Just Being – Stillness & Motion

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Lufia 2: Swell of humanity
This post’s screen shot is from Lufia 2 (SNES). I’m sure there was an elegantly put metaphor in Japanese, but there is no such luck here.

Do you ever get a sense that nothing you ever do is the result of purely what you want to do for yourself? Even if you think you’re doing something for yourself, it is always weighed down by its relationship to other people. The things we do are controlled by a set of standards that are not exclusively our own. Ideas of ‘normalcy’ and ‘supposed to’ are so second nature, we don’t even consider them as we fall into line.

Part of the normalcy we need to feel is useful. The idea of being useful is pretty ambiguous, but it seems like most of our existence is based on it. It’s a constant pressure and motivator. I once wrote that I should ‘be content with being the being who strives’, but what about being content with just plain being oneself and nothing else?

I don’t think I’ll ever be content to be still. Stillness becomes guilt at not being busy, which is not stillness at all. Being busy doesn’t even mean actually doing anything truly important, it means being in a constant state of doing or even active procrastination. Relevance is secondary to making sure you’re active. Being in motion, even if you’re not getting any important done, becomes more important and valuable that being still. But, it isn’t.

For one’s own health and well being- and to have the ability to accomplish really important things- one must have periods of stillness, self, and relaxation. The mind needs a break to reflect and remember what is important and real in the largest scope possible. I’m not talking about some “in 5 years where do you see yourself’ question, but reflecting upon the question of why existing itself is important and necessary. I’ve never had a complete answer to that and probably never will, but each time I think I further understand a piece of that why, life becomes better, easier, and stronger in its vibrancy.

Being. Actually being, with a real identity and purpose, is far more important than being busy.

It can be very hard to force oneself to be still.

  • Stillness I have no problem with. I have a remarkable ability to do nothing when I have nothing to do.

    What really kills is the anxiety about whether I’m doing the right thing, whether I’ve done everything I’m supposed to have done and whether there isn’t a better way of doing things.

    These things aside I can relax completely. Fortunately I have the ability to set these things aside completely when I’m on holiday. Usually because I go on holiday to places deliberately away from any ability to influence the things I’m supposed to have been doing. By being unable to influence these things I can not worry about them. I can also set these things aside for the most part when I’m at home.

    My wife on the other hand worries about everything, and so cannot be still except when everything is sorted out. She even worries that she worries too much, or not enough, depending.

    Fortunately she’s slightly more tolerant than I am, so she’s unlikely to worry that things haven’t been done well enough, so long as they’ve been done. Whereas I can worry about conversations I had years ago, wondering whether I got the point across properly. I’ve learnt to be sanguine about these strange attacks, and they’re only temporary. Sometimes these kinds of introspection can serve to help me examine and improve on my attitudes or skills, usually they’re just a pointless irritant.

    I do believe it’s important to be able to do nothing when there’s nothing to do, it helps. But it’s important to remember that people have inertia, too much stillness and you’ll find achieving anything becomes a struggle. Too little and you’ll lose control of yourself as your life becomes a runaway train.

    Balance in all things I suppose.

    Speaking of doing nothing when there’s nothing to do, I really should go back to doing some work… As my machine has finally opened the ludicrously large solution I’m supposed to be working on. ta ta.

  • SteveJ

    I really suck at having nothing to do. My wife eagerly seeks out opportunities to sit and read for hours. I love to read, don’t get me wrong, but if I spend 12 hours reading or playing video games I start feeling guity about all the stuff not being done. I don’t really want to clean the gutters, and they can probably go another month, but if I “do nothing” I feel like I wasted my day. As if yard work is somehow more rewarding than some final fantasy.

    One habit I do have that drives 90% of my friends nuts is if I don’t have anything to say, I don’t talk. If we’re going to the gym or whatever, we’ve already covered what’s happened lately, then I’m not going to start talking about what’s on the radio to fill space. I’m not uncomfortable with silence, but many people are.

  • SteveJ-

    “I’m not uncomfortable with silence, but many people are.”

    I think it’s a sign that you’re very comfortable with yourself and the people you’re with when you can do that. In general I can talk a lot, but once that’s out of the way I switch to being very quiet and start just listening. I have few friends that will be quiet with me, but there is something very cool about being with someone and not needing to say anything at all.

    “…if I “do nothing” I feel like I wasted my day.”

    That’s another interesting point. We usually rate business based on days. If we accomplish one thing before we go to bed, we can rest feeling at least somewhat useful. So, even if doing stuff ‘just for you’ one day and filling the next to the brim with work would make you more happy and productive, it’s hard not to have that day of stillness and not feel guilty.

    “As if yard work is somehow more rewarding than some final fantasy.”

