ON BEING THE BOSS OF ME, ROBOTIC PRODUCTIVITY, AND SQUEEZING OUT THE EXTRA SPRINGY SPACES IN THE BRAIN
Thursday June 17 and Friday June 18 2021
Dear Sarah,
I’ll start by saying this letter poured out of me in a flood that followed from the happenings the letter itself describes! Read on for more…
Something I have been wrangling with these past couple of weeks is starting to come into greater clarity: I have been fighting with myself over what it means to be my own boss. To be the boss of me. There are still people in my professional life who function in the role of my “boss.” (Although, it’s possible that as I and the bosses age, we are all becoming collaborators more than bosses and staff?) But as an adult, and as a freelancer, I am the boss of myself and how I want my days to be, how I work, how much I work.
In my volunteer work with the woodshop this week, I’ve been stuck on the question of a grant deadline that is upcoming swiftly, due end of next week. There is also a second deadline for this same funding opportunity at the start of October, with no significant difference in our possibilities if we choose to apply for the later deadline. But for some reason I have been trying so hard to shoehorn in this application that is due next week, trying to force it into my schedule even though I’m quite busy with other projects both personal and professional.
I think there are a few layers at play here. One, I am still used to having a boss and having the boss tell me what to do! It can be nice for someone else to be responsible! It was *their* idea. I keep waiting for someone to tell me, You know what, there’s no need to rush this deadline because there’s a second one around the corner, and there’s a lot going on right now. Let’s hold off. I tend to want someone else to make this decision for me. It’s a fairly minor one, really, but I dislike making decisions because with every decision there is the possibility of being wrong, and I suppose I dislike being wrong!
Two, I tend to have a feeling that if I get everything done, then on the other side of those tightly clustered deadlines there will be no more things to do; work will be done. I imagine I’ll reach that kind of moment someday, perhaps at that time when I am officially “retiring” and each paid project on my to-do list will get checked off without the addition of something new that someone is waiting for me to do.
In the midst of its pages and stories Ordinary Affects references the desire for things to end, to drop off in some final and fundamental way; see the section called Disappearing Acts on page 48: Ecstatic little forms of disappearance have budded up. We dream the dream of a finished life. The dream job or the dream body settles into a perfect form. … Disappearance has always been the genius of the so-called masses. We are gifted dreamers of getting away from it all, giving capture the slip, if only by slipping into the cocoon of a blank surface.
I have heard of the concept of the death drive — the drive toward death and destruction, often expressed through behaviors such as aggression, repetition compulsion, and self-destructiveness. This desire to tackle all projects (an aggression on the self?), to wrap things up and just to float off into empty happy space feels like a (somewhat?) positive version of the death drive; a release from obligation that is somehow still imaginarily tied to enjoying the good things this world has to offer; clearing the table of duties, making space for pure potential. It’s unrealistic and impossible but dreamy!
Back to my to-do list: I have an instinctive sense when I have too much to do, am taking on too much. Maybe this is an obvious thing to say, and maybe everyone has this intuition! But I can physically feel when I am doing too much or planning to do too much, and when the things I am trying to do will not be reconciled time-wise. I know in some inherent bodily way how long certain tasks or projects take, and I can feel myself tipping when there is simply too much to do — my body is signaling me that it is too much. (I have a similar physical feeling for traveling and knowing if I am running late or if I have enough time to get wherever I am going. This sounds like it would just be a matter of looking at the clock, but I think my body knows how long it takes to get places!) I’m now recalling a letter of yours or a conversation we had about a person you know who claims to act on instinct, and I’m recalling that I responded with the idea that what seems to be instinct can simply be experience, embedded over time at an instinctual level.
Yesterday I decided that the thing I was trying to squeeze in could wait, and I felt the pressure shift like a weather pattern moving through and away, felt the things I do have to do come back into focus in a manageable way, felt myself rebalancing. (I think about being one of those weighted figures who rolls back around to center after being pushed over. Sometimes the figure (me) gets pushed hard and swings back hard and then it takes a few pendulous cycles to return to center. Sometimes the push is lighter and there is still a swing in the other direction but the cycle back to center is less dramatic.) As the pressure shifted, a sense of interest and creativity started to re-emerge and tickle at the edges of my thoughts. When I try to stuff too many things into the day, week, month, I squeeze out my own interest in the things I am doing, squeeze out the empty springy space that is required in my brain to feel creative about those things, to let ideas truly bounce around, off the interior walls of my skull and in unexpected directions (more Pong than jai alai). Squeezing things edge-to-edge in my calendar, in my brain, literally presses out the air that creativity needs in order to breathe; it suffocates my spirit.
So! It was a pivotal kind of week. Maybe instead of things being hard, they could be easy! Just in time for the solstice, one of my most and least favorite days! I don’t want the days to start getting shorter!
