This morning, I went powered hang gliding. That’s kind of like a cross between a plane and a hang glider, or like a hang glider with an engine on it. I really enjoyed it. Compared to a plane, it had a simplicity to it that I found really nice. I guess it was a little like when I first sat down on my scooter; I said “this is it”. Of course it’s not that simple; the thing costs $60k brand new, and of course you have to get a pilot’s license. Once, a few years back, I started getting my pilot’s license, but a combination of money and time made me have to give up on that.
Actually, that sentence is a little bit of a polite fiction. Certainly money was an issue; at the time I was doing the pilot’s license, I was way overextended financially. And time was a problem; I was trying to do it out in Concord to save money, and that was quite a commute. But if I was being honest, there’s another factor that eventually fed into me stopping. That factor - that thing - is a thing that I don’t really have a name for. Some people would call it “depression”. And that probably has an element of truth to it. But that word is so overloaded these days. When people think of depression, they think of sad people sitting in blue rooms on TV commercials for Prozac or some such. The thing is, depression - or whatever you want to call it - comes on a total spectrum. Of course there’s the “woe is me I am worthless” style of depression. I’ve felt that way from time to time. But then there’s the day-to-day thing. The feeling you get at 4 pm in the afternoon at your desk, for example. Lethargy. Sloth. The Oatmeal - one of my favorite webcomics - calls it The Blerch, and designed a whole character, a sort of lumpy fat couch cushion kind of guy that says things like “you can have one more cookie”. To me, that feeling sits on the same spectrum as depression. It’s sorta the same thing, just less so. And I’ve spent a lot of my life fighting against that feeling. I hate that feeling. And, yes, I use the word “hate” deliberately. It’s my worst enemy. It comes on me when I least expect it. Certain things seems to exacerbate it - not sleeping enough, of course, or not sleeping well. Drinking too much alcohol, or too much caffeine. Having it be way too hot out has been part of the problem this week. Not getting enough exercise. A lot of the things I enjoy in life are a direct response to this. I like sleeping, and drinking water, and exercising, because they make that feeling go away. This week I’ve had a hard time with this because of the change in environment, and because I’m not getting enough exercise, etc. etc.
I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that finding out how to keep that feeling at bay is the most important thing I will do with the rest of my life. Why does it make me so angry? Because, deep down, I am a really optimistic and energetic guy about life. I have a lot of things I want to get done. Become a personal trainer, run the Boston marathon, meet a beautiful woman and have two kids and, yes, learn to fly a powered hang glider.
A programming note: my next journey, Phase III, is going to start on the 26th or 27th and take me from Jacksonville to Melbourne Beach, then Orlando, then back to Jacksonville, for a total of about 450 miles!