Too Late, Not Enough, No Time
How to be happy instead of fucked up by your own mind
"As long as we have an idea, image, or belief about how things ought to be, we are doomed to be violent." - Sangamitra
In recent days I've been waking with unusual energy and what feels like heat in my body. The warmth of peak spring is an obvious player, but there's also a nervy anxiety. In the past I would file this under 'uncomfortable causeless ambient emotion', but last week I found I was able to zero in on the source of the antsy energy. Tuesday morning in bed, I could see it - a swarm of pressures around my head from all the things I think I have to do, a presence akin to a swarm of tiny buzzing drones.
These drones are mostly ideas about stuff that needs to be changed or improved or initiated or radically moved along - some of them personal (unfinished projects, ideas) some more generic (admin, tax, kids playdates).
And there are a lot of them, too many to count, and anyway they never stop moving.
The impact is a distinct tightening in my system, breathing compressed, a subtle but substantive fight-flight-freeze response. Caffeine - elevated summer-hours doses - can't be discounted as an influence, but the insight isn't so much the baseline condition of my nervous system as the discovery of this swarming army of pestering pressures that appear on waking and act on my system all day, whether I am aware of it or not.
Horrible bosses
My assumption here is that these drones have been buzzing around my head for years but that I've only just noticed their impact (and that it's not an impact I like).
First step: spot the problem.
Obviously, getting these demands on paper in order to action them can help relieve the symptoms, but it doesn't take long to fall behind on any number of tasks, which is what lends the attackers their particular dreadful buzz. If I were to record and replay their high pitched drone at 1/10th the speed I believe I would find that it's constituted of millions of tiny accusations: "too late" "not enough" "no time to waste" "hurry hurry" "too long in bed" "get up".
Seeing these ideas as objects doesn't make them go away - they seem to live permanently inside the perimeter of my auric body, like gnats attracted to warmth - but it does create some space. Spotting them also brings an immediate and obvious realisation: I've got to get out of the way of these fuckers before they kill me.
And so it is that awareness, that simple and free commodity, delivers the goods yet again.
It’s not you
If you’ve spent your life toiling, there’s a high chance you’ve internalised the belief that a bit of internal pressure is necessary and that the alternative is utter perdition. That’s why I think so many people I know believe, secretly, that they are lazy.
But is it true?
I often wonder if those early life-hackers Benjamin Franklin with his list of Thirteen Virtues, or George Washington with his 110 Rules of Civility, were under the cosh of the same mighty guilt-and-stress machine (thanks, Puritans) or if they were channeling a more wholesome and motivating heroic American spirit. Who knows?
Whatever life was like in 1760, there’s no question that today is more stressful, despite of or because of our many advances (“must work harder! innovate or die!”). I am guessing that - without quite realising it - we are putting up with all this pressure because on some level we believe it to be transient rather than permanent, in service of some future state of lower stress.
But ask yourself: is this true? Am I tolerating a certain level of pressure because one day I believe it will all ease off?
If so, good luck.
Morning practice
My response to identifying these tiny personal bosses was to spend the first hour of the morning looking out of my office window instead of doing admin, an act of taking control of my personal mental real estate while sending these agents of globalist overachieving anxiety a clear message: I’ll deal with you later.
An Enlightened Overachiever has to draw motivation from a more nourishing well than fear. But frankly, I just needed a rest.
So pre-empting them is probably a wise idea.
If, like me, you’re a fan of bed-based spiritual practices, here’s what I suggest:
Immediately after you wake up, notice the thoughts that show up in the invisible space around your head (before getting out of bed). These are your personal drone adversaries. Especially take note of “must do this” or “failing at doing that” thoughts. Carry on for maybe 90-120 seconds. Write down a couple or just take note. No judgment. Just notice.
Intense simplification
But simplification also needs to happen outside your head in the real world. With today's intensity, the need for simplification itself becomes intense. A constant pruning of unwanted shoots is an essential practice for all life gardeners.
Recently I have been trying out “Intense Simplification” as an aspirational mantra and experimenting with a set of imaginary constrains. Like this:
What might intense simplification look like if
You could only work 2 days a week?
You had 6 solid hours a day but could only work on one thing, with 100% focus?
Your brain received a small electric shock every time you did something you don’t really care about or believe is important?
You may never be wholly in control of the weeds, but it’s worth trying.
Answers on a postcard.
Enlightening distraction
Let’s always remember that the world we live in is quite off its rocker.
I found this article about Accelerationism densely gripping - the sort of essay that uses words like 'praxis' that you know you will never properly understand but you can't help reading on anyway.
It shines a light on Marc Andreessen, Peter Thiel etc, casting them as optimistic dupes who got the wrong end of a more sinister philosophical stick. This itself is interesting, but even more so is the idea that capitalism is an organism created by an unimaginable future intelligence, that it is the same thing as AI, and… that it’s using us.
I found this idea weirdly energising.
As so often, thanks to The Browser for the link.
Quotes for overachievers
A couple of thoughts to close:
"First we have to accept we are violent. This acceptance clears the way to accept that our desire for something other than what is, is the root of all violence" - Sangamitra's Saccha Sur
“At certain moments, when alone, we feel a great lack deep within ourselves. This is the central one giving rise to all the others. The need to fill this lack, quench his thirst, urges us to think and act.” - Jean Klein, I Am
“‘Achievement, I think, is like a drug’, he said. ‘Once you achieve one thing, you need to achieve the next thing. And, when you're surrounded by people that are doing that, it becomes self reinforcing.’” - Gordon Caplan, quoted in The New Yorker (The Big House, Life After White Collar Crime)
Goodbye.