The body

Today I've had the sudden realization that I write much better when I'm feeling good. And I don't mean feeling well, feeling okay, not feeling ill, but feeling good. It's difficult to sit down and write anything (a paper, blog entry, or even an e-mail, let alone fiction) when I'm feeling tired or "old," as I describe the feeling I sometimes get when every ligament and tendon in my body seems to start aching for no particular reason. I generally don't feel like writing in this condition, and even when I force myself to do it, whatever I produce isn't very good.

It makes me think a bit of the professional eaters you see on TV. The ones who can scarf down 42 hot dogs in 2 minutes, but somehow look every bit as athletic as that guy you know who only eats protein shakes and works out 7 days a week. Clearly, these people work just as hard on their bodies as they do on their eating-an-ungodly-amount-of-food capacities (how exactly one trains for that I don't know, and I'm not sure I'd care to), and I can't help but wonder if staying in shape shouldn't be considered a part of my own professional development. After all, if feeling good is a prerequisite to writing anything halfway decent, shouldn't it be rather high on my priority list? And then maybe I can write off kickboxing lessons on my taxes, too. Hmm...

I suppose the other obvious solution is to learn how to write well even when I'm feeling down, and I'm sure that's pretty important too--after all, a deadline is a deadline, and no matter how you feel when it comes down to the wire you have to meet it. But I guess I would prefer to feel well and write well than just to write well, plus there's just something about feeling lousy that muddles my thoughts, and to be honest I'm not entirely sure about how to go about overcoming that.