Whispers of the Heart (The Dangers of Lotus Gates). I had some of the best rage I've tasted in a long time at the gym tonight, allowing me to work out until I nearly puked before calling it quits. It was like unleashing a limit break (to use the Final Fantasy terminology). And it felt really good at the time, but afterwards I was reflecting on the risks of tapping into your body's reserves like that. I touched on the topic of lotus gates in a post a couple weeks back, and I thought I should have some follow-up discussion.

Given the fact that Naruto is just a cartoon/manga, a bit of embellishment and exaggeration is expected, but I think there IS quite a bit of truth to the concept of lotus gates. The idea is that your body has these natural caps on how much it typically lets you exert. And you can exceed these limits, but in doing so, there's a price to paid. (Sometimes you willfully open the gates, and sometimes it's your body's own natural reaction to the situation. For example, whenever you get nervous/excited and you get a decent amount of adrenaline flowing through your body, when the adrenaline wears off, you find yourself unreasonably exhausted. It's like a chemically induced fatigue (from adrenaline withdrawal?) that follows the high.)

But the deeper you delve into your reserves, the steeper the price. And it's a thin line- push it too far too fast, and you get muscle tears, strains, dislocations. Those are some of the immediate consequences, but usually it's a lot more gradual. From personal experience, I'd say the consequences of physical exertion in roughly escalating degree of severity, go something like: fatigue, muscle soreness, cramps, spasms, nausea, complete muscle unresponsiveness, tunnel vision/blacking out, loss of consciousness. (Vomiting goes somewhere in the list too, hard to say exactly where.)

And to all that, you might say, "Oh, those are no big deal. With a couple days' rest, you're as good as new." And for occasional lotus gate usage, that might be the case. But repeated/continual use apparently DOES have more deleterious consequences. Earlier this year, I went to the doctor, and found out that I have a heart murmur. They did several tests and found that like one of the chambers of my heart is abnormally large. The doctor said that they typically see this problem with powerlifters and other ppl who do a lot more anaerobic exercise than aerobic (having high blood pressure plays a part too). All the sudden bursts of output required in going from 0 to 60 puts excess strain on one particular ventricle of your heart, and in response, the cardiac muscles start getting swoll. Swoll to the point that they hinder the valves from closing all the way (kinda like how buff guys can't touch their elbows together?), and you get abnormal flow and arrhythmia. (And come to think of it, I've been experiencing occasional arrhythmia for a long time, so I guess this problem has gone undiagnosed for quite awhile.)

And yea, I've been tossing more aerobic exercise into my workout, and been trying to warm up better. But I've just been thinking about how I guess using the lotus gates apparently DOES shorten your lifespan, and I can't help but think about all the damage I've done to my body already. I feel like it's kinda like making a deal with the devil for power or something. (Though I'm not sure if it's even POSSIBLE to push to the point that you die afterwards (i.e. opening the final (death) gate)... or maybe I just don't have enough willpower.) I dunno, I feel like I can't keep relying on the rage- it HAS been taking a toll on my body. (It's probably not psychologically healthy either.) *sigh* I need to develop some internal strength of my own without having to rely on the lotus gates. =/ I'm still too weak. Weak of body, weak of mind.

Still not yet who I want to be...