Jettison

"I have such a stressful job that the only way I can get it out of my mind is by running hard."

If this is your first time reading this quote, let me tell you it's from Alan Turing. I decided to follow his advice to run tonight.

It is perhaps not surprising that I feel stressful when my department is operating at 130% of maximal capacity, foreseeing an as-yet-undetermined higher record. What just happened in my brain is an overloaded boat on the brink of sinking. The natural response is to jettison as much as cargo I can. Not the simple tidying chore, but the hysterical throwing overboard of everything. Everything. I knew I did this when I opened my laptop and found absolutely no documents this afternoon. Let me repeat that: I found nothing; all computer files had disappeared. My heart sank.

I breathed in. I breathed out. For five minutes I refused to believe it. I thought high and low, trying to make Hansel and Gretel-esque trails for the whereabouts of my files. I rummaged through the computer and recycle bin in the hope that I might find my documents. Zilch. My conclusion: I must have been so mad that I deleted the folders at one fell swoop, followed by jettisoning the recycle bin. I lost my marbles, and then my files. You would have to be a total curmudgeon to have such a silly snafu. So much so that Alan Turing can't help at all.

And maybe it's just a signal for me to take a break, run home and retrieve my files from another laptop of mine.