Time to chill?
Also: "Loss of backing" -- barely a face, no substance at all
Odelia here with Percolations #80. A little milestone! Welcome, and enjoy.
Note: If you find Percolations boring yet overly caffeinated, I suggest using a single-espresso stainless steel moka pot — instead of a downwards percolation, you experience a tiny coffee fountain flowing upwards thanks to heat and pressure and all that good stuff. Spend a minute or two watching it brew — it helps with increasing your appreciation of the end result.
You’re welcome.
On most nights, I don’t like to sleep. I do it only because I have to.
(And no — this has nothing to do with my lack of an actual bed. I tend to sleep well when I do sleep.)
During a chat a few days ago, Dad told me to make sure I’m not pushing myself overly hard or spreading myself too thin trying to cover all the bases and do all the things I’m doing these days.
It’s hilarious because when I was taking a long vacation last summer, he was telling me to get my act together again. Oh well, here we go again. What can I say? No one walks by having both feet on the ground all the time.
It seems like I’ve swung the pendulum to the other side again, of doing more than is sane or healthy for one individual to handle. But for some reason, this current style of overwork feels far more sustainable, calm, and enjoyable to me than the other running-myself-to-the-ground seasons I’ve been through before. On a day-to-day level, there’s barely any unhealthy stress, little to no internal exhaustion, and no sense of running on an empty tank, even if I’m doing, thinking, and creating more than I’d have been capable of six months ago.
***
***
So it got me thinking some thinks:
When each type of work you do is rest to a different part of you, the idea of taking breaks from “work” ceases to exist. Case in point: I spent four hours this morning gardening for one of my housecleaning clients, planting dozens of lovely plants like the one above. The fresh air, sunlight, and feeling of dirt in my hands and between my toes (of course I was barefoot, what did you expect?!) was like a feast for my soul and spirit1 — a kind of “payment” that means more and lasts longer than cash and fills me with new ideas and the energy to put those ideas into motion.
I’ve stopped giving way to excuses when I feel low, tired, or distracted. When I feel a little lost and ready to click open a random video or just chill, I run my mind over a list of things I know brings me asymmetrical gains in energy, attention, and mood compared to the time I put into the activity — drinking water, taking a walk, dancing for 10-15 minutes, playing the bamboo flute — and I just pick what I need from that list and do them. Then it’s back to the next deep work session, which leads me to…
Having hours of being focused deeply and singularly at one thing at a time has now become a regular part of my days. My attention span is still short (<3hrs at a time if we’re talking deep work, also depends on the day’s schedule); meta-ADHD isn’t fun when I’m trying to make progress on anything specific; and I’m still surrounded by the nine people I live with who each make lots of unique, constant, and random sounds (and unique demands on my time, attention, and sometimes money). But when I let myself drill down on something for a few hours, I’m discovering a much more stubborn, much richer stream of focus and intention than I’d ever known I already possess — and oh, the places I go and things I do when I’m in that zone!
When I have an idea and a will to make it happen, I often don’t even think about whether I feel like it or whether I’m tired. Pain, feelings, and other minor things disappear from my consciousness and I only think of how it would work, how I could make it both beautiful and useful. I feel most restless and ill-at-ease when I am not doing anything (besides the moments I give myself to just be bored — goodness knows I need those precious minutes throughout the day!), and I feel most at ease when I am working hard and smart. And given the hundred other lives I sometimes like to dream-live in addition to the dozen I actually try to live out simultaneously,2 this means that I’m more restful than restless at any given moment throughout the day. (If that logic doesn’t makes sense to you, allow me to forgive your brain and move on…)
***
Sometimes my Christian friends would point to verses like “Be still and know that I am God” when reminding me to take it easy, and don’t do or try so much in life. I think they forget there are different kinds of being still, and different ways of knowing God in His fullness.
Or maybe they’ve simply never experienced those other sorts of stillness.
