Dear Diary,
As we know, I am one who has needed to have taken steps back and withdraw into myself more from time to time. I am one who doesn’t like to admit my limitations. I want to pretend they aren’t real and are more fluid or unrestrictive, like some switch I can turn off when convenient. This switch-based limitation scenario is wholly false, but when this quarantine started, I scarcely noticed. The first week or two went by, and it was mostly life-as-normal. As time became increasingly meaningless due to the blending of one day into the next, I found myself questioning everything.
I have few defining characteristics. I tend to be surprisingly insightful for someone who has few memories from which to draw insight. The upsides of having little to offer in terms of long-term continuity are patience, innocence, compassion, and curiosity. For several weeks now, I’ve been staring out of my office window watching spring slowly take shape, watching nature grow at its own pace. In between trying to work on art, music, and writing, I’ve been watching nature work.
When a songbird lands on the porch roof outside of my office, I generally become more cheerful. They rarely stay long and seem to be keenly aware of when I try to take a picture of them in the sunlight, fluttering away rather than let me snap a photo. Those momentary breaks in productivity and pauses in life’s new normal of near-perpetual silence are heartwarming. I look at my screen then out to the tree branches, and I think about what productivity is and what it’s all about.
Productivity is not a synonym for health, but when I lay my head on my pillow at night, I measure my day in terms of what I got done. I don’t stop and think about how I feel or what I’m thinking; I feel guilty for not accomplishing more tasks. My emotional and mental states are wrapped up in this endless hamster-wheel of accomplishment of productivity. I may momentarily feel a sense of relief or an absence of stress due to putting things on my list and then crossing them off, but that is a cycle that doesn’t end.
I think about productivity, and my limitations, and my heart sinks even more. Deep down, I am not even productive in the ways I want to be; I’m just trying to keep my mind distracted from other things, I’m actively practicing escapism. I’d rather not dwell upon the state of the country, the work my house still needs, or my social life despite my regular efforts in all of those categories. I’d instead work to stay busy.
In previous times, wherein a ‘work to stay busy’ attitude was more easily viable due to it being broken up with appointments, an occasional trip to lunch, and other interruptions, times are different now. There are no external interruptions anymore. It is increasingly difficult to hide the notion that we’ve been fed the idea for so long the solution to everything is just to work harder. The temporarily embarrassed millionaire class in America embodies this idea without even realizing it as they dutifully buy their lottery tickets and put money in the offering plate, believing their break is right around the corner because they work hard. It isn’t true now, it isn’t likely to be true tomorrow, and it hasn’t been true for decades.
Through the silence, the watching nature, and the struggle to work just to soothe my anxieties, I began noticing patterns even more clearly than I usually do. There were a few people or things that I truly wanted to hold on to and ensure when the quarantine is over, and we try to figure out what life becomes in that future, they were involved in that new life. I’ve had some successes and failures so far, but the idea wherein I have to put most of the initiative into something to get anything out of it still holds, unfortunately. However, the number of things and people I find myself scrambling around investing energy in dwindles.
As I grow more comfortable with quietly letting go of one-way relationships, so too am I becoming more comfortable with taking a hard look at examining just what productivity is. Trying to organize our time, so we have no time and thus live to fight another day, maybe typical for someone my age, but that’s not a path to a more joyful life. The roads to joy are as myriad as the people walking them. I know mine involves simplicity, reciprocity, and better food.
Michael Pollan, of ‘Cooked,’ said, “Is there any time less wasted than cooking?” That has stuck with me over the years, and cooking is something I both enjoy and wish I had more proficiency. Several things interfere, but this quarantine has brought to light for many of us what is more important and what isn’t. This quarantine has been a double-edged sword, a hard reset button that pundits will talk about in terms of ‘lost monetary value’ but one wherein we have an opportunity to emerge the other side wiser and less wasteful.
There are people I would like to see, but I don’t want to fall back into the trap of feeling I need to produce to feel worthy of living. Having a momentary breath of fresh air that doesn’t involve crippling insecurity is refreshing. Still, I’m well aware the pressures are out there trying to get us all back into believing GDP and the stock market is all that matters. As a PTSD survivor, hypervigilance is a trademark symptom of our struggle. It wasn’t until this quarantine I thought about how vigilant I was about productivity and my needs to feel like I did something just to sleep at night.
I look forward to going to the gym again, feeling ok sitting at lunch with friends for half the afternoon, and watching the leaves grow while daydreaming. I look forward to keeping the important people in my life for as long as they choose to be because I can’t maintain one-way relationships indefinitely. I look forward to one day finally converting this house into a home, the very thought makes me want to cry, but that’s a separate discussion all its own. I do look forward to being productive, but when I have something to say as opposed to the pressures I used to feel consistently.
Lao Tzu taught us, “Fill your bowl to the brim, and it will spill. Keep sharpening your knife, and it will blunt. Chase after money and security and your heart will never unclench. Care about people’s approval, and you will be their prisoner. Do your work, then step back. The only path to serenity.” A lesson like this not only for me but for quite a plethora of people, I think it is an excellent reminder to calm down. Productivity by itself, or for its own sake, is not the answer. Trying just to avoid problems through work or merely living to fight another day can only get you so far.
It may feel like ages, but relatively soon from a historical perspective, we will emerge from our isolated existences and begin to intermingle again. We will get haircuts and sandwiches, cups of coffee and cut off in traffic. We’ll be in long lines and getting sunburns. Life won’t be precisely the same, but there will still be similarities. When that happens, I hope I remember this moment right now – when I just briefly stepped out of the hamster-wheel and remembered there is life outside of work. My identity isn’t tied to what I do; I am more than what I produce. I can still be loved even if I’m not the best at something.
Time to see how deep the rabbit hole goes.