On quietude

This Musing was intended to be on another subject altogether but quite honestly I couldn’t muster enough enthusiasm to write on it although it concerns an artist I admire hugely and an exhibition I enjoyed greatly. Are you feeling it too… a strange sense of dislocation arising from being confined in the same location for too long a time? I am rather nonplussed by this turn of events, for there was I, at the start of the lockdown, happily texting everyone that oh for me nothing much has changed as I work from home in any case. I congratulated myself on the longed for quietude. With no planes and no cars, how wonderful to hear the birds and to see the stars. Oh, how much I would achieve.

When I first started working from home, I put in place a routine that I follow pretty rigorously, starting with a morning meditation and scheduled breaks throughout the day that mean that I actually have to get up from my desk and move. I stop work no later than 6 pm. Weekends are sacrosanct. Each day also involves leaving the Flat so at least I get to interact with someone other than the Cat. I am fortunate not to have to battle daily with distraction, except when there’s anything to do about the thorny marketing issue and a few other things but let’s not get into that, and could easily accomplish deep work even before Cal Newport made it a thing. I love a To Do list. I swear by them and get great satisfaction from going down through them and ticking off the entries one by one. I pride myself on my focus, discipline and ability to get sh*t done. But now… now sh*t is resolutely remaining undone.

To make best use of the lockdown, I have various and sundry intentions for improving myself and my skill set. I have made the necessary To Do lists. I have rewritten them several times. I have managed to follow through on one task but not without herculean effort. Now, after eating more than was good for me over the Easter weekend and developing a belly even the Buddha would envy if he ever felt such a base emotion, I seem to have misplaced motivation and no matter how I retrace my steps, I cannot find her. Focus is off on a skite and I’ve no idea when he might be coming back. As for self-discipline, well…

Under normal circumstances, I will happily spend many hours engrossed in a book or in designing a pattern, without any need to go out and be among people or to have a change of scene, which is why the scheduling of breaks is so important for me. But now that I am not allowed to go out, I find that there is nothing more I’d rather do. I suddenly find myself in need of external stimulation. I need to see and be out to be able to come back home and do. I hadn’t appreciated until now how the small and seemingly inconsequential things I pass or unknowingly notice become the foundation for creation. For me TV and social media don’t cut it. I see now that I need to be out in the world and absorbing all around me. A daily walk around the same albeit pretty streets, alongside the obligatory queuing for the supermarket every fourth day or so just doesn’t do. It’s the sameness that’s getting me down. I long for something, anything, other than the same four walls or the same four walks.

Worse still, I have run out of books to read and have guiltily ordered more, so requiring folks to work in perhaps not the best of conditions. And as they are not essential items, I fear the lockdown might be over by the time they arrive.

The pettiness of all this does not escape me. I feel thoroughly ashamed of myself.

After a deal of head scratching and not inconsiderable contemplation, aided by the last remnants of Easter egg, I think I have finally figured out the real problem. It’s just too damned quiet.

Stay safe. Stay well.