Resisting a Temptation

I had the odd experience stretching a tendon lately. I was talking to a trainer type who said my hamstrings seemed tight. Did I want help stretching them? Sure. (I don’t know that what happened next was actually a good idea, I am not recommending it). I laid down, put my leg up, and then he leaned into it. He pushed it to the point I normally go which is the point where it really hurts. Then he pushed it farther to a pain so intense it was all consuming, I had nothing to compare it with. Then he pushed my foot down. The pain became so much it was almost a transcendent experience. This is hard to describe. It was like I had gone beyond ordinary sensation to the point where I was almost dissassociated. Mentally it felt almost like transcedence, no joke. Then he stopped and something happened that has only happened before when I have done an exercise to the literal point of muscle failure where the muscle literally just won’t move any more. I burst out laughing.

I had the odd experience of resisting a temptation lately.

I usually just give in or distract myself. This time circumstances were such that I could not distract myself. But I didn’t give in like I normally would have. Some lonely impulse of orneriness made me decide just to confront the temptation head on.

It grew and grew. It reached levels that I never thought possible. My whole body was soaked with the temptation, it was the whole of my mind and my sensation. It almost seemed transcendent. I’m not joking about this, I reached a point where the temptation was so all consuming that it seemed like I had achieved some kind of altered mental state.

Then it just . . . stopped.

I haven’t had it since. The weird thing is that its basically changed my personality. I’m not the same person any more. I almost miss my old personality.

The whole experience was strange. I love Sunday School morality tales, but this isn’t one of them. It was all just . . . odd.