This Now
After Christmas but before the turn of the year I once again found myself driving through four states as I left one home to get to the other. In the past I would have been more inclined to entertain myself by listening to music and then taking a break from the noise from my speakers to organize the noise of my thoughts. In the last decade, however, I’ve kept myself occupied with podcasts and, more recently, audiobooks.
Nevertheless, the audiobook I had on deck was breaking its promise to be a funny and fascinating yarn. The story was annoyingly dull and populated with shallow, unlikeable characters, and its sense of humor was closer to dragging its knuckles along the tiles of a locker room floor. The lengthy podcast, in turn, was decidedly much more entertaining and better aimed towards my twisted sense of dark humor, but I still found myself needing to take periodic breaks from its tragic biography of a haunted, shattered serial killer staggeringly deep in the throes of schizophrenia.
Therefore, as it came to pass, I found myself thinking about my life as it stood. I have not done terribly for myself personally or professionally, but am still a country mile or three from where I had thought I’d be by now. I have been professionally frustrated and, without too much mulling over, I realized I had reverted to my bad habit of comparing myself to others my age. This of course is about the worst possible way to go about addressing an issue. It was leaving me feeling inadequate and under-accomplished. I wouldn’t call it a midlife-crisis (in particular since I’m in my thirties) but there was still a real uncertainty about how much I’ve been feeling my way along the course of time, wondering if my instincts have been wrong, or if I’ve gone astray and will continue to go so without realizing it.
I don’t necessarily believe any of these thoughts, but the thought was noisy, like an alarm, and hard to dismiss. Most of us tend to trust our thoughts, although I think it is more out of the intimacy we feel towards them: they are simultaneously our most trusted advisors and alarm systems, as well as tyrannic nuisances misguided or, worse yet, outright dishonest and cruel.
Around hour 10 my ass was so numb I wondered if maybe it wasn’t attached anymore. I was grouchy and tired and the sun was going down so there wasn’t even much to look at outside.
While going under a viaduct, however, something clicked. It wasn’t entirely unexpected, but its clarity still took me by surprise. It was like how suddenly the invisible name of a movie right on the tip of your tongue materializes in your mouth. But was clearer than any bit of trivia: amid my physical discomfort and tiredness not to mention my mental anxiety and unrest, I realized that I was aware of all these sensations. It took no effort to be aware of them, the way it takes no effort to suddenly feel your clothes on your body or the chair you are in, once you remember you are wearing clothes or sitting in a chair. And while all the sensations were apparently different from one another, in my seeing them I realized they were all on the same level of existence, similar to how waves in water may all be different sizes or have different apparent smoothnesses or shades of greens, blues, greys, and whites, yet are all on the same level of the ocean. And with this, I saw that while indeed many of these discomforts, in particular the mental ones, were obviously unpleasant when compared to feelings of rest and satisfaction, the power assigned to them came not from the feeling of pain itself, but from my believing in them, never questioning that such discomfort may, despite all appearances, be superficial.
In other words, for instance, the notion that other people aren’t feeling their way along in life may or may not be true, but the anxiety in that doesn’t come from its truth or lack thereof. Rather, the anxiety comes from feeling the discomfort and believing it must be coming from some objective truth about my life or the world around me, or both.
From that perspective, what seemed like a thundering, restless storm of ceaseless concerns in life became more a brood of dust devils. The irritation and motion and distraction and discomfort were all there. It would be wrong to deny that. But the problems were generally absent. It seemed more like life was just appearing to me, in its situations and forms and shapes. It felt easier to simply observe and respond as needed rather than feel compelled to impulsively react to all of it at once, feeling like I was all on my own to find my way and racing a clock all the while.
Over the next couple of days I felt a freshness in the air, like how I feel when springtime is breaking through. I wondered why I would feel so unencumbered since it wasn’t even January yet, let along spring. I assumed it had something to do with the Austin weather, which was still warm compared to what December usually is in most other parts of the country. But even while running mundane errands I felt a freeness and optimism. I didn’t think it was because 2020 was ending, despite its reputation as a God-awful year, although I do have an optimistic curiosity at the beginning of every new year. I didn’t analyze the feeling too much other than trying to think about how I might describe it. The sensations were obvious, but the words for it were not. It was like trying to paint a picture of feelings. To me it felt like a living air moving through me, as though I had a giant space in my body that was being opened up refreshing and invigorating, like a sweet air full of light clearing out the stuffy, stale air of a cave after the end of a winter.
On the heels of this feeling however, there were the old concerns of being trapped, of being stuck in a rut professionally, of being personally lost and too old to change:
That’s for someone who is in their late 20s, tops! By your mid-30’s you need to have it figured out, have a house owned, already be married, be established!
Oddly, sometimes these feelings would almost co-exist next to one another.