    For awhile I noticed I loved doing (and overdoing) housework. I stopped enjoying it when I realized I was just procrastinating from what I needed to be doing while still feeling importantly busy. It is still something I do working in the studio a lot when I can’t sit still and clear my head. At least I can stop staring at what I’m working on and give that part of my body a rest.

  • Massif-

    “Stillness I have no problem with.”

    I didn’t say it in the post but I was thinking it while I was writing- I think this is a bigger epidemic among us in the US.

    “I have the ability to set these things aside completely when I’m on holiday”

    Holiday? Vacation? What’s that? I need to try that some day. I had one once. When I was younger we’d go as a family to places and fight a lot- is that a holiday? Man, those were stressful.

    Even when I’ve traveled, I’ve had some ulterior busy motive… NCECA (nation clay conference) for example. I know most people are using the conference to attain stillness while faking business. It’s a miracle some people get to any shows or lectures.

    “She even worries that she worries too much, or not enough, depending.”

    *raises hand slowly* Me too! I know that guilt and worry are pretty wasteful, but I really haven’t found a way to moderate them.

    “Whereas I can worry about conversations I had years ago”

    Yup, I do that too- and I dream about them. I mentally relive events over and over playing out different choices. I have to force myself to tell myself completely fictitious stories to stop it.

    “Balance in all things I suppose.”

    I think you hit the nail on the head. I think that’s what the post is really about. You need both sides to be a full and happy person. A person suffers when one half to the whole becomes inaccessible.

    And yes, that goes for too much stillness too.

  • SteveJ

    “We usually rate business based on days. If we accomplish one thing before we go to bed, we can rest feeling at least somewhat useful”

    Definitely true. I believe that’s why all of the new “Getting things done” gurus recommend that you do your most important thing first. Then it doesn’t matter what else happens, you can feel ok with being still. Not sure if that’s true, why didn’t I “do something” with all that time I had left?

    Going off topic, if I do that one important thing in the first hour and then 100 things I feel are wasteful or stupid, then my day is still pretty much shot. I’ve never been one to go “look how awesome I am for getting something done today”. It’s more of, “Everyhing didn’t go perfectly today, I suck”. At least when you put that “useful” thing off, you can feel like you ran out of time, rather than just failed.

  • “Everything didn’t go perfectly today, I suck”

    That’s rough. Perfection is unattainable, and it’s kind of nice to not feel you suck…

    “At least when you put that “useful” thing off, you can feel like you ran out of time, rather than just failed.”

    I think that’s a common trap. People feel like it’s better not to try than to fail. As an artist, I’ve had to teach myself to redefine failure. I tack rejection letters from juried shows on my wall and look at them as:

    “Screw you, at least I’m trying so no one can say shit- look how hard I’m trying.”

    I got into quite a few shows in 2007. I also got a pile of rejections. I’d still be miles ahead of the guy not trying if I only got into one show. But until I got into that first show, it was pretty tortuous.

  • Regarding holiday, while we were on holiday I thoroughly enjoyed laughing my ass off at all the Americans regarding working practices.

    Like seriously, what’s wrong with you guys? I regularly met people expected to work 50-60 hour weeks, who had pathetic amounts of annual leave. Some of the more senior people we met had more leave and fewer hours, but it’s still stupid.

    To compare, I work 37.5 hours a week, and have 25 days paid leave a year. As does my wife, as does almost everyone I’ve ever known. In fact, I’m pretty sure 25 days leave is the legal minimum. My brother is about to pass his 5 year anniversary at his current employer, so he’s going to get an extra day holiday from now on.

    And we get 8 days bank holiday a year, although the Germans get 14.

  • “I’m pretty sure 25 days leave is the legal minimum”

    That’s it right there. We in the U.S. don’t have a legal minimum for days off. According to Wikipedia, the only major country we have that in common with is China. WTF? As a matter of fact, at a lot of jobs in the U.S. you have to work somewhere at least a year full time to get any vacation/sick/personal days, and it’s not anywhere closer to 25. It’s like… three. We do have laws about overtime (paid extra/hr for working extra) and time and a half (on Sundays), but I’m young and have already experienced employers that will do anything to get you to work more than you are physically able without paying you anything extra.

    I’ve never had paid leave. I’m hoping this will be remedied once I find this ‘perfect’ job. Health insurance and vacation time would both be a plus…

    But here in the U.S. they are by no means standard.

    So, if we don’t know how to holiday properly, it’s not our fault. We never learned.

    No wonder we have this problem.

  • SteveJ

    Massif,

    Agreed, we’re pretty screwed up. I’m from the midwest (Ohio), and our work philosophy looks something like:

    Work sucks/hate job, but I have to work as long/hard/often as possible, or I’ll starve (or lose my job! Y’know, the one I hate). Personally, I don’t think that many people really HATE their jobs, but I could be projecting. I had a job stacking steel for 12 hours a day, that’s pretty much my baseline for a normal amount of effort on any day of work. And I maintain to all my hard-working friends that 8 hours of programming is WAAAAY tougher.

