“Do any humans ever realize life while they live it?”
When I take a break, there’s always the hum of anxiety that time is slipping through my fingers, and that I’m allowing it to happen. That it’s my fault.
It’s been a relatively nice summer, not too humid, but August is cueing up to be a scorcher and I long for a cool fall breeze.
Starting with the weather can’t be a good sign.
Here I am engaging in small talk, something I normally hate. But, I’m not sure how to begin.
Train of thought One: This month, I wrestled with time.
Too much time, too little time, wasted time. It’s a theme that kept rearing its head and so here’s my attempt at weaving it all together into something comprehensible and hopefully interesting.
I’ve always felt like I moved at a glacial pace. I was the tortoise, and anyone who tried to rush me along was met with a huff and a glare. I’m fine, please let me go at my own pace. I’ve felt it at school, at work, at the gym, in my relationships and worst of all, from within. Tick tock, time’s running out and you’re not where you’re meant to be.
Let’s take a trip, magic school bus style, to observe my anxious mind:
I want to do nothing, and by nothing I mean reading, listening to podcasts, cuddling with Missy (my tuxedo cat), staring out the window for hours, calling a friend, snacking, going down an internet rabbit hole. So really, it’s not nothing, it’s having an unstructured and fluid schedule. I don’t feel very ambitious, motivated, driven. The thought of working towards another set of goals is exhausting. The thought of trying to ‘figure shit out’ is exhausting. Is this what burnout feels like? I never considered myself to be an overachiever or a workaholic. I’m too lazy to be burnt-out, right?
I don’t know.
My anxious mind is telling me I can’t waste time. Doing nothing is wasting time. If I squander these days, these weeks, these months, then I will never figure shit out. I’ll never move forward, stuck in a ‘stepping stone’ career. What if I spend the rest of my life on a stepping stone? What if I never reach whatever stone comes next?
When I take a break, there’s always the hum of anxiety that time is slipping through my fingers, and that I’m allowing it to happen. That it’s my fault. That I’m at fault.
I want to do ‘nothing’, but I’m tired of feeling stagnant.
I want to do ‘nothing’, but I’m afraid of falling behind.
I want to do ‘nothing,’ but I’m afraid.
Not a pretty sight, but an honest one.
Messages of time are all around me, in the books I read, the shows I watch.
In Circle of Quiet, by Madeleine L’Engle, she brings us along her days spent at her New England home, tucked away in a rural setting. She too grapples with time, Ontology, as she calls it, “the word about the essence of things; the word about being.”
Being vs. doing, ah, that endless tug of war.
“Our natural aversion to death is amplified in a culture that casts time as an enemy and does everything it can to deny its passage.” — Marcia Bjornerud, Timefulness: How thinking like a geologist can help save the world.
Train of thought Two: Goals, goals, goals.
In her book, Negotiating with the Dead, Margaret Atwood captures what I’ve felt but have been too afraid to admit, “It wasn’t the result but the experience that hooked me: it was the electricity.”
I’ve felt this way about everything I’ve ever pursued. There’s a powerful, unquenchable, rambunctious curiosity within me that I don’t know how to tame, tackle or harness. It’s never been about the degree, the title, the mastery, it’s always been the experience itself, the learning process — that’s what lights me up, that’s my electricity. In a goal driven world, where success is measured by climbing ladders or awe-inspiring Wikipedia pages that conjure images of old-timey messengers unravelling comically long scrolls in front of a king holding court, I feel out of sorts.
Train of thought Three: Moments end.
I was sitting at the front of the boat, drink in hand, dog by my side and while looking out at the lake and the hills around me, I remember thinking that I should soak up this moment because it would soon be over. Now, I’m sitting at my desk thinking, yeah, that moment’s long gone. But while I was on that boat, I did my best to savor it, to appreciate it, to be thankful for it. It’s not everyday your friend takes you on a boat ride. It’s not everyday you have a friend with a boat.
The thing is, moments end. Sometimes I barely have the chance to savour them or I get so caught up in them that I forget to pause and take it all in. That’s okay. Those are the good kinds of whirlwinds, the ones with no cell phone in hand.
But, moments end.
In Circle of Quiet, and I quote, “Thornton Wilder also classed artists and saints together in Our Town. After Emily dies she is allowed to come back to earth to relive a day, and she is torn apart by her awareness of all that she has always taken for granted. She asks the stage manager, ‘Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it? — every, every minute?’ And he answers, ‘No. The saints and poets, maybe — they do, some.”
Whoosh.
“Do any humans ever realize life while they live it?”
Now, that’s one hell of a question. It’s got me thinking, can we truly live everyday like it’s our last? Is that even do-able? Or, is that too idealistic? Do we need big life moments like near death experiences, tragedy, loss or bad news to remind us, again and again, what’s important? I know that loss and hardships are unavoidable parts of life, but I wonder if it’s possible to harness the lessons these moments bring into our day-to-day.
Being vs. doing.
Maybe it’s time for me to remove the vs., and try to find a balance between the two.
My modus operandi has always been to swing from one extreme to another. From full on love and devotion to I’ll never love again, from wanting to learn all of the things to immobilizing overwhelm.
I’m 33. I’m not a wise crone yet, despite the streaks of white hair.
But, I’m beginning to wise up.
Balance is key.
But, I’d be foolish to think that I could ever truly figure shit out.
