It’s not just fatigue I’ve been dealing with. The gut is the center of the immune system. An irritant passes through and filters into the bloodstream, kicking off the immune response. It’s a full body event that’s like a low temperature fire. All systems are affected.
It was the damn Chinese chicken. They’ve got that nightmare cocktail of random drugs only a psychopath would put into food, plus the usual horrid CAFO meat product. No organic out here.
Course I’d tried going all shrimp+rice multiple times. Didn’t succeed for two reasons:
1. Most shrimp brands are even more poisonous than the chicken. Sulfates and soy+wheat meal and God knows what else.
2. Not enough shrimp. I need 2-3 200-300 gram bags per day. Never tried it at that level, partly out of caution, partly out of frugality.
The chicken was just borderline poisonous. If I limited my intake to 1-2 breasts per day I could average about 1 cascading error per week, which was enough to make me think koans and regimen adherence was the problem. Fewer fat-soluble toxins get stored in lean meat, and breasts are the leanest. But that’s not enough protein, particularly when the protein is poisonous and thus not well digested. And the occasional big breast would overload me into failure without appearing in the data.
I had two clues to work with:
1. Never wiping clean since coming to Chengdu, which was anomalous. I used to get a clean wipe at least some of the time.
2. Always being in at least a low state of immune response.
Anyhow, after another irresistible crash seemingly precipitated by one of those anomalously large chicken breasts, I reread my Chris Kesser. Step 1 is remove the irritants. So I decided to eliminate chicken and go full shrimp+rice. It worked, far more quickly than my recovery model predicted was possible.
I don’t know what to make of the recent study clearing Accutane of causing IBD. Small sample size invites skepticism, as does massive contrary evidence. But maybe the Accutane-IBD link is a correlative error. There are ample alternative causal factors. First, Thal genetics and a mild version of the SAD. Then, over the early years of my decline, dismissing biological limits as weakness to be pushed through. This attitude culminated in a period of heavy Red Bull consumption. I also exposed myself for years to China Mainland food and water impurities without taking sufficient precautions. It could be that the rate of damage accumulation during this time simply outpaced my defensive efforts and learning rate.
I don’t know what the lesson is here. It reminds me of my battle to properly integrate Christianity, masculinity, and wordliness. There is no substitute for the right answer, and no easy way to reach it.
“If you are real, make me whole,” I cried out to God yesterday. That’s something I never do. I immediately quoted to myself, “Thou shalt not put the Lord thy God to the test.” The next day, I got my reprieve.
My koans held steady throughout the downcycle. No changes, work fine. But nothing’s strong enough to prevent the progression from suppressed to pinned during a full-blown immune reaction. The simplest things are hard, and if you use up the day’s meagre allotment of energy, you’re grateful to bump into walls, because they help keep you upright.
Anyhow, the seeds of the antithesis to the attitude in my last post were present in it. The animal way, process not result, and r vs K provide an alternate pathway for social interaction and meaning.
So even if it’s China to blame, not Accutane, I’d still prefer the decade of physical suffering in the East piercing my Thal biological vulnerabilities to a decade of spiritual suffering under the Cathedral, breathing centuries of anti-Christendom memetic evolution into an ingenopathically unfiltered soul. I think the biological defenses were ultimately easier to build under fire than the soul ones would’ve been.
Exile in the desert sucks, and is supposed to. Now, though, I am going to have some fun.
Of course I could’ve saved myself a lot of trouble by not being an unemployable anti-SJW crusader in the USA, drowning myself in a programming job, and not retreating to the undeveloped East. That’s the path I recommend for full Thals, but for a Christian MT, it’s contemptible cowardice. Young men are inexperienced and rash; their worth is measured in fire, courage and honor. A man who waits for middle aged prudence to challenge evil will only learn how to continue in cravenness. And a man who listens to the advice of defeated fathers is submitting to the counsel of fools. As the Russians understood, when there is no one to teach, the price of victory is much blood.