Weight Gain on the Brain
I plop down on a yellow chair. The chair sinks down an inch and I'm afraid it will become a most unappealing pancake between my tush and the floor. But it holds. Staring at the booth across from me I feel a pang of envy. Any attempt at squelching my mound of flesh between the booth and table would require the jaws of life to get out. I take a slurp of my sugary drink to remove any anxiety I just felt. Not more than 30 seconds ago, I asked for the smallest drink size to place some constraints on myself –something I had picked up from reading the newest book on habits. But when the attendant told me every size was a dollar, I felt dumb for even trying and conceded to the largest size. "You get more bang for your buck anyway," she laughed. I laughed too, but with a hollow ring.
When my number was called, I walked up to the counter and fumbled to separate my order number from the wad of receipts. This was not my first visit.... today. I find the number and with the utmost care, caress the sweet-smelling delivery vehicle like a newborn. “Four ketchups please,” comes out of my mouth mechanically as I return to my seat slightly defeated but eager to complete the cycle of anticipation as I pull out the contents of the brown bag with the famous logo. The smell is a crescendo of dopamine. A thought flashes of my dead heavy-set relatives smiling around the table at this intimately familiar tradition. No time for such junk. As I take a bite, a bead of sweat forms from my forehead that moves so quickly I barely can wipe it off. It could be mistaken for a tear as it falls below my first chin and onto my second. In my 5XL t-shirt, I am not to be interrupted during my sacred ritual. And the truth is, I barely taste the food.
On January 6th, 2020 at 11:13am EST I received a text message. My colleague to the right of me had just started his first day. When he saw me frozen still for five minutes without so much as a few solitary breaths, he could tell something was wrong.
The Invisible Assassin took the Manhattan elevator to the third floor of a nondescript office building attached to a 7-Eleven and took large hacks at the central region of my chest.
My girlfriend at the time, the first person I admitted my love to, was breaking up with me over the least personal form of communication. I sat unmoving. Co-workers soon came to my aid and what came from their lips is the origin of the question at the heart (pun intended) of this essay, "What's going on?"
My journey had just begun. I took the first bite, and distanced myself from reality. On January 6th, my flourishing romance, the linchpin that held it all together, was discarded. My job, New York City, and the personal projects had all plateaued.
The sales job, once a way for me to contribute to building the next great startup, suddenly consisted of entirely meaningless activities. Prisoners in the Soviet gulags were forced to do pointless activities over and over again to break them. Pick up a stone. Walk a hundred meters. Set it down. Pick it up. Do it all over again. And at the bottom of the sales totem pole my orders were the same: email, call, email, call. Left, right, up, down.
I started to consume anything in sight. My attention’s appetite was a cocktail of social media, movies, porn, dating apps, and anything that was sweet,unlimited, and unpredictable. A hit of social media was a greasy slice of pizza; swiping through dating profiles, a triple chocolate cake topped with whip cream as tall as a mountain. I tried hacks like changing jobs or moving to different cities. The core remained the same day-in and day-out. No amount of information could stop the inevitable ceremony of gorging on whatever buzz, ring, notification. And the truth is, I barely saw them.
One day, I looked in the mirror and saw what I had become: the 500-pound man.
My eyes ate, and my being paid the price at the modern world’s information-filled cuisine. The world became grayer. Through copious amounts of unhealthy food the body grows large, but I was diminishing. See, I stopped feeding my soul. Information wrapped in dopamine or whatever pleasant neurotransmitter was my crutch. I didn’t get pleasure from food like my large caricature – I got it from where I placed my attention.
The voice I knew to be there, a whisper even, was overrun by my desire for escaping the pain, which in turn fueled more of a desire for escape. You eat more, and become mad at yourself for eating, so you eat more. All of the impressions of my highest self were faint. Quit the job. Write the article. Go for that girl. They were all overshadowed.
Yet the first step is to see oneself. And with an image of a very overweight man staring back at me, how could I miss it? So what's going on is that I'm beginning the process of trusting and listening to my voice after a time of plugging my ears. I claim the first piece of this process, this essay, as my witness. A taste of true nourishment.