    Then I lived on the east code for awhile and we’d go to California on business trips and talk snarkily about how they don’t get to work until after 9, leave early to surf, etc. They’re not “serious” professionals. We all know punctuality and long hours are the true measure of job effectiveness.

    Personally, large gobs of my self-worth are completely reliant on my continued employment. I’m grateful I usually love what I do and get paid for it, but I’d be bustin my butt at mcdonalds before I could go 3 weeks without working. I decided I wouldn’t work my first semester in college and had moments of depressed listlessness with my “only” activities being go to class or hang out. I tried to make studying into my job, but quickly ditched that once I picked up a side job. It’s not like I didn’t have a ton of reckless carefree fun in school, it’s just that I needed some sort of responsibility outside of myself, one with actual consequences and a tangible payoff.

    Even when I go on vacation I do it in the most stressful way imaginable, traveling immediately after work and coming back to town hours before I have to be back at work. This of course maximizes the time I can be on “vacation” without taking any extra time from work.

    In all other aspects of my personality I believe I’m laid back, so this is a pretty strange aberration, but I treat it as part of being an American. Much like living in a large city means gobs of unhealthy traffic stress, I believe living here means an unhealthy devotion to work.

  • SteveJ

    east code…coast…yikes. Take my keyboard away, I’m done.

  • “east code…coast…yikes. Take my keyboard away, I’m done.”

    Unless I find a job here coding that I like (and likes me) very soon, I’m probably going to wind up doing IT full time instead- which would be cool too.

    Is it really so different on the west coast?

    The people I’m interviewing with now *seem* pretty cool and laid back. There’s a pool table in the place. :) I didn’t see any chains or cattle prods or anything.

  • The Cowboy

    My problem is more finding too much quiet time. Like anything it has to be balanced. I think it was Claude Debussy that said “Music is the space between then notes.”

    Whoa!

    American work ethics tank. If I put in 37.5 hours a week, I’d probably get fired for being a slacker. I think I might like England better. I should get up to 25 days of vacation after I’ve been there slightly over 500 years. I’ll get back to you on that in 2508.

  • Is homeland security going to find and kill us now that we know about England’s hours and vacation time?

    I’m waiting to hear the downside.

  • SteveJ

    “Is it really so different on the west coast?”

    Some things at least appear more relaxed. I don’t think as many east-coast-schooled MBAs migrate that way and instill their brand of draconian insanity. “You were 5 minutes late 3 TIMES IN ONE YEAR! No raise this year.” I find east coasters obsess about west coast work hours, relaxed dress code, and cost of living. “You drive 150 miles a day and drive a Yukon? With gas at $4.50 a gallon?” I figure it’s like anything else, you get used to it and stop noticing. On dress code: In DC for instance, if you’re attending a client site meeting you wear a suit and tie. In San Diego, button up shirt or polo (tie optional). In Honolulu, Aloha shirt (pants optional).

    “I’m waiting to hear the downside”
    Apparently you can’t get a toaster. I wonder what you give someone at a wedding.

  • SteveJ:

    “On dress code: In DC for instance, if you’re attending a client site meeting you wear a suit and tie. In San Diego, button up shirt or polo (tie optional). In Honolulu, Aloha shirt (pants optional).”

    I just got hired (WHOOO!!) at a place called Gladworks in Rhode Island. I am the only gal ‘techie’ there.

    For this, I am glad that pants are part of the dress code.

    Women for some reason aren’t supposed to wear ties.

    Dress code is uber confusing and vague for women in the professional world. If I was more into clothes or lived in a warmer climate, I might take more advantage of it.

    To make things more confusing, dress code for women is not only unspoken, but can be very strict in the right places. They may not tell you they think what you’re wearing isn’t appropriate, they just won’t hire you or will give you ‘looks’.

    But this place seems cool. Top button unbuttoned, sweaters, tucked in shirt optional. I’ll be fine.

    “..east coasters obsess about west coast work hours.”

    I must’ve found a good egg in the dozen, because the normal hours are 9-6, but they’re flexible. This is important because I take night classes twice a week.

    “Apparently you can’t get a toaster.”

    Are there bagels there worth toasting?

    Cowboy:
    “My problem is more finding too much quiet time.”

    My little bro has complained last night that he hasn’t seen you online yet to pwn you in Halo (etc.). So… that could fill some time. His Xbox live handle is “VicandSpike”.

  • SteveJ

    “I just got hired (WHOOO!!)”

    Fantastic! Great to hear.

    Definitely agreed on women’s clothing rules, I couldn’t begin to delve into that mess. All my female coworkers are too nice to tell me when I look like an idiot, which is unfortunate since I’m very fashion challenged. I’m still fighting with my wife over grey shirts and khaki pants.

