My worse days are those without plans. I know that's probably nonsense to most, but I know I'm not alone. I tend to short-circuit. My brain just cannot wrap itself around catching up on reading, taking an extra-long bike ride, tackling a freelance writing project, or completely crashing on the couch to watch something ridiculous.
When presented with a choice, philosopher Alan Watts said, you can never take in enough information. There is an infinite number of future scenarios to build in either direction. A mandala domino butterfly effect your brain can't possibly fathom.
But for reasons I'm sure any back-alley therapist could tease out, my obsession with making the best possible choice is a reverence for the future. Every step of the way you're taught to work for something beyond now. You work hard to graduate with honors. You work hard to get into a college. You work hard to get a job. And then you work hard to succeed with all the other things adults do. Except now you have a brain hard-wired to look forward instead of relish the opportunity to chill right fuckin' now.
If I could calm down, I'd recognize a good day is several cups of coffee, maybe an opportunity to clean up my place, a visit to a few thrift stores, a movie screening, some ice cream with friends, and not too much social media before bed. But there are plenty of days where I'm disappointed in myself for not doing something bigger and something more (whatever that means).
The Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius said it simply, “You could be good today. But instead you choose tomorrow.”
Author Ryan Holiday echoed the idea on his blog when considering the dreams of adults - "I’ve always found it’s better to think about what I want my ordinary life to look like most of the time. Then I try to make decisions based on the simple metric of whether they allow for more or less of that right now."
We're all striving to some extraordinary greatness, some singular moment, but what if we recognized that it's more difficult to just be? Wouldn't that be the more impressive feat? To transcend our monkey minds? You're going to have many more ordinary days in your life. Why not make them better? After all, what good is achievement if you can't enjoy it?
There are examples of this struggle everywhere. Besides my own, I saw two this past week alone.
On the latest season of Queer Eye, the Fab Five help a young woman in college realize that the amount of stress she's put on herself to combat climate change is ruining her time on present-day Earth. She cares so much about the cause that she's painfully wound up. There are no boundaries between work and play because she lives with other volunteers. It's hard to watch. But of course JVN and the crew show her how to take some time for self-care and why it can only end helping her fight the good fight.
I also caught a Gary Vaynerchuk clip where a young man approaches Vaynerchuk somewhat privately to thank him for his time and also ask what to do with his life. The young man explains that he grew up in a turbulent home and turned it all around by growing a 100 million dollar company from scratch. But he still wakes up every morning with a chip on his shoulder. In his trademark snap judgment, Vaynerchuk barely flinches and suggests he go deeper. He mentions therapy and the young man flinches. Vaynerchuk doubles down - "You gotta get the poison out."
There is deep, internal work to do. There is definitely always regular work to do too, but if we want to get ahead of all the future plans and enjoy our precious time here, we need to start paying attention.
With that being said, let's enjoy what else the week brought:
The School of Life: Why You Don't Need to Be Exceptional (video)
In one of the most bizarre stories of the recent past, Hellboy actor Ron Perlman challenges Ted Cruz to $50,000 charity wrestling bout.
VICE: COVID-19 Broke the Economy. What If We Don’t Fix It?
Another celebrity here to tell us that getting everything means nothing - Rapper J.Cole on The Disease of More
I started off this week thinking I'd write about propaganda and subtle cultural signals. as time went on, my thoughts morphed to what you just read, but Cold Crash Pictures' video "Sticking it to Poor People in Real Life and THEY LIVE (1988)" still has me thinking. Plus I need to watch They Live!
Until next time...