Happiness lies in the joy of achievement and the thrill of creative effort.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Thrill & Tiredness

Yesterday I felt a bit of a thrill—a sudden wave of keen emotion or excitement—while cutting out and arranging all of the photographs I’ve created and chosen to post this month. I’ve felt a tiredness—a state of wishing for sleep or rest, a heavy weariness—most of this month, due to frustration from physical injury and ailment, but yesterday, seeing all that I’ve accomplished despite the pain, gave me a thrill.

In The Mind at Mischief, Doctor Sadler sees both Thrill and Tiredness in terms of fear:

“In adult life we sometimes become reckless in the presence of fear. We get a sort of thrill, a “kick,” out of daring adventure. We deliberately court danger in order to get the thrill that is born of recklessness, to enjoy the fascination of daring to defy danger. We should remember that fear is not necessarily abnormal. It is only when it becomes an obsession that it is able to harass us and interfere with health and happiness.”

“When the sympathetic nervous system has learned to short-circuit this affair, and, as the result of chronic worry, to produce—on its own initiative and quite independent of any participation of the adrenal secretion—these psychic and physical manifestations of fear, it is little wonder that it acquires the trick of bringing on this spontaneous, ever-present, and distressful fatigue. It seems to say to itself: “Since the end-product of all this business is fatigue and rest, since all this false alarm I am turning in has no other objective than to wear the patient out and bring on fatigue, I will cut the whole process short and give him an ever-present tired-out feeling. Rest is what he wants. The purpose of this whole performance is to escape from reality, to get out of doing things. Then why should I produce these frequent upheavals involving rapid breathing, thumping heart, increased blood pressure, dizziness, nausea?” And so the chronic state of fear comes to be associated with the chronic state of fatigue. Biologically, the end-result of all fear phenomena would be physical fatigue; therefore, in the modern nervous counter-part of primitive forest experience, we indulge in psychic fear and immediately experience nervous fatigue, a fatigue which is so wonderfully perpetrated as to possess all the earmarks of genuine physical tiredness.”

William S. Sadler, M.D.

So thrill is a contradiction of tiredness in that thrill is a positive, enjoyable reaction to an instance of fear, where tiredness is a negative reaction to chronic fear.

Today’s Images

While looking for a glue-stick yesterday, I happened upon my glitter collection and some clear-drying “tacky glue.” I’ve tried glitter on clear plastic before when creating a snow globe effect with my fish-eye lens. Today I thought it would be thrilling to make “thrill” and “tire” in Morse Code with glue and different gauges of glitter, and see what kinds of textures it creates. Though the glue and glitter only acts to block the light, creating a resist, the changes in thickness due to the glue created a vispo symbolic language effect I enjoyed.

The Prompts

NaPoWriMo

Today’s prompt is to write a poem in the form of a review.

Poem A Day

Today’s prompt is to write a touch poem.

For an extra challenge, I tried the Helipad form for the Nonce Scavenger Hunt.

The Poem

The Touch, the Feel of Tiredness

Here we see tiredness. I do not recommend it. To begin witH
Heavy, droopy, glazed over eyes don't take in all that mucH
Haggard, slovenly, neglected humans aren't a pleasant toucH
Having gone mushy and pokey at the same time, always flincH
HOLLOWLY NOT KNOWING WHAT STARTLED AND WITHOUT ENOUGH OOMPH
Held to get reinspired. Tiredness needs a thrill in a pincH
Hope the sky will fall in or the floor will fall out. PlusH
Harm-free comfort holes could give tiredness positive blusH
Howling wild fear-facing is rough stuff and draining enougH