CW 45

To no one in particular,

Affirmations

During weeks that are busy--and we ought to be clear not all busy is good busy--it's easy to lose sight of the bigger picture. Drama caused by Corp. management, exhausted colleagues who need a little extra support to get them to where they need to be to complete a project, the friction of daily life that adds extra work onto your day, etc... is not good busy. It's a waste of life. We call it life to normalize how much of our time is wasted. Not all busy is good busy. This kind of busy takes away your life. It stops you from living it.

The last several cycles have been very much the wrong kind of busy. They've drained me and my rest has been fitful. The work I ought to be doing has suffered as a result. The well, I feel, is dry. And it needs to be replenished.

I'm lucky insofar as I now take the time to stop for a moment to check: am I doing what I need to be doing? Am I focusing on what matters? Am I noticing the things I need to notice? These are the critical questions and they are the ones that we ask ourselves the least often precisely because we know that the answers generally will show us how far we've strayed from our true selves. Don't get me wrong: I'm not enlightened; I check in out of self-preservation. I did not ask these questions of myself for a very long time. I was afraid of the answers and I also justified the pain by believing that life was to be lived that way. At some point things just become a slog. Sometimes you hit a brick wall. Sometimes you slog through, hit a brick wall, and then slog some more.

I spent some time on the swing inside the compound and contemplated the suns setting, the sounds of passers-by, the whirring of vehicles, the smell of recycled atmosphere, and then, eventually, I felt the presence of my body in the midst of it all. Clarity returned. I began to see the beauty of the present again, the opportunities of this experience, the objectives that I set for myself, the hopes that I have for my future. And I recommit to living the life that I want to live.

The grind is irrelevant if I'm not actually doing the things that I'm grinding for. This job helps to sustain the lifestyle that I wish for myself, it puts me into contact with creative forces, and business opportunities, it confers some legitimacy to the trajectory of my work thus far. But I am not my job. And if it goes away tomorrow, I will not die. The life that I want will be sustained by a portfolio of activities that I will choose and I will own my own labor. The goal is to have enough to see many stars and the systems that they illuminate, The grind and credits are only tools to get there. 

At the end of that trip, there is a little house in the mountains.