I'm still on vacation, but one can stay away from the computer for only so long. I've been feeling strangely. The bfriend thinks I'm not stretching enough, that I've been sitting in a car and not getting enough fresh air. It's been a drenchfest on the West Coast since Monday--we've driven through it all the way from San Francisco to San Diego. Even when we have a moment to stretch our legs we don't for very long, lest we get cold and wet.
I suspect that my funk also stems from blog withdrawal--from having thoughts that I would like to get online but can't. It's hard writing in the car. And, technically, I'm "on vacation." Still, words that don't go anywhere rot and start to smell after a while. I decided that, vacation or no, I needed to air them out.
I'm sitting in a cool cafe on E Street in Encinitas. The barristas are cute and asked me what my plans are for New Year's Eve. I'm wondering if I should squelch their intentions by telling them how old I am or by telling them the reason for my visit:
"I'm spending it with family."
"Sounds cool."
"My BOYFRIEND'S family."
"Oh."
Enough said.
Yes, I've had the opportunity to spend five days with my family (see my December 25 blog to get the highlights of that visit) and with my boyfriend's family. Yes, there are differences, and I'm not just talking weather. Though there is something to be said for waking up with a view of swaying palm trees and with the ocean in the distance. It's energizing. People here are more compelled to pay attention to the earth.
I thought it would be a good time to write. They piled into the Prius to go sample running shoes. I wondered if there was an eqivalent activity in my family--we get mighty excited about watching sports bloopers, but nothing would actually galvanize the troops so much that we all piled into Dad's Buick to go check it out.
The healthy livin' has been good for me, though I miss my daily java infusion. I got it at Starbucks yesterday while taking a walk near the beach (it was actually fairly sunny yesterday, so we took full advantage of it). The day before my bfriend's Mom supported my habit and took us to a schmancy cafe. Today, however, I knew I would just have to be blunt and say I needed to blog and drink coffee. Alone, if need be.
They dropped me off in front of E Street. The bfriend asked me if I was sure I didn't want to get new running shoes.
"No, thanks. I just need to do this."
"OK. Suit yourself."
Everyone waved goodbye as I stood outside the cafe, clutching my laptop bag. They were friendly as always, but I saw what they were saying inside, behind their eyes..."See ya...Caffeinator!"
Maybe these are just the paranoid thoughts of an addict.
I realize that I have a bit of a problem being in the Now, as Eckhart Tolle would say. I bought his book The Power of Now a couple of days ago and have been switching off between his book and Tom Peters' Re-Imagine (yes, I know I've been reading TP's book for months, but you really need to take his stuff in little bites). I figured it would be a way to sink into a higher state of consciousness without guilt for doing nothing. Odd, but the two influences seem to play into a powerful, singular message.
I suppose my circumstances have also contributed to my latest epiphany--as I mentioned, it's pissing rain, and I've been forced to stay indoors for most of my travels. In fact, one night, the power went out at my bfriend's parents' house, and we had to wait several hours in the dark for PG&E to come fix the line. Now, if this had been my parents' house, we would have been screwed, but Jesse's dad is an avid camper and managed to find headlamps for everyone. We cooked dinner on the gas range and ate by candlelight.
That night I sat in the dark with my headlamp switching between Peters and Tolle, subconsciously stressed because I hadn't powered up the computer for three days. I was planning on blogging that night and now that wouldn't be possible. What confinement! What a waste of time! What....relief!
Yes, I suppose that was what it was--a relief. And it's what Tolle describes as detaching from the mind, the root of our suffering. Once we detach from this place of goals and standards for where we should be (not a useless mechanism for getting things done, but damaging if we use this mechanism constantly) we plug in to Being; the end of suffereing; the place where the real stuff happens.
It's an ironic place for anyone in a creative field. We feel we need to PRODUCE, but we can't unless we DETACH. And you cannot PRODUCE in this place where you DETACH. Those that can best navigate the relationship between these two planes can manifest their creative impulses.
Enter Peters: Those that cannot navigate this relationship get stuck DETACHING or just PRODUCING. Most of us get stuck in the latter realm, not tapping into our intuition--our vision of what the world really needs--and bad things happen. Think hierarchical, unenlightened management. Think unevolved businesses making widgets that are no longer relevant to the world. Think corrupt values that result not as a means to a vision, but as a means to a manufactured, uninspiring end. Think stupid products that were conceived not from an original thought, but as an appendage to an already successful idea. Think chocolate-flavored string cheese and blue ketchup. Ick!
I read in the paper that Susan Sontag died. She's a hero of mine, and not just because she was smart and had cool hair. She lived well. And not because she managed to get married (and divorced), have a kid and get two masters degrees before she was 26. That's all stuff she managed to do in PRODUCING mode. However her work was the stuff of DETACHMENT. As written in her obituary in The New York Times:
Though she thought of herself as a novelist, it was through her essays that Ms. Sontag became known. As a result she was fated to write little else for the next quarter-century. She found the form an agony: a long essay took from nine months to a year to complete, often requiring 20 or more drafts.
"I've had thousands of pages for a 30-page essay," she said in a 1992 interview. " 'On Photography,' which is six essays, took five years. And I mean working every single day."
The good stuff doesn't always come out, packaged in plastic and ready to distribute to the public, on schedule. Through the exercise of producing, Sontag drafted, but through the exercise of detachment, and retrenchment, she re-drafted, re-tested, re-conceived, and ran it by her personal bullshit meter. The work could not be released until it passed her soul's muster.
Far be it for me to speak for dead people; I'm not in that business. Perhaps Sontag is just a slow writer. But consider the opposite dynamic--getting products out on schedule, all the time, significant or not, in fear-driven desperation of remaining on the radar of the public's consciousness. Consider YET ANOTHER Reality TV show, consider the wear and tear on the public's attention span. Consider the quality of the products--the thoughts!--we produce because we don't merely put them out on a schedule.
Our world is premised on a pay as you go system. You get paid to PRODUCE, not to DETACH. If we figure out how to detach while the meter is still running the result is qualilty.
I'll start by forgiving myself for not blogging.
Screwed? Ahem, excuse me Jor, but we have candles....lots of them....although the headlamps were cool...you'd definitely be hard-pressed to find one of those around here. Hope you had fun despite all the rain. Love, Mom
Posted by: Joy DJ | December 31, 2004 at 03:13 PM