Tolerance

Let’s talk about tolerance. I don’t mean the hippy world-peace kind, I’m talking biology and chemistry level tolerance. The body and mind’s resistance, natural or learned, to changes in mental or physical state due to… okay, you get the idea.

I was sick this weekend. I dunno if it was really sick or not but it sure as hell felt like it. That’s the thing: I can’t tell. I very rarely get sick. Yes, I am bragging a little bit, but this comes with one (albeit perhaps perfectly acceptable) drawback; whenever I do get sick, I am not prepared for it in the slightest. It knocks me on my ass and I turn into a whiny baby and I feel as pathetic as I do awful when that happens. I believe this is primarily due to me not getting sick often so I’m just not used to the feeling of being sick.

I think there are a lot of other similar kind of tolerances we build up. Some are obvious, like alcohol. Over the years, I’ve become used to the feeling of that sort of buzz. It takes quite a bit more booze today than it did, say, a decade ago, to get the same sensation. And even then, I’m comfortable with it now. Sure, you lose some of your motor ability and what not but I get the feeling I’m much more in control of myself than very infrequent drinkers would be simply due to me being comfortable in that state. If you rarely drink alcohol, you’ll probably quickly turn into one of those “WHOA I’M SO DRUNK YOU GUYS” sorts of people if you do. You know you do.

There are other less obvious tolerances. You know that hoverboard craze, right? Those self-balancing scooters. Kind of like a Segue without the upper part for your hands to hold onto. If you try one out, you’ll probably be like most first-timers and wobble like crazy before falling over and not getting anywhere. The trick is to get comfortable with the sensation of falling forward. That’s essentially what you have to do, and it is every bit as [initially] unnerving to the mind as it sounds. We instinctively do not like to fall. It usually means injuries. Part of the thrill of riding these then becomes mastering that instinctive sinking feeling in your stomach when you are about to lose balance and fall. Once you do, you’ll zip around all over the place. You build up a mental tolerance for that falling forward sensation.

Tolerances are weird. The mind is freaky adaptable. We like to think we’re ourselves but we’re always changing and more and more we’re discovering that we’re probably less free-willed and more dependent on chemical reactions than we’d like to admit. It’s just a very very complex and complicated flowchart so as to appear like free will maybe…

Well, at any rate… being sick sucks.