Child is Father of the Man
Reading and writing are the bedrock of my mental life. In my past, computers and technology occupied a lot of this territory as well, but today less so. Since my life as I experience it dwells very little in the realm of contemplation and mostly in the realm of repetition, anxiety, and paranoia, having any kind of bustling inner life requires a certain freedom from time constraints, as well as comfortable environs where one can loosen up mentally, hitting the cerebral hum known as “flow” or “the peak experience”.
Lately, this experience is one I seldom have. I find myself constantly pushing back against forces that might impinge on my personal sovereignty. Jobs, people, commitments, all wanted at various times and in varying amounts by me, but not all at once. I’m terrible at saying No, and at times I delude myself into thinking I could become what one refers to as “prolific”, juggling a busy social life while producing lots of work in various capacities (playing in a band, writing novels and newspaper articles, and consulting for Fortune 500 companies on the side, say) and having enough time left over to talk to Mom on the phone.
But I am not prolific. I am a wanderer, who sits down at the keyboard when he gets the urge, and at no other time. Even if I do waste a lot of time, I want to. It is in my blood. The very concept of “time management” is wholly unnatural to me, though I try; time simply passes, and I’m either aware of it or not. Most of the time these days, I am quite aware of it. A little too much.
Take waking up in the morning. I am a horrible cheater when it comes to the snooze button, and am willing to justify my irresponsible, lazy behaviour with delusions. You see, rather than being a chronic snoozer, my virtue lies in my never having used it once. Not once in my life. That snooze button signifies a subservience to technology and structure in which your pitiful, unshaven, slovenly carcass lurches over and asks ten more minutes of its master. Just ten more, please, then I’ll be good and get up and throw myself at this day, I promise. Well, I subvert by instead turning off the alarm entirely and relying on my body clock to wake me at the correct time. Often, I set the alarm ahead a little and turn it back on, but not always. Almost without exception, my body deems it necessary to wake only when there is absolutely no time left to spare, setting off a cascade of last-minute arrivals and skin-of-my-teeth bobs and weaves through my day.
Yes, this is how I live.
To me, structured time is the great enemy, the killer of all human activity not related to subservience and the straight path through life, lives ruled by rhythmic obligation and meted motions. We all know it, and some of us accept and even thrive in it. I’m jealous of those people on many levels, and not only because those are the levels best rewarded in the Real World. I can’t help but think of those people as “successful”. They’ve won the game, mastered the habits through years of practice, like the painful ritual of daily piano scales. The world is not structured to benefit of wanderers like me. There was never a time in my life when I hadn’t had trouble being on time, being in a certain place doing an established activity at the behest of someone else. School is, in many senses, the teaching and ingraining of rigid structure. The Victorian traditions haunt us still. Early to bed, early to rise, etc. Chronic lateness and inattention dot my scholastic history, as well as an aptitude for observing things outside the window. I am always happiest when I don’t know what time it is. When I look at the clock on my cell phone and it says 5:42 AM, and I can’t piece together the previous seven hours, that’s when I’m happiest. And being the wanderer that I am, the way for me to get more done here is to cultivate the lifestyle conditions that allow me, naturally, to wander over to the keyboard more often.
This is why my New Year’s Resolution, if I am indeed to choose one, is to be more like a child. I want my playtime, my computer games, my bike, and my goddamned naptime. No more clocks, no more schedules, and a lot more sleeping in. This shall be the year of Disorder.
My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky:
So was it when my life began;
So is it now I am a man;
So be it when I shall grow old,
Or let me die!
The Child is father of the Man;
I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.– William Wordsworth
(I also vow not to dwell on this topic any longer.)
Posted to:
(1 comment)
Does this also mean disorder with money – because I swear not too many posts ago you preached like a baptist reverend that all shalt have financial discipline and succumb to the mundane rigour of accounting. Thou doth proplex me with your contradictions! Do you think you this is a world where scales and varying degrees exist.. NO – I reject your choices… choose either complete sloth or soldier-like perfection in your life, stop fucking around in the netherworld, choda-like region you live in. Is it ass or balls! Which do you want!