I have the flu.

If I hadn’t done the man-thing and held off going to the doctor a few days they could have helped it along but by the time I went yesterday it was pretty much a “you gotta just wait it out.” thing. It’s not a bad case, mostly just fevers and aches. As long as I pop enough Ibuprofen on a regular basis I’m functional. The problem, of course, is that I get all involved in what I am doing and who remembers things like once every four hours. It’s more like “once every time you forget and start feeling miserable.”

I don’t much mind most of the being sick stuff. I have a pretty high threshold of misery so while most symptoms slow me down, I pretty much plow through them OK.

But fevers? That’s a whole different thing. They mess with your brain.

I have a pretty good brain. It’s served me well when I bothered to use it. I like using it. I like learning. I like figuring things out. I like to be challenged. I like news and books and learning about what makes people tick. I like that I can juggle a whole lot of different things pretty gracefully. That whole “never let them see you sweat” thing my mother taught me just comes automatically. Thank you very much, brain.

So when I get a fever, and I go from a reasonably functional 60-year-old human to a vague, intelligence-challenged candidate for Idiot’s School, (Monty Python fans will get that reference). I am not a very happy boy. And I scare myself.

You see, mostly, I keep going. I have people I serve. I have copywriting deadlines. I have clients who have expectations and needs. I have parishioners. So unless I am in terrible shape, I just plow through. I know I am not at my best, but there’s work to be done. When I can, I do the work during the times when my medication is in it’s prime and doing its thing. And when I can’t, I do it anyway. I don’t know that there’s any great virtue on that. It’s just how I was raised and it sort of comes automatically.

As I begin to feel better, I am generally afraid to go back and look at the work I did while under the influence of fever. But I am generally surprised. All in all, most of the work is still pretty good? “How,” I ask myself, “did that happen?” Heck, I can’t remember my cell phone. (I left mine on the desk this morning.). I put things that belong in the breadbox in the icebox, and visa versa. I forget simple things like closing my car door when I get home. (yes, I have been known to wake up the next morning with the car door still gaping open.). But the work? It somehow manages to be good.

Why is that?

I think the only answer is habit. You do the same things, day after day after day, and there is a part of you that can do it on autopilot. I’ve experienced it before. Years ago when my father in law was in his last summer, we were back and forth to the hospital for months. Often we’d spend most of the day there then I’d come home and work late into the night. Can you say maximum sleep deprivation? But the work was good

The same thing happened when my marriage broke up. I was in a dark, dark depression. I felt like I could barely function. But somehow I did. In fact, I worked at a pretty high level, developing a brand new Mid Atlantic Division of national technology company from scratch – building out their facility. hiring the staff, managing, marketing and selling and making it go. All while feeling like a zombie.

Habit.

It’s part of why we want to develop the good ones. Not just because good habits of work, or creativity, or faith create good work, but because they can help us create good work even when we don’t feel like it. Habits carry us while we wait for our spirit or emotions or muse to show up again. It’s like inertia.

Of course, that inertia can run down at time. But it’s amazing how long it can carry us until we get right again. At least I am amazed.

In my creative work, when I write when I am sick, or broken, often something new emerges. I think (but can’t prove) that it is because my barriers are down. New styles. New voices. New ways of looking at things. I don’t have enough presence of mind to know that’s not what I do. I often look at that stuff later and ask “where did THAT come from?”. And then, “How can I build on that?”

Yeah, sometimes sickness has value.

The biggest value though, is how appreciative it makes of of my good health and my good times. Gratitude is one of God’s great healers. It’s powerful stuff.

Why am I writing this? I have no idea. I’m feverish, after all. My ibuprofen hasn’t kicked in yet. I wouldn’t trust me. Yet somehow, I do.

I’ve learned to trust my habits

Be well. Travel wisely,

Tom