Not Listening

I haven’t been listening, no.   But perhaps I ought, with passages like that.  I’ll need to ask you for podcast lessons (how does one find them?), since I’d rather that at least a few of my fallen drops of wax contain shared jokes with you.   (Especially about Carlos.)   But I really like the visual metaphor, and how it seems to cry out with such a plea to take the possibility of the moment into one’s own hands – and to really be in every moment to shape that wax droplet consciously… or at least with mindful presence.   Though maybe that’s just my brain’s current and constant subconscious plea to me, so it’s how I interpret anything with wiggle room to be bent that way, honestly.

I think that’s interesting about brain excuses for doing minute-spenders and for not doing minute-earners.  And how much purple is in your closet.  And PFF and the idea of UfYH being his parallel for a different lesson.  And of artisanal tidying, which has made me laugh aloud every one of the five or so times I’ve read it.  (There it is again- humphh!).  Believe it or not, I’ve been kicking around those little vignettes since January.    And I guess, now, I have a few of my own:

I’ve started believing students less when they tell me stories about why they can’t.   Probably the fact that I caught several of them lying to me point blank has made me more wary, but the several “no”s I’ve said when kids ask to go to the bathroom have surprised me in their lack of repercussion.   I’ve also started telling parents “no” to requests which put unreasonable expectations on my time.  Self-expression and pride in the form of telling people “no”.    I didn’t really think much of this rationalism stuff was sinking in, but I guess a combination of life happening, your thoughts, and CFAR have finally combined to help me realize that I actually get to have some say in how I spend my time.

The perspective change – that I get to take some initiative in advocating for how I spend my time – has helped me to change my perspective enough to remember that I get to be in control of how and when I get things done.   Rather than mope about how each wax droplet is falling and my hands are tied, here, doing something else, which I may or may not find useful or necessary or even helpful to anyone in the human race… I’m starting to disbelieve the stories my brain is telling me, or at least to narrow my eyes and thrust my chin to the left a bit, so it’ll explain itself.   There’s been so much going on recently that when I put my mind to a task, and it comes back with a teary-eyed, “But but, we’re so tired” or “Wait, we have to deal with this ongoing existential crisis first” or sometimes an obnoxiously pompous “Really, does this necessary but unappetizing task even align with your values?  Oh how far you have fallen,” I generally take my brain at its word and  lapse into a drooling, vegetative state of feeling unsettled and not-whole.

If I told you this already, it would have been on the bench in the Madison Library, but sometimes I remember about all of the infinite  me’s.   I picture it like I’m a sliced up Tralfamadorian, with all of the me’s I ever was stretched out behind me down a great big hill, and all of the me’s I’ll ever be stretched out before me on the other side, and they’re all looking up at me (especially the ones before me), making eye contact, and expecting that I will not screw up their many moments in time of excisiting – their one shining, waxy droplet of a moment – by procrastinating this task I have to do right now and making them do it in an unknown time and space.  “But we’re le tiiiiiired !”, whines by brain when it sees me remembering this now-tired visual for helping me GSD right now.  Fine, brain – but if we have a nap, then 7:36pm Katy will have to do it  And you know she’ll just want to press snooze.   What if we just do it now, and then have a nap?   I have not made my brain-bargaining quite as explicit as minute-buying yet, but that system is looking better and better all the time.  At the very least, taking the perspective of how all of the future Katies will have to deal with the S I don’t GD right now in the future has been one way I’ve been trying recently to get things done.

Anyway, wife, have a wonderful day.  I hope you’ve been enjoying keeping your tree clean more often these days.   And hi to The Bear. ~k