What is the Goal?

To win life?

Crayon Melting now on display at Gather 256. Have a cup of coffee. Marvel at what you can do with old crayons.

I’ve been thinking a lot about time. It may be the aftershocks of spending three years riddled with nonstop anxiety about breathing air; it may be the natural product of seeing a small human grow to a larger human painstaking day by gorgeous moment.

I have long thought that we’ve been racing on a collective treadmill of Capitalism and Self-Flagellation, stumbling towards the endlessly elusive carrot of — what exactly? I can’t quite remember. I’m sure I’ll think of it. In the meantime, I’ll drink my mushroom coffee to regain my focus, energy, and calm — after I sign this petition to stop gun violence because apparently not being shot is now something I have to pay for via subscription, and one sec, just gotta apply more sunscreen because the world is on fire while our mother earth is plundered for her non-replenishable natural resources as I empty my depleted bank account for gas.

…

Where was I?

Ah, yes. the rhythmic smacking of my head into the wall that is the future reminded me: the collective treadmill. Not sure what’s at the end, but it seems like our treadmill is stuck on a perpetual level 9 upward incline. We are all exhausted, overworked and overwhelmed, and we wear it like a badge of honor. Look what I’ve achieved! Look how much I do! Look at how I multitask! Pay no attention to the smoke smoldering at my feet. Let’s choose new paint colors while the house is burning down!

Did you know that the Japanese word “Karōshi” translates to “overwork death?” Because that is something that apparently needs a term.

But we are after that dangling carrot, aren’t we? Pushing past cortisol and the limits of our bodies and sleep to reach it in all of its orangey glory. But hold up! Turns out the carrot is made of plastic and carcinogens with no actual nutritional content or value. And we are left, heart-racing, panting, plagued with anxiety, dread, depression and heart disease, unable to enjoy doing anything or being anywhere.

So does anyone know what we are actually running for?

I’m not just talking about the breakneck pace of technology and life. By now, that is an old observation. It’s as old as social media causes depression and anxiety in our teens, as desensitization towards violence causes violence in our world, as sugar is bad for you. But we’ve blithely ignored those harbingers of doom while we subscribe and save in order to save money while touting the need to Keep it Local. We still search zombie-like in an endless scroll, play the game, watch the show, buy the product, while guzzling the tooth-decaying toxins that are inflaming our bodies to the point of actual mutiny.

Go go go. More more more. Bigger better best.

I am talking about the low thrum of misery that taints our work emails, the elevated anxious pitch that sugars our discussions, the it’s-all-okay-life-is-crazy-everyone-is-busy! mantra that courses through our very blood. The idea that we will do it — rest, enjoy, live — later.

I didn’t realize how done I was with the exhaustive pace until I went on retreat for 48 hours with a friend. We spent two days away from the world, talking, reading, writing and being. I returned later in the week to a handful of meetings and emails, all of which screamed in their own veiled way: NOW NOW NOW in increasingly bloviated capitals.

At first I thought I was so struck by the difference between the retreat and the world because of the glorious calm from the lack of children. Perhaps it was the disconnection from technology and the reconnection to nature. It was, but it was not only that. What was actually most different was my relationship to time.

I read an article about third spaces entitled, “How Third Places Bring Back the Joy of Being.” It was a term I’d heard for the first time at my home coffee shop, out of which I now run my own kind of third space. Mouhammad Mbacke’s piece is simply lovely. Read it. It led me to the philosophy book, The Scent of Time, by Byung-Chul. Welcome to the rabbit hole. Turns out, he philosophizes about time in Berlin. Byung-Chul notes,

“Life is no longer embedded in any ordering structures or coordinates that would found duration. Even things with which we identify are fleeting and ephemeral. Thus, we become radically transient ourselves.”

As ephemeral beings, our relationship with time is important. We are, in essence, only time. So when we invest ourselves in meaningless pursuits, destructive interests, lackluster concerns — when we are fascinated by the quick fix rather than the root issue — when we turn our attention toward things that are hollow and meaningless and trivial, we ourselves feel hollow and meaningless and trivial.

It is an association I had never before considered.

I recently wrote a piece about being present that shared the idea of jet-lag as a sort of displacement of the soul. And I wonder if we move so quickly, so thoughtlessly, so unintentionally, do we do it at the cost of our souls being present within us? We fetishize technology; we aspire to operate at the speed of robot. Why? Who taught us that being human — a human being — was so devoid of value that we should aspire to be anything else?

Is the call to slow down? Yes.

Is the call to say no to the email, to delay a response, to be present? Yes.

Is the call to do less, to be more, to breathe, to observe, to play, to wonder, to listen, to think, to ask why as much as a child discovering the world for the first time? Yes.

It is all of these things, but more than all of that: it is a call to reclaim our divine humanity. With each day, each decision, each moment, to ask: does this lead me back to my humanity or further away from it?

The world as it is is not serving us. We must be our own harbors in the storm. This is how we change. One person at a time — reclaiming our birthright. If we really want to work differently, we have to work differently — each and every one of us. If we want change, we have to change — down to a person. Call it Patriarchy, call it Capitalism, call it the Anti-Aging Ads that plague my newsfeed. But what it distills to at the core is: the pace of the world is stealing our humanity.

It’s time to say enough. It’s time to consider that if we are time, we should be Abundant and Worthy and Necessary, and tell the world that we will not be rushed — in this moment and this moment and this moment and this one.

This piece was originally published in The Taoist Online.

Take Some Time for Yourself