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October Newsletter: Everything's Fine
🕑 Added 2023-10-10 17:00:08 +0000 UTCThe other day a friend of mine with long COVID wrote me telling me his frustration with where he was at, with his expectations for his body versus what it was able to do, with realizing it was Sunday and he’d spent another week in a haze. “Objectively I’m doing fine, it’s just disappointing where ‘fine’ is,” he said.
I did something dangerous last month, which was to fall into a flow. Get up, jog, breakfast, meditate, kitchen work, drive to studio, five hours of work, drive home, dinner, a half-hour’s relaxing, dishes, a snack, and bed. I imagined I would burn out quickly, but instead I found I enjoyed it, the rigor which pushed me to challenge my body and spirit. I found energy I didn’t know I had, and every day we were doing something in the studio worth being glad about. I fell into habits, overeating, overplanning, and said, “at the end of the month I’ll go back to before.”
Cue the end of the month. For the past week I’ve been slowly recalibrating my mind not to map out my day minute by minute as soon as I wake up. I can feel the energy coiled up at the back of my skull, pinching out the present moment, generating a continual judgement of not good enough, not fast enough, generally not enough. It takes real effort to move towards peace in stillness when you’ve been running to keep up with the flow. There’s a ghost of myself still running, pulling at me as my daily life turns back to smaller tasks that keep me at home. Yesterday I sat and watched a stream endlessly pushing against a rock, dissolving it by imperceptible degrees. It's hard to feel things dissolve - a structure, a habit, a friction of muscle and bone.
Okay, I’m on my third draft of this and I still don’t have a great sign-off, so for now I’ll just say I hope all of you are well, and I’m looking forward to getting back into the Patreon flow. I’ll let you know next month how the stillness is going.
Comments
Leah Schacht
i dont have much to say other than i got some hope from reading this. glad youre doing Fine
Meggie
i can definitely connect with the discomfort associated with a lack of traditional "productivity". grind culture makes me want to rip my hair out. I'm constantly working on finding the beauty in slowing down and the art of taking time for myself. forever wishing you the best, and i hope your october brings you what you're looking for!
Spes
My pastor once taught that stillness is an active practice that requires conscious effort and planning. For something we associate with tranquility and passivity, it feels like a craft that we have to strive to improve on, and better allow ourselves to have in a world that’s so busy trying to get you from one place to the next, constantly selling you products to consume, and imposing deadlines to meet. Stillness is difficult to master, but I hope you make the best of the time you are able to find it this month.
Alec
❤️❤️❤️ you’re always so honest, and that’s something I find so admirable
Cheerful
<3
junosjunkdrawer
10000%
junosjunkdrawer
As someone who’s lived with chronic illness for a long time, I really understand man. I go through the same loops every month. Balance is fucking difficult!
neimbaum
I'm so happy you're happy will 😭😭
Miles Lamborghini
(I know you most likely won't see this, but I just feel like this is probably a safe place to put something like this. Sorry for the verbosity) Obviously my situations are much much different than yours in like every way (e.g. I'm not dealing with physical/bodily ailments/illness/problems or whatever, all of my problems/ailments are mental), but reading these words you've written for some reason I'm finding myself feeling like I connect and relate to them a lot. Even though ofc it manifests in completely different ways for me than it does for you. I really hope that the shitty things in your life start to get less shitty soon.
parker
a calm flow of water still carries things from one place to another ,, we all hope ur doing well and are excited to see what you guys have created the past month : )
virtualdotshelf
trying to find the balance between what you can do and what you want to do is difficult, especially when youre sick. ✌✌
addison
you should write a book
Erin Stanford
I understand this feeling. Am there for different reasons but similar space in my head.
James Dunne
Take care! Really excited to see what you guys have been up to in the studio :)
bug
<3
reg
tqm will
Knives
a flow can be life saving
Knives
Dude, I know this is unrelated, but I need your help right now.
surfjerk
A beautiful sign-off...
mello
Loving it
