Monday, October 23, 2006
BREAKING POINTS AND TESTING TIMES
Seeing as my sister is complaining about me pinching her stories, I'll let her tell you about the other barbeque we had yesterday.
Typical bloody journo!
I will instead crap on about myself for a while.
I would be interested to know how many people out there, as a percentage of the great unwashed, ever bother to contemplate, let alone check, their breaking point.
One of the things I'd learnt during the post big bang period is that I'm finally starting to get a clearer picture of how my brain / mind / character operate under stress and where or when I can expect to reach my breaking point.
Now before anyone makes some smart arsed comment about my brain actually operating or the obviously literal pun available in regards to my breaking point ( that means you Mick D and Mick D! ), let me clarify what I mean.
There are various types of characters out there and they all have their own way or method of dealing with stressful situations............or not.
For the sake of keeping things simple I will use some generalised examples.
If we were to look at say, someone being tortured or imprisoned, then we would see what I mean.
Some would reach the breaking point quickly, others would take longer, some would reach it in their heads and not let on physically for much longer, others go quietly, others scream and yell.
Comprende?
Let's think of it as a graphic representation where the vertical axis is the mood or morale of the person and the horizontal one is time.
So, we could say that breaking point is when the measure of the mood or morale hits the bottom axis.
Therefore some people's graph might be a steady decline to the bottom, others might stay pretty flat for a while and then suddenly drop, and then others might just go up and down for quite some time.
My graph would look like something like this:
Steady at the start, slowly starting to wave up and down a bit, a big vertical spike straight down and then just before it hits the bottom it plateaus out for a short time before spiking straight back up and kind of staying around there.
I don't know what happens after that as I haven't gone that far.
Yet.
I remember being on a 3 day bushwalk in the south west of Tassie with a mate of mine.
We were walking in on the first day, making the summit of Federation Peak the next day and walking out on the third day.
Sometime around lunch on day 1 my right knee started playing up.
It didn't stop until a couple of weeks after we'd got back.
By the end of day 1 I was in agony and basically lay there like a dumb bondi cigar that's been washed up onto the beach, trying to rest it up while my mate set up the tent, cooked the food, etc.
The next morning it felt a little better, but I knew that the summit was going to be a killer, what with all the 3 steps up and 2 steps down the multitude of ridge lines that lead up to it.
We made the summit and back and again my mate cooked dinner while I tried to rest the knee.
I'd tried strapping it one way, then the other, it made no difference at all.
The 3rd day, walking back with the now lighter pack I finally cracked.
I couldn't see the wilderness for the beauty it portrayed.
It was just downright sadistic as far as I was concerned.
All I wanted was someone to come in and concrete all the bog holes that sucked my boots in and tried to pull the knee apart, chop out the tree and their roots, remove the rocks, or bring a helicopter and get me the hell out of there and back to civilisation.
After the mental dummy had been spat, I got over myself and got on with the job at hand, getting back to the car.
It took me and extra 3-4 hours to walk back out even with the lighter pack, an improvised staff in my hand to assist me along the long path back.
Step after step, breath after breath, wince after wince I eventually made it back.
Looking back on those kinds of experiences and my latest stressful exercise of convalescence and rehabilitation I have a much more crystallised notion of how far I can push myself and how much I can take before cracking.
And that makes it so much more manageable as knowing how you will react to something enables you to prepare yourself for the inevitable, deal with it when it comes and get on with your life.
When was the last time you were tested or tested yourself?
Yesterday's post BBQ kite flying session.
.
Typical bloody journo!
I will instead crap on about myself for a while.
I would be interested to know how many people out there, as a percentage of the great unwashed, ever bother to contemplate, let alone check, their breaking point.
One of the things I'd learnt during the post big bang period is that I'm finally starting to get a clearer picture of how my brain / mind / character operate under stress and where or when I can expect to reach my breaking point.
Now before anyone makes some smart arsed comment about my brain actually operating or the obviously literal pun available in regards to my breaking point ( that means you Mick D and Mick D! ), let me clarify what I mean.
There are various types of characters out there and they all have their own way or method of dealing with stressful situations............or not.
For the sake of keeping things simple I will use some generalised examples.
If we were to look at say, someone being tortured or imprisoned, then we would see what I mean.
Some would reach the breaking point quickly, others would take longer, some would reach it in their heads and not let on physically for much longer, others go quietly, others scream and yell.
Comprende?
Let's think of it as a graphic representation where the vertical axis is the mood or morale of the person and the horizontal one is time.
So, we could say that breaking point is when the measure of the mood or morale hits the bottom axis.
Therefore some people's graph might be a steady decline to the bottom, others might stay pretty flat for a while and then suddenly drop, and then others might just go up and down for quite some time.
My graph would look like something like this:
Steady at the start, slowly starting to wave up and down a bit, a big vertical spike straight down and then just before it hits the bottom it plateaus out for a short time before spiking straight back up and kind of staying around there.
I don't know what happens after that as I haven't gone that far.
Yet.
I remember being on a 3 day bushwalk in the south west of Tassie with a mate of mine.
We were walking in on the first day, making the summit of Federation Peak the next day and walking out on the third day.
Sometime around lunch on day 1 my right knee started playing up.
It didn't stop until a couple of weeks after we'd got back.
By the end of day 1 I was in agony and basically lay there like a dumb bondi cigar that's been washed up onto the beach, trying to rest it up while my mate set up the tent, cooked the food, etc.
The next morning it felt a little better, but I knew that the summit was going to be a killer, what with all the 3 steps up and 2 steps down the multitude of ridge lines that lead up to it.
We made the summit and back and again my mate cooked dinner while I tried to rest the knee.
I'd tried strapping it one way, then the other, it made no difference at all.
The 3rd day, walking back with the now lighter pack I finally cracked.
I couldn't see the wilderness for the beauty it portrayed.
It was just downright sadistic as far as I was concerned.
All I wanted was someone to come in and concrete all the bog holes that sucked my boots in and tried to pull the knee apart, chop out the tree and their roots, remove the rocks, or bring a helicopter and get me the hell out of there and back to civilisation.
After the mental dummy had been spat, I got over myself and got on with the job at hand, getting back to the car.
It took me and extra 3-4 hours to walk back out even with the lighter pack, an improvised staff in my hand to assist me along the long path back.
Step after step, breath after breath, wince after wince I eventually made it back.
Looking back on those kinds of experiences and my latest stressful exercise of convalescence and rehabilitation I have a much more crystallised notion of how far I can push myself and how much I can take before cracking.
And that makes it so much more manageable as knowing how you will react to something enables you to prepare yourself for the inevitable, deal with it when it comes and get on with your life.
When was the last time you were tested or tested yourself?
Yesterday's post BBQ kite flying session.
.
