Day 70: Shawshank Redemption

PCP, the experiment is about to yield it's final results. Proof of it is that even Patrick refers to the next 20 days kind of in the past tense.

Today's question time video was most illuminating as many of my fears were dissipated: we do get to keep our new selves! The coming weeks are also about "returning" to normalcy before we "reintegrate" to life so that we are able to accept dinner invitations without freaking everybody else as we open a lunch box containing a chopped apple, a boiled egg mysteriously devoid of it's yolk, on top of which we dare ask the host if they happen to have fat-reduced milk in the fridge. I think I'll miss being a bit of an outcast but certainly appreciate that our stomachs cannot stay fist-sized forever.

All these feelings are like watching the Shawshank Redemption; inmates so accustomed to life behind bars that the outside world no longer seems appealing. Except for Tim Robins and Morgan Freeman, whose plan all along was to do great inside while strategising their redemption. To be honest, right now I sympathyse more with the guy whose crow dies, goes out to work packing groceries and hangs himself.

I think readjusting to life after PCP will be traumatic to some extent because even though we will be able to have confidence in our new physiques, so many things about the world will look bleak, grotesque, degraded. If I'm allowed a dose of humour here, I think for example that I will tend to agree with initiatives to update airline policies so that obese passengers are charged extra. Of course, we can all mostly say that we are tolerant, non-discriminatory people. But honestly, who buys that! After PCP it will be inevitable to not only use our new bodies but also our new minds to relate to the world.

OK, I doubt it will be a depressing experience. Getting back to making real sense, I think life will be of better quality from here on. It will just be a bit sad to see that however our own transformation, the outside world remains in big trouble! In Colombia, where I live, a study was recently published with some alarming results: 58% of the population is overweight, almost everybody dislikes vegetables, women eat more fruit than men, but the ones who eat more fruit only do it three times a week and, get this, 78% of the sample affirmed to do some kind of exercise on a regular basis. Yeah right! The study could skip all results and jump directly to concluding that at least 78% of the population is hypocritical.

What I can say for sure is that micro-geographically speaking, things around me have changed. At home, my wife started to dislike too salty falvours. My brother in law is currently doing the PCP. The three people who sit next to me in the office eat bananas like monkeys. People who at some point mocked me for what I was doing now see the results: some keeping their mouths shut but their faces full, others praising how good I look.

I hope sometime in the future civilization will look back to our days and wonder why people were fat much in the same way we look back 150 years ago and wonder why people's heads were cut off with a guillotine in a public square. I guess it will take a revolution for things to change. I'm leading my own private one quietly, just trying to lead by example. I'll follow Patrick's advice and continue to be Zen about PCP.

Here's to Day 70!