STOP OPTIMIZING!!!!

I have been thinking about writing this for a long time, and here it is. I get into it below, but to be clear again: I am not coming after anyone’s journey to sobriety or healing via abstinence or anything else - and I hope it does not seem like that! Also subscribe to The Small Bow if you’re like me and on journeys like that, because it really is quite good. Also I did my little elliptical sweat cardio today, and that stuff is good too. Carry on.

I was 31 years old when I discovered there was a company making pre-packaged “cookie” mix that would turn cookies into fuel. The use of the word cookie irritated me, but more than that I was irritated by the notion these “cookies1” needed their own specific branded wax-paper and foil. I worked in a warehouse and when I walked by them sitting on pallets, I kicked the wood, incensed.

People have seventy dozen used rolls of ALUMINUM FOIL AT HOME ALREADY! I yelled to anyone in earshot. People indulged me. These cookies also proclaim that people need to forget the stigma that cookies are just for dessert2. As though enjoying something like an actual cookie warrants the word stigma. Because of course we now must only enjoy things if they will better us.

I don’t know when this started to bother me so much. I like to think I have moved on from the 19 year old sitting on the college co-op steps smoking with friends, biting back to someone pointing out that cigarettes would kill me. I’m kinda counting on it. I don’t appreciate nihilism, and I don’t think I did then, either. I definitely did not like anyone telling me what was common knowledge to me since age eight.

The proliferation of think pieces of alcohol has also not done very much to endear me to the notion of continual betterment of the self, especially because most of the time, lately, they sort of lazily fall back on the impact on the physical self. I am not going to link to these articles because they are everywhere. Does bicycling have a drinking problem? Does running? Does ______? Probably so! The generally macho and obnoxious cultures of lots of outdoor activities combined with what is sometimes a compulsive activity of drinking after an event can be pretty toxic. Once I was talking with someone on a bike trip because I wanted to ensure their sobriety was respected, because clear discussions of how to be respectful actually end up being pretty simple. They noted the space of all queer/womentransfemmenb riders, drinking some beers around the campfire was safe for them. Dayriding in their Pacific Northwest town and having beers shoved at them from men holding mountain bike races without consent? Shitty.

I could go on about my own questioning about alcohol in spaces as a problem (see: queer community with a bar locus) but that’s not my point. Because I do enjoy bringing a Falstaffian attitude to sport-bike events, and I am also quite aware of womenish bodies not enjoying the same privileges of drunk men. 3

It is the notion of upkeep of the body, however, that upsets me most. Last weekend I grabbed lunch and beers with old friends I hadn’t seen in a while, and one of them is an infectious disease doctor. How we got on the subject, I’m not sure, but I once again brought up my irritation with thinkpiece articles.

DID YOU KNOW ALCOHOL IS POISON?

She began laughing. Who knew!? 

How anyone doesn’t know alcohol is poison might be beyond me. I knew it when I threw up in college drinking too much Goldschlager, and I know it approaching forty when my at-the-time good idea of taking a tequila shot with a twenty-something means the next morning is ruined. Beer is poison, cookies are full of delicious sugar and fat, and doing shit for fun means you may not get the statistics on every. single. factoid about your sack of bones and blood sent directly to your smartphone.

Being healthy is great. Going for a walk outside always makes my day. I’ve come to somehow enjoy brown rice more than white, most of the time. I’m glad I don’t smoke cigarettes anymore, but I am known to bemoan I miss them all the time (and when I’ve thrown caution to the wind and had one, I regret it almost immediately.) But I am so tired of everyone having to optimize their body all the time. Please stop.

Maybe what I mean is please stop sharing it as though it is natural, or an accomplishment, or you have figured out a secret to a good life. Which is difficult, because I do feel warmly about friends dedicated to Accomplishing Things With Their Body. What I am tired of is the insinuation that this is the only way to live, and to live cleanly, or efficiently, or in the pursuit of a body’s accomplished perfection all the time is morally better than anything else.

