{"id":46675,"date":"2019-01-28T05:00:55","date_gmt":"2019-01-28T10:00:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=46675"},"modified":"2019-01-27T13:20:58","modified_gmt":"2019-01-27T18:20:58","slug":"is-there-a-championship-for-solipsistic-self-absorption","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2019\/01\/28\/is-there-a-championship-for-solipsistic-self-absorption\/","title":{"rendered":"Is there a championship for solipsistic self-absorption?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>If so, then &#8220;Alex&#8221; here is an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.takimag.com\/article\/better-off-collecting-stamps\/\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Olympic-class competitor<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The routine of a man called Alex starts as follows (he wakes between 5:55 and 6:45):<\/p>\n<ul>\n<p><em>I wake up and immediately rehydrate. Your body is most absorbent after you sleep, so the first thing you put in it is the most important. I have a glass of Rebel Kitchen raw coconut water (you should be drinking slightly pink coconut water not white, as that\u2019s more concentrated) and dilute it with water at a ratio of 2:1. I take multi-vitamins and vitamin C boosters.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Where, one might ask, does he sleep? The Sahara desert? More likely Chiswick or Clapham (prosperous districts of the inner part of outer London, where the worried-well who think of illness as an infringement of human rights congregate in droves). I was reminded of the medical students whom I used to examine, who brought bottles of water with them to the exam as if it were being held at an open-air bus station in Nouakchott, the capital of Mauritania.<\/p>\n<p>Having resuscitated himself physically, Alex attends to his soul:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<p><em>I do some meditation, where I might recite some mantras. One of them is, \u201cAll my relationships are harmonious and full of love,\u201d which is good if you are working with difficult clients.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Compared with this, Uriah Heep was straight-talking and plain-dealing; but what is most evident in this \u201cmantra\u201d (a word with spiritual connotations) is its complete solipsism. Alex\u2019s relationships, if they can be called that, are either entirely with himself or delusional, because a relationship with another that is full of love requires that the other person should love as well as be loved, for otherwise it is not a relationship.<\/p>\n<p>Having sung some \u201creally relatable mantras,\u201d he \u201cfocuses on each inhale and exhale for five minutes\u201d before taking himself off to the gym for a little \u201cyoga, cardio and weight-training,\u201d after which he returns home \u2014 it is now 7:45 \u2014 to \u201chave a shot of coconut water and glutamine.\u201d By now, he says, his serotonin levels are through the roof, and he showers with organic products and moisturizes with vitamin E oil.<\/p>\n<p>During the rest of the day, he eats nuts, drinks green juice, and swallows activated charcoal and two apple cider vinegar tables \u201cto help with digestion,\u201d as well as digestive enzymes \u201cto help distribute the nutrients all over my body.\u201d And if, when turning in for the night after all this care for himself (and a second spell in the gym), he feels under the weather, he swallows some almond milk with turmeric. Naturally, he believes in the healing, or at least the prophylactic, powers of crystals, and keeps one on his desk, and works by the light of a Himalayan salt lamp, which \u201chelps to absorb the magnetic and radioactive waves that are all around you from wifi and your computer.\u201d All that is missing from his regime to render himself immortal is Hopi ear candles, coffee enemas, and red flannel underwear.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If so, then &#8220;Alex&#8221; here is an Olympic-class competitor: The routine of a man called Alex starts as follows (he wakes between 5:55 and 6:45): I wake up and immediately rehydrate. Your body is most absorbent after you sleep, so the first thing you put in it is the most important. I have a glass [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[39,906,139],"class_list":["post-46675","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health-science","tag-junkscience","tag-mentalhealth","tag-psychology"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/favicon.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-c8P","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46675","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46675"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46675\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46676,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46675\/revisions\/46676"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46675"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46675"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46675"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}