Come back, please come back. The emails, letters, telegrams have been coming thick and fast over the past few months. Carrier pigeons have even shown up at my doorstep (apparently its faster than Australia Post). Loyal readers distraught because my tender words have not made it to print to calm their rambling minds; inspire them to be better and teach them how to live good, honourable lives. You do not need to be a genius to figure out I am, of course, talking shit. The truth is, writing, at least self-motivated writing is hard. Especially when the readership base consists of a single person. I have no-one that I need to show up for, except myself. And my own word is the easiest to break. If I let myself down, nobody knows the promises I made to myself which have been broken. It just gets added to the long list of things I said I would or would not do that miraculously fall into the abyss of my mind. Like no drinking beer, running every day, meditating, scuba diving, learning how to surf, starting a cooking show. The dangerous thing about breaking promises to yourself is you do not lose face in the external sense. I am still able to hold my head high in public, except when people ask, aren’t you one of those weirdos who started a blog? Why did you do it, you weirdo. Internally it can be a different story, especially if we allow ourselves the luxury of going down the rabbit hole of thinking about all the things we should have or could have done. So how have I solved the problem? By distracting myself and watching Tiger King, The Last Dance and the latest season of Masterchef. What would all three shows combined look like? Space Jam is the answer, so I watched that too. Oh, the shame. Thinking about it though, shows like Tiger King are like mental isolation. Distracting you enough to make you feel normal (thankfully, I was talked out of becoming a Tiger King). But in times of a global pandemic, is distraction from reality such a bad thing? Or should we be striving to live and improve our own reality? What about the promises we make to ourselves when we emerge from the other side?
Isolation dreaming
Now that we are emerging, the past few months feel like a dream. Where has my mind been? That is the question I would like to answer. You would think with onslaught of coronavirus enforced lockdowns forcing me to spend time at home, I would have had more time than ever to think, plan, conspire and just generally write about random thoughts that nobody wants to read. Every time I thought about writing, I would get a hit of mental resistance. Nah, I will do it later. For you, dear reader, it may not have been writing that caused a hit of resistance. Perhaps it was exercise, cooking, drinking less, drinking more, painting, cleaning the house, calling your mother. Whatever your thing, it is amazing how, when suddenly we have the time we crave, we no longer desire to do the thing we wish we could do when we had no time to do it. You follow? The mind is a damn good con artist if you ask me.
From Tiger King to Stock King
Dusting the cobwebs off my brain has been hard. Mustering the courage to take a long hard look at what I have been doing and where I want to be, was a challenge. But it is something I highly recommend. It creates perspective. Of course, I am conscious of how incredibly fortunate I am to live where I do. To have a loving and supporting family and a friend(s) to keep me honest. Being grateful for what I do have, instead of pining after what is missing is part of the journey. Still, I have this nagging feeling in the back of my mind, especially as I inch closer and closer to re-entering the aquarium of an office space. Do I feel like I have made the most of the time in isolation? Partially. I decided to become Greedy when others were fearful, you know Warren Buffet style, stock trading and investing guru. Well the good news, I haven’t lost money. The bad news? I’ve become addicted to the CommSec app. Oh and I haven’t really made any money…yet. What is that you say? No, I do not gamble. I invest. Apparently, I am not the only one, the ASX claiming the number of new traders on the market is through the roof. Seems I’m not the only one that has heard of Warren Buffet. Fortunately, I realised my limitations and how in a volatile time, the irrationality of human behaviour almost always translates into the stock market. Ok. Enough about stocks. But I have been investing. In myself. The past four weeks, I have been sticking to a morning routine consisting of journaling, meditating, exercising, reading, and writing (yes, I have four weeks supply of wonderful thoughts to share). You might be rolling your eyes right now, and if you are not, consider this a cue to do so. Many of you will not be surprised to hear that I was recently called granola by a friend, voted the most likely to shy away from modern life and go live in the trees. Hmmmm. Would I be safe from a pandemic in the trees? How did I end up in a tree?
Eating granola at sea
Because, despite what we think, how we move through life is never in a straight line. We must expect the unexpected. Take me for example, I’ve transitioned from Fat Boy Punk to Granola eating manchild. Our interests, motivations, desires change, and we progress (or regress). We rise and fall as a boat on the ocean. Sometimes the horizon is visible, our destination certain. At other times, when we lose sight of land, we feel lost. It is at these times we need to remind ourselves; we have the power to choose our heading. Pull out the compass and start marking the map, one step at a time. We may not arrive there in a straight line, but at least we have direction. What is the point, and why am I telling you this? Because if I am going to be lost at sea, my hope and feeling is that just being kind, considerate, compassionate first to myself and then to others will vastly improve how I move through this post pandemic world. At least that is the plan, until the next season of Tiger King is released.