As I've gotten older I've become more and more fascinated by the concept of the soul. In theology, the soul tends to be immaterial, and immortal; an essence of ourselves that represent our individuality and is a piece of our being that extends beyond the body it's housed in. The reason for this fascination has been a culmination of struggle and loss, and what is hopefully not a futile way to come to terms with what's gone.

It's been nearly a decade long battle with my gut issues, admittedly prolonged and worsened by a very steadfast stubbornness against making the right consistent lifestyle changes to combat it.

I've taken a brief hiatus from Global Fast Fit in order to focus on dealing with these issues. I can't represent a global health initiative when I'm teetering on the precipice of ego death and potentially worse.

I've made a few blog posts already on how a broken digestive system can affect your overall well-being, but here's a few personal examples of some of the things I've already dealt with when a flare up occurs:

• Having no working or short-term memory; I'll be told or will see something and have zero idea about it five seconds later (Was I just imagining things?)
• Long-term memory erasure, there end up being these strange gaps in my own personal history, not to mention a deficit in the amount of information I can remember (Who was I? Who am I?)
• Losing the ability to speak, listen, read, write coherently, no longer being able to mentally perform simple mathematics, this one is probably the most common amongst people with digestive issues and is easily the most destructive when it comes to leading any kind of social life (All of you are talking and yet I have no idea what any of you are saying and how to respond to it.)
• Total loss of executive function; everything's connected, but the why's and how's of anything are no longer there (Autopilot is on, I do these things because something is telling me to, but I don't know why.)
• Loss of reaction speed/reflexes, this has unfortunately made it incredibly dangerous to drive, especially when I'm with someone or if I have the radio on; it's also near impossible to multitask 
• Perception and cognizance loss, a good example of this is if I want to do pull-ups and need to jump to grab the bar; I can no longer judge or gauge the distance that I need to jump to reach it
• Disassociation and disinterest, things once enjoyable are now completely mundane; humor begins to fade, sadly, anger and frustration does not (Was I really actually interested in this before?)
  

It's a longer list, but I don't care to continue it. I don't wish to give any more care or power to something that should've been gone years ago.

There have been some extremes and some outright scares throughout the years, but overall it's beginning to improve. The start of 2024 was awful, but there had been some significant progress as it came to a close. Some of my working memory began to return at the end of November, and I've also begun to find entertainment in books again, which is fairly difficult when you can't immerse yourself into the world you're reading about. This is absolutely reversible, but to what extent, I don't know yet.

The blog posts I'll be making moving forward will detail the progress (or regression) I've made in dealing with these issues along with the methodology in that progression/regression.

So here's to 2025, the year I reach the point where I never need to deal with this again. The year I get my soul back.