A Small One

The snows of Middle America. Bet they're not having cold showers

Well if I thought one-minute cold showers was emasculating in producing considerable shrinking of ego, then ten minutes produced ungodly results. The stuff of nightmares! But surprisingly it’s not the cold that kills, it’s the boredom. Three or four-minute showers are the norm in Chez Reed, ten minutes and I was running out of body parts to wash. If anything, the cold made for less surface area to clean. Still, when starting the program I never thought I’d be doing perfectly balanced headstands without tipping on my ass, so there are positives to the Wim Hof Method exercises.

The tome this week is Malcolm Gladwell’s Tipping Point, identifying how a product, idea or indeed infection become a pandemic. Alas, he doesn’t cover headstands. The expansive book even covers the evolution of mammalian brain size. Not all mammals, clearly. Robin Dunbar postulates it’s due to social grouping volume: humans live in significant communities, needing to form complex social relationships with not only twenty people, for example, but also how those twenty others interact with one another. In effect, our society demands more processing power. So, if your entire interactions for the last eight weeks amount to exchanging conversation with a succulent about cold showers, like mine have, chances are shrinkage is happening on multiple levels.

Given a busy week at the office, expectations were dialled down this weekend. Activities wholly involved some reading, falling asleep on the couch, waking myself up dribbling (hold yourself back, ladies!) and some walking around the neighbourhood so my belly doesn’t look like I’ve swallowed a cabbage. Or rather, less so. Avoiding the general public remains a hobby. Then of course it’s Week 5 of Wim Hof! I think my flexibility has improved, even if my drawing hasn't. That succulent looks like a hairy biscuit in a cup of tea. Oh, my Christ! I’ve just seen that next week I’m due for ten minutes of cold shower every day. Oooooofff!! I may as well just lop my bits off now.

​Favourite Quote this week – “It’s all good talking about staying at home, but we need to start walking the walk. But at home” Colbert.