I’m not talking about capital-S Sobriety, to be clear. Sobriety is not the same as determining, loudly, WHY ANYONE DRINKS IS BEYOND ME. Sir, I have a lot of reasons for you. But if it’s not the alcohol that causes the cancer, it seems like there’s a lot of other random options for you.

I like to think this isn’t a cynical perspective. Nobody is forcing me to hook up beep-boops to my arms or bike, or buy goo and powder. But I think the wild swing between hedonism is standard in hobbies to here’s my data on how efficient my body is working and any variation on this will doom me is exhausting. Presently we seem to be in more of the latter. This doesn’t even touch on the context I’d like to provide with the notion of why do fun bad poisonous things. Because it’s fun. Because life is hard, and you may increase your odds of avoiding disease because you are not drinking or eating clean, but people who live difficult lives (see: the working class!!!) are going to face all the doom you fear. Being poor, not having health insurance, not having good health insurance, suffering because you are mentally ill, trying to get by - we KNOW these things mean shitty blood pressure, heart disease, and being surrounded by life’s poisons (environmental racism anyone? maladaptive coping strategies that actually work?). Ain’t no Strava account or fuel-cookie gonna make that better. 4

Meanwhile the pursuit of betterment and accomplishment continue to weigh down heavily on, well, everything. To that end we are sold and sponsored by food that isn’t food or beer that isn’t beer (to be fair, I like Athletic Brewing, but talk about the right place and right time). We are given cheeky little posts and isn’t this WILD about eating gas station snacks while we conquer the world, when like, buddy, just eat some frozen pizza once in a while and enjoy a damn Dr. Pepper. We cannot enjoy things for enjoyment’s sake, but only if we have accomplished something, and to accomplish it, we must constantly optimize.

Currently I’m titrating and have about stopped taking medication because when I was put on it, 9 years ago, the optimal outcome was not trying to die, either in mania-induced accidental self-immolation or just garden-variety suicide. Twice a year I get my labs done and out comes the results to reassure me my kidneys and liver aren’t broken, along with just about everything else you could want to know. I have spent so much time anxious about how a simple salt (Li2CO3) could tank me, because I have known over 9 years I need to pay attention to ensure my organs won’t fail. There are many worlds in which the thing that will keep me alive is guaranteed to poison me.

And so over nine years I have been generally anxious about this outcome and committed to staying the course because the consequences scared me more. Earlier this year, however, it became clear that my thyroid had begun to malfunction, as it had been doing slowly. Likely, my doctor said, it was because of the lithium. Slowly the dose went down and down and now my body is figuring out what my blood is like as the salt exits my system. It’s a weird little gold standard of a drug for your brain. I’d never done any research before, because I didn’t want to know, but finding out electrolytes are funny things has really blown me away.

How does it feel? I don’t really want to say, now. Optimal would not be the word. There is likely no world in which the tradeoffs I make as an individual will make me better or faster or stronger5. Being better for me isn’t an ultra or tallying up how much money I spend when I enjoy a bad-for-me activity and digitally proclaiming it to the world. I want to be better in that I want, most days to wake up and be alive.

I want to keep seeing the world. I want to drink cascading Txakoli and eat homey oxtail and ride my bike wherever I want and especially without anyone knowing where that is and have one more drunk cigarette at a wedding at 2 AM and enjoy the smell of gasoline and have anxiety pills for when I’m panicking. I am uninterested in the notion living well is defined by the ability to outsmart death, which, well.

I would like to live well.

So I entreat, again, please stop optimizing. Try it out. Just be good to yourself, however you need to, sober, vegan, fast, mindful, whatever. In this case, and this case alone, I would really like to give you a cookie.

anyway, moderation I guess, nobody needs to be the optimal dumbest guy at the bar, but Alex Cameron is pretty great - til next time!