Where There is A Will

I am consciously aware that I no longer stay “cool”. I am not, in fact, chill. Nor do I truly have the ability to sit around to do nothing. In truth, I am a sunflower, desperately in search of a direct stream of sunlight. And my current source of energy is coming from climate science.

It is amusing to call it my hyper-fixation. The online class is my nitrogen, fixed by my nerves into nutritious information. There is something poetic, if I just let my mind dwell on it. But as I said, slowing down has not been my strength recently.

Winter made it easy to stay busy. I had to stay inside, hold back on energy. Thoughts were easier to catch running between work and rehearsal. Sleep gradually became easier, but not without a fight. So there was more studying, more projects put to the side, chores to catch up with. The impulse to write keeps coming up, almost to the point I have to distance myself in order to do it. That doesn’t even mean that writing is any good, it just happens and I’m left staring at a page I’m unsure to keep.

But keep going, I must. The burning energy continues despite the night.

Making Room for Downtime

Making myself relax can be incredibly difficult. It’s a pattern of Duolingo, Youtube drone, into some dry Audible book that I hope stifles down my own noise. What seems to help is simply noise, the reassurance of some other voice.

A curious find I came across in my search for relaxing voices did happen to be ASMR. But it was Library Tutor vibes. Yes, I was falling asleep to math and physics, without having to go to class! It did help me relax, but that is not truly downtime. That is more time-filling activities meant to temper down the urge to produce more words or productivity.

The best downtime is a type of surrender. It’s in accepting that there is nothing to be done. An obstacle has been just placed before you, and to understand that challenge, you must first stop. You must surrender to the quiet and let the night enfold you. You give up drive to ride as a passenger, learning to read the road and world from a different view.

We return to the here and now, allowing the heart and body to steady themselves. Peace and quiet is simply the joy of being on a solitary walk on a sunny day. It’s about finding boredom in the activity and learning to enjoy it.

The Seeds You Plant Inevitably Bloom

After a few weeks, the algorithms adjust to the new interests. My social mediums are adjusted to my fixations, so now the ads are more pointed. Am I embarassed I got ads for a textbook seller? Hell no! Give me those climate science and geo-science books on discount sweetheart! Feed into my need to obsess over water in ways I never knew I could be obsessed about it.

It’s the idea of Opportunity Goggles. Once you shift your perspective on something, in this case searching for opportunity instead of failure, you start finding those particular paths. I just happen to have dumped a bunch of really good fertilizer on my ideas. I want to go outside, to be knee deep in mud. I am assessing if I care more about sustainable business or communities. Or do I see that the two benefit from each other? Do I light up when I talk about environment with children or do I delight in talking policies with close friends?

Not all ideas are going to be my final choice. But it’s healthy to explore these thoughts and find the experts while learning. It’s one of the moments where it’s fun to be lost. I don’t know what idea will unfurl, or if one project will push before the others.

But soon enough, with persistence, and some mental maintenance, this overgrown mind will find it’s natural form.