These days it seems like I cannot get away from tiredness. From the moment I get up, all through the day, a weariness that goes to the core. I don't know why?
The workaholic in me is truly awake. When I had a 9-to-5 job, while I still went above and beyond the call of duty, there were things to be done and timelines and deadlines to achieve them in. But now that I'm my own boss, I can pack my calendar with unrealistic visionary projects and deadlines that are all seemingly in the past.
I try to get in a bit of exercise early in the morning. I now know that this is the most realistic time to stick to anything of importance. I went through a writing exercise once in which I took time, every morning, from about 5 am, to write at least two pages long-hand. This is an exercise in creativity written about by Julia Cameron in her book The Artist's Way. And for almost a year, at least I'd like to think it was that long, I was dedicated in waking up and writing, by hand, two full A4-format pages. Some days it took about 50 minutes to write, some days, 45 minutes, some days even an hour. But I always wrote and wrote with the thought that this will bear good fruit, sooner than later.
Like exercise. I know for a fact that weighing yourself each and every day is not good for the soul, especially if you are trying to lose weight. Perhaps weighing yourself monthly, or if you cannot help it, then weekly might be better. But daily, geez. That can be really disappointing. But the real trick is that sticking to a routine, a daily one, will work miracles, even when you don't feel the results, don't see them and feel rotten. The mere act of doing the work will bear results.
And that's probably where I am now. The fatigue of waking up, doing about one hour, sixty minutes, of a cardio routine, mechanically, robotically and then going through the day, and coming out at the end feeling tired of just being.
ON WRITING PRACTICE
I eventually stopped writing, but did not stop in believing that there was something to the practice. Of course there's a fundamental idea that staying put, keeping on the path, doing the drills as to get the muscle memory will eventually pan out. Just staying on the path will get you to a destination, albeit with many obstacles on the path. But it's better than staying put.
My writing practise stopped because it had become quite uninspiring. Even my determination that good things come to those who wait was waxing and waning till there was no inspiration left to do anything. Quite dry in fact. Until it became a slog-fest. Uninspiring and quite frankly tedious. So after a really long time, enough time in which I could attest that I gave it my best shot, I stopped. Not the idea of writing as an exercise, but the structure of the morning pages.
Now I write when I feel a block. I write when I am uninspired. Unlike most people who will only go to the keyboard when they feel that they have something to say, I feel that the best thing to do is write when I am lost. The writing becomes a method of finding my way. That way, I seem to absolve myself from the ownership of the content. I can write anything, in an uninspired state of mind, and feel some sense of accomplishment at the end.
And it was very tiring too - which is what I started writing about. In the beginning, I'd wake up anticipating getting to the page. And I'd write non-stop, as the exercise is supposed to. I was obsessed with not missing a single day, and when I could not make it to the pen and paper by 5 am, I tried to at least make it during the day, not morning pages, sometimes afternoon pages or evening pages or night pages. And then as the most precious time of the day, morning, was taken up in an exercise that I did not believe in, I started to feel cheated, robbed. One skipped day turned to two and then weeks turned to months.
But like I mentioned, I still think that there's power in writing meditatively. Not writing with a singular purpose, but taking what's in your brain and spilling it out. You'll be surprised at the end that there's stuff there that needed to be penned. It was like a cancer eating at the soul and even though you can go to a meditation retreat and try on the silent mindfulness meditation, which is also positive in a clear-the-mind way, the best way to flush is to actually concentrate.
LAYING BRICKS
Thinking about something is OK, but doing the work, laying the bricks is a better meditative technique. Analysis paralysis - the strange condition where you're not quite ready to do the work, since you're in the planning stages. I could never be a project manager, the need to start laying bricks is too strong. But I have also been fond of planning ahead and sometimes the need to lay the brick perfectly slows me down, the work does not proceed since I keep asking if this is the best way for it to work. The story is inside my head, the characters are blurry, unfocussed, strangely boring and I wait for them to reveal themselves. But they don't so they never mature.
I love to write software and sometimes the same thing happens. I can see the software in my mind, like I see the hundred-story building in all its glory. But I worry that if I lay the first brick, I may be laying it wrong and then the consequence of the twists and turns later to make things right will make the ending ugly. So we don't get off the start line. And none of the characters get off the blurry platform and make it into the train, or the first line of code never gets written.
Amazingly though, as soon as I stopped worrying about the morning pages, and write only when I am uninspired, I found that I could allow myself to make a lot of mistakes. I allow my story not to be excellent and the software not to be perfect. I don't need to have all the answers before I start and somehow, things will work themselves out along the way.
Much like this blog - from today anyway.
Not planning details, but having an outline, a rough path mapped out on where to go. Details are not required, but mapping is always good. I realize that what makes it good about writing is the typing exercise, watching the words come out and solidify themselves on paper. Same thing with programming. The logic is flawlessly awesome and when you click on something and it works, a rush of endorphin gives you a little bit of a rush. You've automated something. And perhaps that's what the point is. Doing something repetitively is not a bad thing, there's a feeling of comfort in repetitive work as long as it is not boring. But the act of making a tool so that your work is easier is infinitely more rewarding - and even more rewarding is using that tool to make something.
BE YOURSELF
Why make your own table when you can buy one? Why make your own chair, or anything for that matter? In some cases it's a cost issue, but not always. The cost of buying sometimes is cheaper than the labour and materials to make it yourself. But the act of creation is a powerful aphrodisiac. There is a sense of accomplishment accompanied with satisfaction. And our altruistic selves then want to make something for someone else. The desire to make someone else happy is not just mammalian, but I suspect runs across all species.
This fatigue is caused not by just sitting, because I am quite active. But at the end of the day, doing work for others, productive work, is the key to happiness. No matter how much introspection you have or are willing to bear, ultimately, the greatest satisfaction is with sharing a part of you with humanity and not remaining in a cocoon. Which greatly explains the explosion of social media especially with the youth, the young, who have grown up in a world where connectivity is taken for granted, and can be experienced immediately. Unlike the old days when you would need to walk just to see a friend for a few minutes, in our digital world, an interruption by a friend, or a story, can happen at any moment.
And the desire to share what we are doing is an overpowering, intoxicating drug. Not to be alone, or at least not to feel alone. Even as I write this, I suspect that perhaps someone may read it, perhaps even all the way down to this paragraph. Who knows, they may connect with me at a different level in terms of what they are feeling and then they too may sit down and write something because something they have read has opened up their own personality. Because amazingly, not only do we learn by accretion, slowly and glacially, but we also learn by quick inspiration. Newton and his apple. Or Archimedes eureka moment. Sometimes it's a word spoken by someone, or an image seen. It is possible that life could change in a single moment, something happens and you are never the same again.
I have discovered, slowly, not by eureka, that I cannot think of what others want to read, or want me to say as I write. So I just have to expose myself and write and there will be people who will take this and critically say, no, that's not for me, while others may look at the writing and connect. Who knows, they may get their eureka moment.
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