REMOTE

WITHOUTWORK

square toes

I showed up for work, most days, mostly on time. Stayed late. Disorganized, not driven. I was up for anything. But I didn’t work for myself, so anything extra was not necessary. I fooled myself into believing in the job, but the job is just a job. I believed that if I took care of the job, the job would take care of me. It was a mistaken belief. And you eventually don’t fit like you maybe used to. Coaches find out that the locker room doesn’t hear them anymore. You come to a parting of the ways. Life goes on. Not a failure.

Now, I am remote. Literally and figuratively. At home most days. So much to do. So much I could be doing. How to decide? I need to develop my own structure, generate my own reason for being here. It’s harder than it looks. I get tired. I get distracted easily. The phone is a time suck, but that’s on me. I don’t need to be looking at it, even though what I’m doing most of the time is listening while I do other things. Baseball games. Podcasts. Not much music anymore. It’s a sore subject. I have a different relationship with it now. I want to bring it back. I still love it, but it hurts to listen now, and I need to come to terms with that.

Being remote is easy. Making connections is hard. Takes time, takes organization, takes them having the time, at the same time that you have the time. I’m jealous of my day. Unfortunately I also waste the day because I can’t decide what I want to do. That is also on me. So I try to do one thing. Just one thing. And not worry about whether it is the right thing. One thing leads to another, as the Fixx so aptly said many years ago. (7” version)

Red Heart Weeds

So much detritus in the world. I am contributing to it. I want to draw back somehow, not use as much. But it’s the ocean we swim in. The atmosphere we breathe. We take it for granted. We need a story to follow, not a script. I’m still writing the story. I need to get myself going, but I’m not in the same place anymore. I don’t even feel like the same person anymore. Of course, I am, because you can only be yourself, no matter how the pressure of time shapes your personality.

I can only be who I am, and I have always had trouble figuring out how to get along. That said, I have many who care for me. Very fortunate. I still find it hard to believe that I have anything to offer anyone. That’s my problem. It’s not a reality based belief, it speaks to the core of my being. Imposter syndrome, of course. My friend Margaret, who I have known for 40 years, isn’t buying it. Calls me on my bs. So does my wife. I need to get over things. “Stop hiding.”

They are just thoughts. Think them, but ignore them when they don’t ring true.I can pull up, and right myself. I am immobile. I’m not going up or down. I am progressing to a goal only I know. Work is now mastering my will, which is a start/stop/start/stop situation right now, work in progress.

I just have a problem with identity these days. Trying on the costumes of different identities is a young persons game. The trouble comes when people never grow up. They don’t even know what that means. Inside their head they are still in high school. People can get stuck. Kick out the jams.

“If someone acts ignorantly, it’s no surprise. Reflect on your own expectations and actions to understand why you’re upset. Doing good should be its own reward, just as an eye sees or feet walk. If you help others, you fulfill your purpose as a human and need no further reward.”

Excerpt From

Meditations:

Modern English Edition Book 9-41

Marcus Aurelius

The US America of my lifetime has been an orgy, of consumption, waste, and wishful thinking. Driven by cheap energy and hubris. The industrial age was nice while it lasted, we burned through millions of years of stored sunlight like a drunk on a bender, converting all that carbon into uncertainty. It could be that M’am Gaia is regulating all this, perhaps to shed herself of a virus, or a cancer run amok? Who says we are not a natural process, consuming the world like a self absorbed termite? We consume, because that is what we do. Our vanity is that we think we can control things. We can hardly control our selves.

Being at home for a living, trolling the socials to my detriment, writing things down, being alone. Everything needs to be written down and scheduled, or I will forget. When I was first retired, I was resistant to having a schedule at all. I was comfortable just being, being at home. I was in recovery, adjusting to a new reality. I am finding myself closer to the earth, trying to calm down. Trying to be honest with myself. Losing my focus. Wondering what my focus is.

I don’t miss the social games of being in public, of coworker interactions, misunderstandings, and idiocy. I really don’t miss my job. I thought I would. I invested so much of myself into it, but I turned out to be mistaken. That’s on me. I got things out of it, I enjoyed it at the time, but the time is over. I still have time to live, on my terms, and on my time. But, what does time mean?

You are never without work. Work on yourself, work on your life, work on your place, work on your place in life. I have the time now to work on things that are important. Important to me, important to the world, important just because. The pursuit of the ineffable. Working day to day for the perfection that can never come. Part of working is failure. Part of growing is giving yourself grace.

Part of what we have to do is confront this damn original sin thing. If one accepts — whether theologically or not, but just as a reality — that we are not going to achieve perfection in this world, that even Brett is not going to be perfect in this world, then all of a sudden it’s very liberating. Because then it all becomes about just getting better every day. -John Sexton, from the Dying Breed Blog by Brett McKay

I have never been graceful. But I’m trying, Ringo, I’m trying real hard.

https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=r1NMt4h4sbU&si=isxrARdEES7NE3y3