Life, Work

I'm coming off a nasty bug just now. Last wednesday I woke up with that bad feeling. by 4:00 pm I had the full on achey-shakeys with a fever, and I had to skip the staff meeting (shed tear) and pass out with my clothes on. Thursday I woke at 7:30 to check my condition. Upon confirming that I was indeed shitty, I called the school and told them to spend their money on somebody else for the day (I only make bread when I go to the bakery). I then slept from 7:35 to 5pm, without moving once. I also didn't feel the need to move once. It wasn't as if I was telling myself to lay in bed and rest. I just wasn't telling myself anything.

The next 6 days up until the present have been a completely annoying mix of recovery and resickery. Today is the first day that I truly feel normal energy-wise, though still I hack up material from deep in the lungs. so... wednesday to wednesday! 7 days of sick! I haven't been sick for years, and now 7 days straight!

Which brings me to the point of my blog: work, life, motivation, etc. You see, when I was sick, just yesterday in fact, I really couldn't do anything. I was too fucking sick. I just had no energy and no will to make anything happen. Creatively, I also wasn't getting any ideas, no good jams coming out, no desire to make any good jams, nothing. Here is the tricky thing: yesterday I was no longer physically feeling bad. Yesterday the sickness had yet to leave my brain. I was still locked in to "can't do shit" mode. But my body was telling me that it was time to start doing shit again. And so I went insane. Just ask molly.

more to the point: I love not doing shit! But I have to be more specific here: when I don't feel like doing anything, my favorite thing to do is do NOTHING! I realized when I was sick what my true destiny is: to be the son of rich parents. Then, I could loaf my ENTIRE life away! So, thanks mom and dad, for not allowing me to fulfill my destiny. All these years of carefully raising me, teaching me right from wrong... what you really should've been doing is making yourselves rich, so you could allow me to leech off of you (much much more than I already do).

I told molly that this is what I want to do with my life: nothing. I want to simply fuck around, fuck off, piddle paddle, this and that, all day every day for the rest of my life. she brought up a good point: that's what everyone wants. nobody wants to go to work. nobody wants to wake up. you're not unique.

but then something interesting happened today; I got my groove back. today I found that I had the ideas, energy, and drive to do a bunch of shit. and that's what I did, a shitload of stuff. and I realized that what I really want to do is work my ass off everyday for the rest of my life, and the best thing would be to work at something that I love, so everyday of work would be a "blessed" opportunity to bust my ass doing what I love.

what better feeling is there than getting a bunch of shit done? when you're in the mode and you're multi-tasking, checking off the boxes, knocking down the list. that's where it's at.

funny thing, huh? when you don't feel the drive, the only thing you want to do is nothing. when you feel the drive, the only thing you want to do is everything. at these two extremes, you become convinced of your life pursuit, your big goal. how can we possibly contain both of these worlds inside of us? and what's in the middle? It seems like the middle sucks. what are you gonna do--"some" stuff? fuck around "a little bit"? yeah right, that never works. these feeling are all or nothing. sometimes we do both at once, or we do one to get to the other. for example, I will take care of a bunch of shit on a given saturday night, wake up super early on sunday morning, bust my ass to get the hell out of las cruces, drive a long ways, lace up the hiking boots, then walk a super long, difficult trail so I can sit and stare at a rock, or a tree, or a "view" and DO FUCKING NOTHING. how weird is that? what the hell am I doing?

college was the same thing. this is supposed to be the place where we learn to manage our time. yeah right! I learned how to, 1. fuck off completely! and do nothing! and 2. get a shit load of stuff done. I would spend sun-wed getting high and watching my arm hair grow, playing radiohead chords, and surfing the internet, then thur-sat I would read 2 books, glaze-load-and-fire a huge kiln full of work, write 2 papers, go on a climbing trip, and clean the entire house... yeah, great time management. there's no balance. talk to ari about balance. that kid had a schedule. he knew when to get his shit done. he was running programs. he would write himself notes and ACTUALLY FOLLOW THEM! I write myself lists with one hand and pick my nose with the other.

this is life, work. there's some truth here. I can't really codify it, but I know it's in there somewhere.