Friday, June 29, 2007

Which downfield receiver to hit?

In football, the quarterback has two types of receivers, a primary and a secondary. He wants to hit the primary first, and if the play breaks down, he can throw to the secondary. Now, I'm taking a nutritional program, and one of the things she talks about is primary and secondary foods. Secondaries are what you stuff in your mouth. I'm becoming smarter about that. The primaries are a different kind of nourishment. Those are your friends, exercise, writing, hobbies, music--activities that feed your other insides. Of course, you have to rely on the secondaries, but the key is (I think) to rely less on them when you're not feeling your best. Like tonight for instance. I was feeling a little down. So I took a drive to clear my head. (good) But I stopped on the way back for a couple of cheeseburgers and fries. (not good). Now I'm still a little down and guilty about the food. (but that's ok--I'm conscious of what's going on). I'm home, eating, and thinking I gotta climb out of this. I fire up iTunes, and click in TSF jazz in Paris. Here's a good primary food--great music from a fantastic city. A couple of songs later, I'm feeling better (hearing "Politely" by Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers helps.) Then I start to think about the primaries and secondaries. And here I am writing. The primaries, to me, seem to be about action. Doing something constructive and moving forward, instead of dwelling on negatives and stuffing your gullet. Tonight was a good lesson in how to recover from feeling down and blue.

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