It’s 6 am in the morning and I’m already drugged. The only one thing I’m happy about in this morning is the fact, that I’m writing. At the moment – this post. It makes me think about all of this. It actually saves the morning. All other things I’m doing right now are the things I know I will have to fight in the future. Near future. So, let me tell you about them.
Coffee
My relationship with coffee is complicated. On the one hand, I love it: the taste, the smell, the whole ritual of preparing it. People who visit me and ask for coffee usually laugh at my coffee preparation process. I measure the exact amount of coffee grains with this big, plastic spoon dedicated only to this purpose, put them into my simple wooden coffee grinder, and slowly grind them. After this I move the ground coffee into another grinder. This time a smaller, metallic one. Yeah. I like the grains to be very small, so I grind them twice.
Next, I put the coffee into my manual espresso machine and that is where my morning coffee brews. I add some oat milk and sometimes one little spoon of sugar. And this is my lovely coffee. I want to prepare another one just as I am describing this process – this is how much I like it. I could drink it all day long. Only common sense stops me from doing that. Because I know that when I drink more than two or three coffees a day, I start feeling a tension that ruins my day. Also much more dangerous things can happen when I consume too much caffeine – I’ve already seen the results of that.
This whole thing reminds me of something – the times when I was smoking. There are so many similarities to that addiction. I simply love it: the taste, the process, the ritual. It’s actually hard for me to imagine a really nice morning without this whole thing. And the weirdest part is that I had exactly the same feelings about cigarettes many years ago. And also – like cigarettes – coffee gives me this kick, boost, stimulation. God damn it, so many similarities. And just like I quit smoking, I know I will have to quit coffee one day. I know I will do this, and I want to do this. The difference is that coffee is not killing me like cigarettes, and also it seems to have benefits too, at least in reasonable amounts. This is probably the main reason I still haven't resolved my relationship with it. But still – changing me too much, it makes me lose (or rather give away) some of the control, and this is the actual part I don’t like.
Sugar
Oh yeah. Sugar. This is the true, real and more dangerous enemy in my life. To be fair, I don’t have much sugar everyday anymore – or at least much less than ten, or even five years ago. It's sometimes one or two little spoons a day in my coffee, and there are many days when I drink coffee without sugar at all. When I don’t have sugar at home, I simply don’t use it.
Now, at the beginning of the June, I am just finishing the sugar package I bought in December. I bought it to bake a Christmas cake for my parents and after this, didn't even left with a full package. So it’s not much. But still too much for me. It should be just none. Besides, I also like to have a sweet bun at a café once or twice a week. Okay, sometimes three times. And that's probably the biggest part of my sugar intake these days. Well, the added sugar.
Maybe my sugar intake is rather low compared to what it looked like a few years ago, when sweets were a much bigger part of my life. But still, I would rather not have sugar in it at all. I know that sugar – unlike coffee – is more like poison than medicine. It makes my body tired. It gives me false energy – only for a moment – and then asks for repayment with interest. I feel slower, less energetic, less like myself. When you do sport everyday, when you move for several hours, you just know it, you can feel every little change, every little loose of energy – even the subtle one. When you are focused on your health and performance, you can see what is happening to your body, when you use sugar, even in a little doses. And – the most terrifying thing – if you read stuff about health, about body, nutrition, biology, you know what exactly is happening in your body after taking, even a small spoon, of sugar. So, it would be perfect if I could simply get rid of it completely.
Music
So, this one is the weirdest. How can music be a problem? – you can ask. But I think it actually is. Music is an important part of my life. Well, I’m a dancer. Ok, at least I think – or rather want to think – I am. I still feel insecure writing that sentence, but maybe that's another post for another day. So, for now, let’s stay with the safe approach, and just say I dance for few hours everyday. Yeah, I’m over complicating this, I know.
Music is present not only during dance classes. It is there when I write, when I walk, when I drive, when I eat, sometimes when I fall asleep. It is here now, while I’m writing this post. It helps me through almost every part of every day. And lately I started wondering if that is actually a good thing.
I feel that music became a kind of companion that is always there. The question is: what would happen if it wasn't? And I think I know the answer: nothing. Well, it’s like with the sugar or coffee probably – without it, I would be just more calm.
Music affects my brain, it puts me in different modes, it’s a key to my brain. I might say, it’s like hacking myself a little (or a lot?). And on one hand it’s good, having that key, knowing about it and how to use it, but… you know, with great power comes great responsibility. And also: why do I need this actually? Should I be needing this? And I could easily convert this question: is music actually a problem, or maybe my need of using it? It’s not easy for me to explain this, but think this way: I can say, that music is a bit like supplements, maybe vitamins, or a better and stronger comparison would be… painkiller. So, it helps me. But, is it fixing any real, long term problem for me? Or is it just masking the real problem? If I have to take vitamins, supplements, it means that I don’t have this form my regular food or lifestyle. It’s so much better shown with this painkillers example – if I have to use them, it means, that I have to fight with a pain, right? And pain means that something is wrong with my body. Painkillers can help, they can help ending the pain, but they won’t fix the real problem.
So, I am wondering if it isn’t the same with music. I use it, I listen to it so often, just because I used to do this, to control my brain, my mood, things I do at the moment, things I want to do. I’m not even sure if this is bad or not.
There are moments, where I spend time without music of course, there are mornings I do not drink coffee, and there are also many cups of coffee that are sugarless. And I can see in that moments, how different I can be then, calmer, slower. I can see stimulation that those drugs causes to my brain, whole body. And maybe it’s only me, and my need of controlling everything, or rather problem with loosing this control, setting free maybe? I’m not even sure, if I’m using the right word for the things I want to write about my approach to this. But I defenatelly see influence of the music, coffee, sugar, as a potential problem. More I understand how human body works, how habits are made, and how everything affects me, more I want to avoid this influence, changes that those things are making.
I wrote at the beginning, that I will have to fight all of this drugs one day. And I’m pretty sure I will one day. And I’m also sure, that after doing this, I will find another three things, elements, drugs, that are also affecting, or maybe destroying my body, that I want to fight then. Because I have this need to improve my life all the time, need to make it better, to live healthier, longer, better. And you know what? This might be the biggest drug of my life – this need of pushing my life, transforming it, discovering areas where I can do better. And this drug is the only one I don’t want to quit. Because I’m afraid that if I stop questioning myself, stop experimenting, stop trying to become better, I might lose something much more important than coffee, sugar or music.