Out of Breath
Out of breath is unintuitive to me. On the surface, I get a feeling that I need to breathe more, which might or might not be true.
I love weird facts. I was having a conversation with Juan the other day who characterized the substance of many of our conversations as "esoterica". Now, I don't even know if that is a word or not (Firefox is showing me a red line underneath that, so I guess it thinks it isn't - but also it shows me a red line under unintuitive, so I don't know how much I care what it thinks), but whether or not it is a word, I instantly knew what it meant. I proposed that one could have an "esoteria" night at a bar, but on further reflection it occurs to me that this is just a way of saying "very difficult trivia", and I'm afraid it wouldn't be well attended because I think that part of what makes trivia fun is that everyone gets some of the questions right.
One weird fact I learned at some point is that our bodies sense excess CO2, not an absence of O2. Upon reflection of my experiences, I have come to believe that these sensors provide the excess of CO2 as a feeling of being out of breath. I also think that being out of breath is a weird thing, because, it is not necessarily the case that breathing will help with condition whatsoever. For an extreme example consider cardiac arrest - a common symptom is shortness of breath, and I'd assert that breathing isn't going to be much help if your heart isn't pumping blood. For less extreme examples consider "aerobic fitness". I haven't researched it at all, but it seems to me that increasing one's aerobic fitness consists of at least two components: the lungs' ability to exchange CO2 and O2 with the atmosphere, and the heart's ability to distribute the oxygenated blood throughout the body.
After I was bent over at the waist today, collecting laundry from the laundry basket, I stood up. I wasn't out of breath. I recall being out of breath from doing this. I thing the running I've been doing must be doing something good for my body.