But, once again, it occurred to me that these thoughts might be misplaced, or at best misassigned. How does one feel free and at the same time feel stuck? On reflection, I think it’s because you are free. Maybe not free to drop everything and hitchhike across the country, or not free because you have debt to pay off or a family to be responsible for. Free, though, from the obligation of assigning and locking yourself into a fate. Free from existential anxiety that is more often than not shadows moving out the peripheral vision of your soul’s eye, disturbing you and making you think something is real when it isn’t and if, on looking, there is anything objectively factual there at all.
Free to enjoy life and even appreciate the discomforts for what they are, even if they aren’t enjoyable in the usual sense. Preference for comfort arises, but it’s perhaps wiser to not place too much stock in preferences since it leads more often to disappointment. The architecture of music and flavor consists of several distinct nuances. So does the experience of life.
Nevertheless, the audiobook I had on deck was breaking its promise to be a funny and fascinating yarn. The story was annoyingly dull and populated with shallow, unlikeable characters, and its sense of humor was closer to dragging its knuckles along the tiles of a locker room floor. The lengthy podcast, in turn, was decidedly much more entertaining and better aimed towards my twisted sense of dark humor, but I still found myself needing to take periodic breaks from its tragic biography of a haunted, shattered serial killer staggeringly deep in the throes of schizophrenia.
Therefore, as it came to pass, I found myself thinking about my life as it stood. I have not done terribly for myself personally or professionally, but am still a country mile or three from where I had thought I’d be by now. I have been professionally frustrated and, without too much mulling over, I realized I had reverted to my bad habit of comparing myself to others my age. This of course is about the worst possible way to go about addressing an issue. It was leaving me feeling inadequate and under-accomplished. I wouldn’t call it a midlife-crisis (in particular since I’m in my thirties) but there was still a real uncertainty about how much I’ve been feeling my way along the course of time, wondering if my instincts have been wrong, or if I’ve gone astray and will continue to go so without realizing it.
I don’t necessarily believe any of these thoughts, but the thought was noisy, like an alarm, and hard to dismiss. Most of us tend to trust our thoughts, although I think it is more out of the intimacy we feel towards them: they are simultaneously our most trusted advisors and alarm systems, as well as tyrannic nuisances misguided or, worse yet, outright dishonest and cruel.
Around hour 10 my ass was so numb I wondered if maybe it wasn’t attached anymore. I was grouchy and tired and the sun was going down so there wasn’t even much to look at outside.
While going under a viaduct, however, something clicked. It wasn’t entirely unexpected, but its clarity still took me by surprise. It was like how suddenly the invisible name of a movie right on the tip of your tongue materializes in your mouth. But was clearer than any bit of trivia: amid my physical discomfort and tiredness not to mention my mental anxiety and unrest, I realized that I was aware of all these sensations. It took no effort to be aware of them, the way it takes no effort to suddenly feel your clothes on your body or the chair you are in, once you remember you are wearing clothes or sitting in a chair. And while all the sensations were apparently different from one another, in my seeing them I realized they were all on the same level of existence, similar to how waves in water may all be different sizes or have different apparent smoothnesses or shades of greens, blues, greys, and whites, yet are all on the same level of the ocean. And with this, I saw that while indeed many of these discomforts, in particular the mental ones, were obviously unpleasant when compared to feelings of rest and satisfaction, the power assigned to them came not from the feeling of pain itself, but from my believing in them, never questioning that such discomfort may, despite all appearances, be superficial.
In other words, for instance, the notion that other people aren’t feeling their way along in life may or may not be true, but the anxiety in that doesn’t come from its truth or lack thereof. Rather, the anxiety comes from feeling the discomfort and believing it must be coming from some objective truth about my life or the world around me, or both.
From that perspective, what seemed like a thundering, restless storm of ceaseless concerns in life became more a brood of dust devils. The irritation and motion and distraction and discomfort were all there. It would be wrong to deny that. But the problems were generally absent. It seemed more like life was just appearing to me, in its situations and forms and shapes. It felt easier to simply observe and respond as needed rather than feel compelled to impulsively react to all of it at once, feeling like I was all on my own to find my way and racing a clock all the while.
Over the next couple of days I felt a freshness in the air, like how I feel when springtime is breaking through. I wondered why I would feel so unencumbered since it wasn’t even January yet, let along spring. I assumed it had something to do with the Austin weather, which was still warm compared to what December usually is in most other parts of the country. But even while running mundane errands I felt a freeness and optimism. I didn’t think it was because 2020 was ending, despite its reputation as a God-awful year, although I do have an optimistic curiosity at the beginning of every new year. I didn’t analyze the feeling too much other than trying to think about how I might describe it. The sensations were obvious, but the words for it were not. It was like trying to paint a picture of feelings. To me it felt like a living air moving through me, as though I had a giant space in my body that was being opened up refreshing and invigorating, like a sweet air full of light clearing out the stuffy, stale air of a cave after the end of a winter.