    “I must’ve found a good egg in the dozen, because the normal hours are 9-6, but they’re flexible”

    Flexible hours are great. Some places do “core hours” which are a nice compromise between must show up at 8:59.99 and where the hell is Bob, I haven’t seen him all week to ask him how the XYZWidget works. I actually can’t think of good reasons that devs should work a standard set of hours, maybe in a pair-only shop.

  • “All my female coworkers are too nice to tell me when I look like an idiot”

    Being a guy is still a valid excuse. There are only so many Rory Blyths in the world.

    “I actually can’t think of good reasons that devs should work a standard set of hours”

    Weeeell, if you’re really good about communicating with tech off site, I think that could work easily. On the other hand, if you’re a developer working on a team, and you work with marketing people and design people- it is probably still a good idea to have an amount of ‘around as a group’ time to make sure everyone is on the same page and projects are going as they should. I’m sure there are a plethera of arguments for both sides…

    …but there’s a kitchen and a pool table at work, so I’m cool with being there. :)

    It more or less probably comes down to what type of developer, what kind of company you work for, and who you’re working with determines how well either end of the spectrum works.

  • The Cowboy

    “My little bro has complained last night that he hasn’t seen you online yet to pwn you in Halo (etc.). ”

    I know, I don’t have Halo 2 yet. I’ve got Halo 3, if he’d like to waste me there….

    “I just got hired (WHOOO!!)”
    Congrats! What’s the job like?

  • “I know, I don’t have Halo 2 yet. I’ve got Halo 3, if he’d like to waste me there….”

    He has both Halo 2 and 3. He prefers 2, but he’d play 3. He also likes playing Rainbow Six 4 a bunch too. He has a lot of games.

    “What’s the job like?”

    I’ll let you know Monday when I start. :) I’m writing code for websites- which I what I want to be doing. The people seem cool. I’m excited to start.

  • The Cowboy

    “I’ll let you know Monday when I start. :) I’m writing code for websites- which I what I want to be doing. The people seem cool. I’m excited to start.”
    Ah, come on, I can’t wait that long. At least tell me what language you’re working in… It sounds really cool though, and happy for you. Fellow professional geek :D

  • The Cowboy

    “Flexible hours are great. Some places do “core hours” which are a nice compromise between must show up at 8:59.99 and where the hell is Bob, I haven’t seen him all week to ask him how the XYZWidget works. ”

    We’ve currently got the 9-4 core hours thing going, which is great for lazy asses like myself that can’t seem to drag themselves into the office before 9. Sometimes not even that early.

  • “At least tell me what language you’re working in”

    Oh, yeah- of course! XHTML strict and CSS, though I’m assuming at least a bit of PHP and JavaScript as needed. From what I understand, the design people (on one side of the pool table, all gals & one guy) give us a design and we techies (on the other side of the pool table, all guys and me, the one gal) code it to make it work.

    There is something cool about the inverse symmetry… balance!

    I am basically inferring this from a dummy project they gave to me during the interview process- one of the smarter things I saw while playing the Interviewing RTS.

  • Code Monkey song… not entirely applicable to the woman code monkey, but I do really like Mountain Dew…

  • The Cowboy

    I love Jonathan Coulton! That’s the future of the recording industry right there. As far as I know he’s the first one to do it, but he proved that the Internet makes the recording industry obsolete. They can keep suing college students till they run out of money themselves, their days are limited!

    My brother and I were talking the other day, and we might try the same thing. Not that I’m going to become a rock star this late, but it would be awesome to record a few songs and throw them out on the internet just like Jonathan Coulton, just to see what happens.

    Anyway, that’s awesome about the job. I’m not much of a PHP guy, but I know people that swear by it.
    CSS is my weak spot, but I’m trying to work on it.

  • “CSS is my weak spot, but I’m trying to work on it.”

    If Internet Explorer could speak, that’s what it would say. :)

    “…the Internet makes the recording industry obsolete”

    Many of them have been making (and are still making) a huge mistake by fighting the inevitable instead of embracing and profiting from it.

    “I’m going to become a rock star this late”

    That’s not the point anyways, is it? If you like to make music, do it, have fun, and share it… ya violin playing pansy. :)

  • The Cowboy

    “That’s not the point anyways, is it? If you like to make music, do it, have fun, and share it… ya violin playing pansy. :)”

    No, and it never really was. There was a point in my life where I wanted to play in a band and make just enough money to live. Becoming a rock star would have been great, but I never really had any illusions about the liklihood of that. And I played bass in the band, and bass is soooo *not* pansy. :D

  • “And I played bass in the band, and bass is soooo *not* pansy. :D”

    No… just replaceable! Oh, snap. My sister plays the bass. Oh, snap again. :p

    If you play in a rock group, you should play the violin, like the do in VAST. They rock.