When it Rains it Floods

“The rain is falling ever harder and all I can hear is the sound of the water. I’m drenched but I can’t move.”

Paulo Coelho

Thursday

We only had one day at school. Storms hit Monday night and Dubai has been flooded all week.

Two days after the rain has stopped, there is still flooding.

Another week done.

Friday

“Ô, Sunlight! The most precious gold to be found on Earth.”

Roman Payne

Up before the sun and driving to Ras Al-Khaimah for a paddle.

The sunrises over the buildings and the smog creates a kalidescope of colours that the camera cannot catch.

These were the Kuala Lumpur sunsets. The sun blasting through pollution. A sickening beauty that is hard to put into perspective.

One of the best things about the weather warming is swimming on the ocean when you paddle.

A human turd floats past and I lose the impulse for a swim.

The owner of the turd can rest easy, it was a perfectly formed, healthy stool.

I finish The Crossing and start the third novel in the trilogy, Cities of the Plain.

McCarthy is famous for a few novels. From a literary perspective, his fans and critiques often reference Blood Meridian as his best work. The Road and No Country For Old Men were both made into movies which has afforded them popularity.

I can’t split All The Pretty Horses and The Crossing which would be my favourite novel from McCarthy. Honest, raw, and tragic, the characters are slowly developed across stunning landscapes. The heartbreaking conclusions are a hallmark of his writing.

“It had ceased raining in the night and he walked out on the road and called for the dog. He called and called. Standing in that inexplicable darkness. Where there was no sound anywhere save only the wind. After a while he sat in the road. He took off his hat and placed it on the tarmac before him and he bowed his head and held his face in his hands and wept. He sat there for a long time and after a while the east did gray and after a while the right and godmade sun did rise, once again, for all and without distinction.”

Cormac McCarthy

I spend the afternoon reading while keeping an eye on the footy.

We watch Dune 2, which is excellent and go to bed early.

Saturday

“I think we should stop treating [“God works in mysterious ways”] as any kind of wisdom and recognize it as the transparently defensive propaganda that it is. A positive response might be, “Oh good! I love a mystery. Let’s see if we can solve this one, too. Do you have any ideas?”

Daniel Dennett

Daniel Dennett has passed away.

I first encountered Dennett when he was working with three great minds, Harris, Hitchens and Dawkins. Hitchens was the contrevrsial firebrand, Harris the quiet genius, Dawkins the plain speaking scientist.

In these four, Dennett was the soft spoken gentleman who always kept any conversation balanced with humility and the ability to find common ground. In recent conversation with Jordan Peterson, where the views could not be more conflicting, he found a common ground of sensible conversation with the normally truculent Peterson.

His work resonated with me. As a fan of both Sapolsky and Harris, who discuss our lack of free will in a scientific framework, I always struggled to accept the notion. Dennett, the philosopher, was a great counterpoint in favour of free will.

Dennetts 1984 book, Elbow Room: The Varieties of Free Will Worth Wanting, remains as relevant today as it was 40 years ago.

He will be missed.

“f you can approach the world’s complexities, both its glories and its horrors, with an attitude of humble curiosity, acknowledging that however deeply you have seen, you have only just scratched the surface, you will find worlds within worlds, beauties you could not heretofore imagine, and your own mundane preoccupations will shrink to proper size, not all that important in the greater scheme of things.”

Daniel Dennett

The Pies thump Port, coming from 30 points behind to win by 40 and the footy seems normal again.

I spend the afternoon reading with an eye on the football.

I have been battling a cold for the last ten days. I have no idea what is going on with my immune system, but I am constantly holding this illness at bay.

As I fall asleep, I feel like shit.

Sunday

“Illness is the night side of life, a more onerous citizenship. Everyone who is born holds dual citizenship, in the kingdom of the well and in the kingdom of the sick. Although we all prefer to use the good passport, sooner or later each of us is obliged, at least for a spell, to identify ourselves as citizens of that other place.”

Susan Sontag

I am a citizen of the sick this morning.

No gym.

Rest.

I am not sure what is happening with work tomorrow. There is a region in Sharjah where a lot of teachers from the school live that remains cut off dur to the floods.

It has been a little over a week since we came back from Europe. While we were traveling, there was no gym. We might have walked over 10km each day, but we drank every day and moderation was not on the radar when it came to food.

I haven’t weighed myself, but I would guess I have about 5kg to lose.

There is only one way to lose weight, and it is very simlple, calorie defecit.

Every diet works on this principle, no exception. Fasting puts you in a deficit. Cutting out carbohydrates puts you in a deficit.

If you are in a deficit, you lose weight, with very rare exceptions. There is no way to argue this simple method. At an extreme deficit, for long enough, you starve to death.

This is always the counter to people who claim deficits don’t work.

‘oh, you are saying that if you stopped eating your body will magically maintain weight and there is no possible way you can starve to death?’

Mike Israetel

Deficits fail for a few reasons. Firstly, calories are really hard to track with a varied diet, especially if you are not preparing your own food. To have an accurate idea of how many calories in a meal, you need to weigh all the components. Painstaking and impossible if you are at a resaraunt.

Anyway….

I have been in a pretty severe calorie deficit for seven days now in an attempt to drop the holiday weight.

I am using chronometer to track my calories. Weighing all my food as I prepare it. My BMR (base metabolioc rate) is set at 2500 calories. I use this as my limit and pull myself into deficit with exercise.

It is hard work.

I sleep most of the day.

I don’t think I was this sick when I had COVID.

I can’t regulate my body temperature. I am at once shivering cold and hot.

“Theories that diseases are caused by mental states and can be cured by will power are always an index of how much is not understood about a disease.”

Susan Sontag