On the heels of this feeling however, there were the old concerns of being trapped, of being stuck in a rut professionally, of being personally lost and too old to change:
That’s for someone who is in their late 20s, tops! By your mid-30’s you need to have it figured out, have a house owned, already be married, be established!
Oddly, sometimes these feelings would almost co-exist next to one another.
But, once again, it occurred to me that these thoughts might be misplaced, or at best misassigned. How does one feel free and at the same time feel stuck? On reflection, I think it’s because you are free. Maybe not free to drop everything and hitchhike across the country, or not free because you have debt to pay off or a family to be responsible for. Free, though, from the obligation of assigning and locking yourself into a fate. Free from existential anxiety that is more often than not shadows moving out the peripheral vision of your soul’s eye, disturbing you and making you think something is real when it isn’t and if, on looking, there is anything objectively factual there at all.
Free to enjoy life and even appreciate the discomforts for what they are, even if they aren’t enjoyable in the usual sense. Preference for comfort arises, but it’s perhaps wiser to not place too much stock in preferences since it leads more often to disappointment. The architecture of music and flavor consists of several distinct nuances. So does the experience of life.
As to this feeling of lightness co-existing with the frustration of being stuck in a rut, I interpreted this as a reminder that one is never done growing in life, rather than assuming it to be an objective sign of a fact that one is stuck. Learning, therefore, to enjoy life in all its appearances including appreciating the challenges and pains and discomforts and frustrations.
It also became clear that a lot of my personal anxiety is rooted in my comparing myself not to others, but to myself in the future. Why am I not “there” yet? When will I get “there”? What am I doing to sabotage myself? I thought I’d be “there” years ago and I’ve lost so much time already while everyone is already “there”!
For a second, I cut away the root to a projected “me” in the future and with that same clarity could see that as long as I am alive and functioning I am still growing, and much of that growing is spontaneous and seemingly random but not necessarily disordered. A planet has no brain but still forms mountains and rivers and habitats. Mindless cells without any formal instruction or encouragement form complex lifeforms, capable of living thousands of years, like redwood trees. Maybe it’s less important to marry one’s self to a projection and healthier to appreciate where one is now and trust that when it is time to act, an action will come about.
For over a decade I’ve given a lot of thought to the idea of being present, or being in the now. It sounded pretty and at first glance wise, but I would also be dismissive of it, usually because the people telling me sounded like they were out of touch. And that may very well be how I sound in this writing. But it isn’t something that I can tell anyone to do any more than I can tell anyone the satisfying feeling of sitting down after having stood for hours. And, now that I think about it, telling someone to be present strikes me as a rather useless platitude, because what the hell does that even mean?
For myself, though, it doesn’t mean being joyous and never having pain or irritation, or all the answers, although I think this is the erroneous impression people may have of it. To me, being present means joy reflects in the same mirror that irritation does, but both can be seen for what they are. You are not doomed or fated to anything. You are just aware of them, and of everything else around you, just as you are aware of your own self.
It also became clear that a lot of my personal anxiety is rooted in my comparing myself not to others, but to myself in the future. Why am I not “there” yet? When will I get “there”? What am I doing to sabotage myself? I thought I’d be “there” years ago and I’ve lost so much time already while everyone is already “there”!
For a second, I cut away the root to a projected “me” in the future and with that same clarity could see that as long as I am alive and functioning I am still growing, and much of that growing is spontaneous and seemingly random but not necessarily disordered. A planet has no brain but still forms mountains and rivers and habitats. Mindless cells without any formal instruction or encouragement form complex lifeforms, capable of living thousands of years, like redwood trees. Maybe it’s less important to marry one’s self to a projection and healthier to appreciate where one is now and trust that when it is time to act, an action will come about.
For over a decade I’ve given a lot of thought to the idea of being present, or being in the now. It sounded pretty and at first glance wise, but I would also be dismissive of it, usually because the people telling me sounded like they were out of touch. And that may very well be how I sound in this writing. But it isn’t something that I can tell anyone to do any more than I can tell anyone the satisfying feeling of sitting down after having stood for hours. And, now that I think about it, telling someone to be present strikes me as a rather useless platitude, because what the hell does that even mean?
For myself, though, it doesn’t mean being joyous and never having pain or irritation, or all the answers, although I think this is the erroneous impression people may have of it. To me, being present means joy reflects in the same mirror that irritation does, but both can be seen for what they are. You are not doomed or fated to anything. You are just aware of them, and of everything else around you, just as you are aware of your own self.
posted by Tristan | 11:31 PM
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