It's a really interesting feeling that I know have different recordings of my own music that fit my own moods and needs so exactly. Here's an unreleased something I'm listening to get myself moving after an afternoon nap. Love the straight ahead hi-hats that come in at 2:20 and then dry out, the kick variation at 3:19, and how the synths seems to morph into a rain like outro at around 6:00. Perhaps I should always wait to post things until they come back around for me. It's a pleasure to present when it inspires me, not just because I made it today and feel I should share.
Today (and this week) is about triage. I'm back from Tech Shabbat less than 24 hrs and I already feel behind. I'm choosing to take this as an opportunity to recalibrate. As my life has gotten progressively more full in the last few months, I've been slowly less able to get to everything. The solution isn't to do more, to schedule better, to demand more. Yes I continue to work to evolve my systems and be more efficient and productive. But more important is to do the right work. I was talking to a friend today about restlessness and overwhelm - that the solution for me isn't to do more, it's to slow down and ultimately do less, but to do the next right thing, not the next random thing on the never ending list.
Sometimes this is easier said than done, but when it's feeling like a hard question to answer, I know that's a warning sign that I'm trying to do too much and it's time to reconnect to breath and slow down. As always, I advocate and attempt to teach the things I need to learn the most myself.
I have spent most of my life attempting to build more structure to set up the life that I want. Each new beam creates more space, and it also creates walls that need plastering, floors that need finishing, spaces that need filling first with furniture but more importantly with life, love, and living. The structures I build only serve me when I live within them before building new rooms. And certainly a country home is worthless without the time and energy to spend in it.
My challenge now is not how to expand, but how to inhabit the practices I've already been building, with the generous and gracious friends that I've been inviting into them - you.
To that end I'm recognizing that I can't read everything on Akimbo. I just went through and bookmarked some things for later. If they remind me and I don't have time them, I'm going to let them go. I hope y'all will continue tagging me even if I don't respond sometimes!
Tonight I'm drinking tea past my usual stopping time to finish some long overdue consulting work for a client who has been very patient. It feels like pulling teeth, but I'm doing my best to remind myself that the infected splinter of my overdue tasks is always less painful to remove than it is left festering. I was reminded recently of one of my favorite stories by my partner who has heard it far too many times.
“A farmer is sitting on his porch in a chair, hanging out.
A friend walks up to the porch to say hello, and hears an awful yelping, squealing sound coming from inside the house.
"What's that terrifyin' sound?" asks the friend.
"It's my dog," said the farmer. "He's sittin' on a nail."
"Why doesn't he just sit up and get off it?" asks the friend.
The farmer deliberates on this and replies:
"Doesn't hurt enough yet.”
– Anthony Martignetti via Amanda Palmer, Art of Asking
My corollary is that there are a few ways for something to hurt enough.
1. Wait long enough for it to get infected.
2. Start squirming enough until the nail digs in deeply enough.
3. Focus your attention on the nail.