I chuckled at the fact in your letter last week that you didn’t partake in the soccer tournament margaritas?! I am excited for you to discover canned cocktails! (To be honest, they’re not usually quite as good as mixing a cocktail yourself, but they sound perfect for a soccer tournament!) I’m going to take this to mean either that you aren’t the alcohol shopper in your fam, or that you have favorites that you approach directly while wearing blinders against all other beverage enticements! I have not had too many canned cocktails but I have contemplated them on more than one occasion, and once procured a four-pack of Moscow Mules only to forget them at someone’s house without drinking one! I think they’ve been becoming more of a thing over the last handful of years or so. P.S. Please convey my congrats to J on his first (particularly thrilling!) goal!!!
I have not yet taken up an early-morning writing practice since expressing my admiration for yours. It’s possible that an early-morning writing hour might work better for me as the seasons shift again (too soon to even mention, but…!) At this time of year I particularly like to run in the early morning, when the sun comes up early, and before it gets too warm. It’s a nice way to start the day, a different kind of blood-flow-to-the-brain activity. Winter with its dark mornings and midday runs might be a better time for me to start the day with tea and a blanket and writing! No excuse not to establish a writing hour in the first part of the day when I arrive at my computer but before I get into work. I would like for my first words on the page or screen each day to be creative ones! And I’m my boss, so… get to it!
On that note, I’ll send this tome your way and look forward to reading your words this evening!
Until soon!
Yours,
Eva
June 18, 2021
Dear Eva,
I just pulled up the “week 142 - letter to Eva” document on my laptop, only to see that it is completely blank. I am recalling now that earlier this week I ambitiously sat down to start collecting thoughts for this week’s correspondence and somehow nothing—not a single word—made it to the page. This matches my general headspace the past 48 hours or so, which is an overall feeling of being mentally clogged, like some obtrusive object is wedged into my brain in a way that makes it impossible to think in any sort of a contemplative way. Strangely, however, this head space also correlates to a particularly productive week of professional output. On second thought, maybe it’s not so strange after all. I have been chugging along conquering tasks like Pacman swallows those neon orbs, and this has effectively shut down my ability to let my mind wander. I have been too busy Getting Things Done™ to actually pause and ponder.
So it is within that odd headspace that I sit down to pen this letter to you, peering into the weekend like it is an unknown land. As I mentioned to you, B and I have plans to join a 71 mile bike event tomorrow, and then Sunday is Father’s Day, so I am not sure my weekend is likely to leave much room to unfurl the more creative side of my brain. But nonetheless, it will at least be full of summery frolic and possible heat exhaustion, but not to-do lists or email inboxes.
I am teeming with curiosity about the dramatic rhythm of your week that you referenced when we spoke on the phone earlier today. What happened on Thursday? It is taking all of my willpower not to open that email that is waiting for me in my inbox and find out!
(I’m now thinking about the Frog and Toad story called “Cookies,” where they take great measures to avoid eating a batch of cookies—putting it in a box, tying string around the box, and later putting the box on a high shelf. Each time they realize that they can just open the box, or cut the string, and so on. “We need will power,” Frog says. Eventually they give up and put it out for the birds at which point, Toad laments that they have no more cookies to eat.” ‘Yes,’ said Frog, but we have lots and lots of will power.’ ‘You may keep it all, Frog,’ said Toad. ‘I’m going home now to bake a cake.’”)
For better or worse, my robotically productive week did not really have any ebbs and flows to speak of. I slept in today on account of my sinus troubles, but the rest of the week I continued with the 6 am start, which means I have even been productive on the personal project front. During those early morning hours in the last few weeks, I have revived that writing project for my oldest niece that you read an early draft of last summer. I have been playing with the textual collage method that we talked about, and it is so much fun! At some point (perhaps IRL when I visit you in two weeks!), I would love to toss around some more ideas with you about how to finish it up. I’m imagining some different ways of situating the words that might be visually interesting, but I am also cognizant that some of those options might make it really difficult to actually digest what the text says. Visually neat might be the most functional! It’s an interesting creative challenge and taps into some ways of thinking that I almost never have the opportunity to try out. You were right that collage is delightful and right up my alley!
I am hearing rumblings downstairs of the second pizza going into the oven, so I believe that is my cue. I realize this is a little bit shorter than the average letter, but I think I’m going to tie it off and let my brain unwind for the night and weekend. I’ll let you know how I fare in the long bike ride tomorrow night while I am nibbling on, and sipping from, the array of gourmet cheeses and fancy beers that B picked up for a festive post-ride meal. If that is not weekend-y, then I don’t know what is. I can’t wait!!
I wish you and yours a happy and warm weekend!
Your friend,
Sarah