Like the stillness in your body when you line up ironsights, narrow your entire field of vision to one spot on the target, and tense your body for a single trigger-pull. Or the quiet in your soul when you work for hours on end with a creative project, the world around you fading into nothingness as your fingers and eyes work together to bring a vision to life. Or the sense of rest that fills your body when you sing without inhibition. Or the gentle sigh your soul releases when you find yourself a whole hour into a beautiful conversation with a stranger you’d just met but who has shared something with you that wasn’t something they’d say to just anyone, or that soft intake of air when you relalize you’ve done the same without fear or self-consciousness. Or the still, still puddle of water the surface of your mind becomes when you push your body to exhaustion.
Or the other thousand-and-one ways a part of you is at peace while the other parts of your run around doing stuff.
The point being? Stillness is a state of being, sometimes for just one small part of you. And often, that’s enough for me to keep going without feeling drained or running out of air.
***
Yes, we need mediation and contemplation, sleep and quiet. We do need rest. Really, though, it’s an on-the-job training sort of thing, this resting.
And maybe my way of doing it just looks different from yours.
If you’re way ahead of this game already, let this post help you appreciate how far you’ve come in your approaches to rest and work and all the gray areas in-between.
As for me, I’m probably going to check back in on these thoughts in another year — who knows, I might be on another long vacation then, ha! It’s fun to trace the development of my own thinking and habits/attitudes over time through posts like this one.
And speaking of rest, it’s time for me to take a break from projecting my subjective and time-bound neural connections onto your electronically-powered digital screen, even if they do take their time getting there, byte by byte…
I’d be back next week, maybe more than once. (There might be another special edition in the works.)
Until then,
Odelia
P.S Now having written out those bullet-point notes on how I’m resting these days, I realize they’re just common sense about living. Hmm. It takes time for my life to catch up to things my mind has already understood, apparently. Sometimes it’s not that funny, but go ahead, you may laugh at my slow pace of learning. XP
Quote for the week
“No man can reveal to you aught but that which already lies half asleep in
the dawning of your knowledge.
”The teacher who walks in the shadow of the temple, among his followers, gives not of his wisdom but rather of his faith and his lovingness.
”If he is indeed wise he does not bid you enter the house of his wisdom, but
rather leads you to the threshold of your own mind.”— Kahlil Gibran, On Teaching
This week’s word: “Loss of backing”
From The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows by John Koenig.
loss of backing
n. an abrupt collapse of trust in yourself—having abandoned a resolution, surrendered to your demons, or squandered an opportunity you swore you’d take seriously this time—which resets your expectations and makes it that much harder to guarantee that your word is worth anything, even to yourself.
(In economics, a loss of backing is when the government no longer guarantees the value of a certain currency, particularly when it’s not exchangeable for anything physical like gold or silver, thus it only retains value because we say it does.)
*** In the dark of the night There is nothing to stand for - Not even the face I hold up, During the day, in front of others. A mask to hide the nothingness Of the things I said and did. In these shadows now, darkness wins And I cannot even name the void. ***
Snapshots of life
Two lambs were born earlier this week — twins! This is one of them with the mama ewe:
Spring flowers on stormy days:
It’s finally warm enough to have this drink again. It’s called an “Uxbridge Trail” — an iced matcha latte layered with bits of oreo cookies. So, so good.
Give this a listen
Connor Price + Nic D dropped a total banger today that outlines my default approach to life. I grinned so hard all through my first time listening to it, haha! And the basketballs too — that sport was a happy highlight to the kid version of Odelia for a while. Might want to pick it back up sometime…
I almost quoted King David here — “For I am a worm, and no man” (Psalm 22:6) — but that’d have been rather irreverent and a little too taken-out-of-context, no?
My sister once asked me how many lifetimes one person could live in one life. My response: “I’d let you know when I’m about to die.” Maybe that’s the way I should have responded to my dad too, instead of womansplaining above. I could have just said, “I’d get all the rest I need when I’m dead.”