and jerks in all directions through momentum rather than locomotion. Also, I’m lazy.
That said – walking is great. Without my hourlong walk at lunch, I’m sure my colleagues would be dead by now.
So now I’m back to writing.
Writing used to be the outcome of my mood, good or bad. Now I want see if it can be the instigator of it.
#00117F 