A few months ago I began to feel exhausted and generally wretched all the time. Early in the afternoon I’ll feel a deep weariness sink into me. My legs will ache and I’ll feel as if I’m sinking into my chair. My thought will become fuzzy. I find it difficult to concentrate. What is this? Is it normal? Is this what it means to age? I’m only 34. I shouldn’t feel this way. Do I not exercise enough? Am I not eating the right things? Do I drink too much? Am I depressed? Is it stress?… Or is it something more frightening like cancer? For all the talk of embodiment these days, I can see why philosophers in previous centuries were so resistant to the body. It weighs one down. It is finite. It suffers. It gets sick. It gets fatigued. It distracts thought with appetites and passions. Next week I begin to swim.
May 3, 2008 at 3:45 am
Dr Sinthome, 34 is very old for the fast-paced lane of capitalism, so you shouldn’t be surprised that you’re getting early onset cancer.
May 3, 2008 at 3:57 pm
What is this?
Maybe you’re depressed. Or, maybe you have mono. Or, maybe you’re exhausted. Take a few weeks off, getaway from everything, and just relax.
May 3, 2008 at 4:24 pm
How have you reflected on the role of compulsion in your life?
May 3, 2008 at 5:15 pm
A lot of people need and take mid-afternoon naps to relieve fairly common mid-day fatigue. But given that this is fairly recent and that it involves aches and pains, a physical might not be a bad idea.
May 3, 2008 at 8:23 pm
I also vote for physical. Who knows, could be a thyroid thing. Fatigue symptoms go with any number of possible ailments, big and small.
In the office pool I’m going to put my money on ‘existential crisis’, however. You’re just not dogmatic enough to maintain the defenses on your Meaning systems against valid arguments from different perspectives. Maybe you just need to get reterritorialized?
Oh, and move your feet. ;-)
May 4, 2008 at 4:27 pm
Still thinking this through. I actually feel exactly like this when I get dried out. Are you drinking enough water?
You’re also grading papers, as am I. By this time of the year paper ptsd has set in for me. I look at the stack of essays, that abyss talking back to me, and I go numb.
If this is it I win because it’s a subset of existential crisis.
May 4, 2008 at 11:48 pm
If it starts early in the afternoon — the same number of hours relative to when you wake up — it might very well be a thyroid disorder. A few years back, I suddenly acquired an irresistible urge to nap six hours after I woke up. Turned out to be thyroid cancer, but it could’ve been a basic hypothyroidism. If so, it’s a cheap thyroid supplement every morning and a blood test every couple of months.
May 5, 2008 at 7:59 pm
You refer to the body as an it.
More kindness please!
I have been a fan of your blog for ages (even before in yahoo groups) so dont get ill.
You are too open minded. Try closing your mind down a bit (dare i say use your president or my prime minister as a model here). Recovery will be swift. Get walking. Get swimming.
Students are only there to be treated with the utter contempt that they truly deserve hehe.
May 6, 2008 at 4:13 pm
My goodness, don’t make a fuss of that… it’s very simple: go to a doctor, and get walking, or get swimming…RIGHT NOW! not “next week”…
PS: I admire you and your blog; I learn a lot. So, don’t be fatigued, don’t leave me/us alone…
May 6, 2008 at 6:05 pm
so much kindness in the world… damn! cheer up levi it’s probably just an early mid-life crisis
May 7, 2008 at 3:41 pm
This would make an ominous final post if you were to decide once and for all to quit blogging.
May 7, 2008 at 3:49 pm
No, No, I’m not going to quit blogging. It’s the end of the semester here, so I’m swimming in a pile of final essays and haven’t had time to post anything. As for the fatigue, it’s a combination of too little sleep, no exercise, and taking on too much. I plan to start swimming next week and will go get a physical.
Thanks for all the comments folks. As Mikhail said, there’s a lot of kindness in the world.
May 7, 2008 at 3:49 pm
Maybe he’s just pupating!
May 8, 2008 at 5:47 am
This would make an ominous final post if you were to decide once and for all to quit blogging.
Clysmatics it’s impolite to display your projections with such banality on a Lacanian blawg!
May 8, 2008 at 7:40 am
It’s like your mind wants/can do more (especially with the thought that there is just so much left to do . . .), but your body stops you. Yeah, I feel that all the time. In my case, it’s my eyes unable to stand long stretches in front of the computer or even a book. Someone has told me before that perhaps it’s my body warning me to take a break, rest . . . But perhaps there are things we can do to increase our body’s longevity? Such as good health, a more balanced lifestyle, new reading ergonomic techniques . . .? Swimming would help, I think. What I do now is work in the morning, then go to the gym at noon, then get back to work in the afternoon, then get enough sleep. It’s been working overall. Hope you feel better!
May 12, 2008 at 3:55 pm
A year or so ago I found myself experiencing very similar symptoms. A year before that I had switched to soymilk in my coffee and ferquently made juice drinks with soy milk etc. basically I was eating a lot of soy products. It confused me because I was doing a lot of excercise and eating well. Someone told me that these symtpoms can result from too much intake of soy products, I did some researc hand found it to be correct, I think it effects the nervous system but cannot remember exactly right now. I stopped and the symtpoms stoped after a week or so. I feel much better since.