Blossom

Today was day 5 of the morning shift. The last day! To be honest, my brain feels a bit like it has gone to mush. But a weird thing happened on Wednesday, during my shift. I was sitting at my desk, staring at the screen to make sure that nothing was wrong. When I felt my mind start to wander. Before I knew it, I was in the middle of a sexual fantasy, and it was only my screen flickering to remind me that I was supposed to be watching the screens.

I was trying to think about why, of all the times, it would happen then. It has been a bit of a theory I've had for a while. Whenever I feel bored, I'm more likely to want sex. I don't think it's because I think of it as a pastime, I think there might be some deeper connection.

So firstly, we have Maslow's hierarchy of needs, which says you have to have a base level of physiological needs taken care of, before you start to desire the next level, etc. And it reminded me of something that my biology teacher told me. There is this plant that grows in the desert, and it spreads its seeds out in some way that I don't remember. But the seeds never actually start growing until it can detect enough moisture in the surrounding dirt, as it knows that it'll just die if it tries to start growing  here. So it'll stay dormant until there's enough moisture.

I was thinking that sex is, at a base level, connected with reproduction, and like the desert seed, perhaps your body just "knows" somehow that you're not ready to be able to handle children, so your libido is lowered. While I was at uni, my libido was quite high, but I was also "bored". Now I don't think I was at all ready for children at uni, but at that time, my mind was a lot less pre-occupied with other thoughts. I had my physiological needs satisfied, I felt safe, I had love from friends and family, I was respect enough (well, I had the comforting knowledge that I managed to get into a prestigious university), and at the time, I believed I was on my way to reaching my full potential (getting a degree). I don't think I was enlightened or anything, but I definitely felt a lot "lighter" with the thought that I was the best that I could be.

After uni, life took a tumble, in the sense that I was now in the world of work, and the sudden realisation that I was a tiny, tiny fish in a massive ocean was incredibly overwhelming. There's some saying about idiots thinking they know everything, and intelligent people knowing that in the grand scheme of things, they know nothing. I felt like the curtains were opened, and there was this whole world that I didn't know, and I suddenly felt dwarfed. 

On the hierarchy, I felt like I was knocked down a few pegs. I know now that I have a long way to go to the top, and I spend a lot of time working on self-improvement trying to get there. I can't remember the last time I was genuinely bored. There is always one more thing that I could be doing with my time, and quite often, I feel the opposite - like there isn't enough time to do all the things that I need to do. Because of this, like the seed that doesn't detect enough moisture, my body knows it doesn't have enough time to take care of me, much less than take care of an entire other person, so libido is lowered so I can focus more on the things I need to do, in the hopes that I'll get back up the hierarchy, and then be ready for children.

Orrrrrrrrrrr, maybe it's because I'm no longer on the pill, and I don't have artificial hormones messing with my brain. Yet another anecdote that I can't really draw anything from because the sample size is too small and there are too many confounding variables. :(

Anyway, I definitely need to get some shut-eye. Will be nice to wake up while the sun is up.