Idleness

I woke up with my wife this morning grasping a blind goal: get shit done. It's ridiculous to put that sort of pressure on myself when there's very little resource for me to get said "shit" done with. I say goodbye to Jenny as she leaves for work and with that I let anxiety in. The anxiety that says to me, "you shit! Get off your ass and do something productive!" My heart starts beating faster. I need to keep my mind occupied, so I resort to the news; dumbing myself down to their level of mediocrity and ignorance for an hour before their program is finished. Then, again, I am alone and my mind is wandering with all the things I need to get done but can't, simply because the ball is in somebody else's court. I can do one of three things; listen to KBOO and dink around on the computer for hours; attempt to sit in one place and read or write; or finally, step out into the bitter cold and go somewhere that will provide me with some human interaction, be it the good folks at World Cup, my second family, or some stale customer service interaction elsewhere.

This time, I opted out of all three options and elected a fourth; no coffee, just tea; I sat crosslegged with my back against the sliding glass door—eyes closed. I set my computer to play a mix of Ravi Shankar's Sounds of India and Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan's Shahen-Shah with a pen and notepad. Come what may.
This having nowhere-to-go and nothing-to-do business has got to go. This exercise in calming my nerves is doubtless a very important first step in my day. Slowing down my heartbeat and relieving the mind's sense of emergency. I've only ever worked at my best in a routine. With no routine, there is nothing keeping me in check except my own scrambled mind. I am my own worst enemy when it comes to idleness.
I was reading just this past week "The Art of the Personal Essay," a book of assorted authors and essays assembled by Phillip Lopate. I was struck by a particular section titled "Essays in Idleness", more specifically the selected excerpts by a Japanese author known as Kenko. Idleness in the Japanese sense is related more to random musings and ramblings of the mind, far from the western sense relating to laziness. I hope to reach that point of productivity. I want pages flowing with musings on life's large and small subjects. It calls for discipline that I will have to abide by, absolutely. If Shankar's complex ragas have taught me anything so far, it's following a singular train of thought through to the end, knitting an epical scale idea. I'll get it figured out. Pen in pocket, notepad within reach at all times. I have to. The life of my mind depends on it.