Friday, October 8, 2010

The Productivity Threshold

If you have a 9 to 5 job, and are at work today, chances are your productivity peaked at about 9:15 AM.

I feel like I have this conversation with people a lot. Offices are not perfect machines. At some point, the innate absurdity of the cubicle kingdom sets in and you can only distract yourself enough to avoid a total breakdown in productivity.

Don't get me wrong, you're still working. But it's a sluggish kind of work, the kind that feels like you're in your own personal traffic jam, and you're looking for the next route where you can hit the gas with some comfortable sense of pace. You feel like "If I just had a coffee, I could get going" or "If I just try and dive into a task, I'll make it all the way to 5." But it just won't happen. Your spark will fizzle, motor will stall continuously. You're passed the threshold.

It's not for lack of motivation or lack of trying, just the fact that you are a human being and you are not meant to be doing this all day every day. Strictly speaking, your natural behavior as a human doesn't go much beyond walking upright and procreating. Offices aren't exactly engaging, dynamic environments. They don't produce stimuli to engage your senses, they aren't environments you can manipulate or improve upon.

They are off-white, gray mazes bathed in mind-numbing fluorescence. You can't be blamed for your lull. You can only endeavor to endure it while you squeeze out the last remnants bits of accomplishment from your work week.

Friday, April 16, 2010

The Worst Thing You Could Do

I have some advice for you: if you're going to quit smoking, just don't.

And if you do, don't promise anyone that you'll never smoke a cigarette again.

Unless you like breaking promises, or lying.

From a personal standpoint, it's really easy for me to approach a commitment I've made to myself with a fair degree of malleability. It's not about being wishy washy, it's about adaptation. It's also about being able to admit that you were wrong. No one ragged on me when I gave up my dream to be Batman, no one ragged on me when my plans to go the U.P. last summer failed. I certainly didn't punch myself in the nuts over it. I could easily take up smoking again despite the fact that I aimed to quit.

But one thing I cannot, will not do, is break a promise, assuming I can help it. I think about 50% of stress in my life comes from the prospect of failing to do something when and how I said I would do it. You could say that's because I'm a man of principle, but I think it's because I have an obsessive personality disorder. Hey, maybe I ended up like Batman after all.

When I told Bean I would never smoke a cigarette ever again, when I promised her I would never do it, I don't think she expected me to live up to that promise. I think she anticipated failure, but what mattered to her was the intent, the effort. She expected me to operate in a capacity that was human. I think she played a card she now at times regrets, having misunderestimated 1) how important it was that I have a reliable form of stress relief and 2) my fundamentally unhealthy approach to not being false.

So now I stir in cyclical disquiet, craving a cigarette, needing a cigarette, incapable of having one, further desiring the contractually unattainable.

Monday, April 12, 2010

Sometimes I feel super guilty when I'm typing my last name and put in three k's instead of two. Such is the depth of my conscience.

Last night Bean and I were talking about how our relationship differs from others we've been in. All that aside, one of the things she mentioned was that a lot of her problems in previous romantic endeavors (both in choosing who to be with and how to be with them) stemmed from not knowing who she was. In reflective comparison, I realized that a lot of my general unhappiness came from trying to figure out who I was. Hey, how about that? A topic somewhat related to the concept of this blog.

I've struggled greatly with self definition and purpose in my life. I'm not sure why these concepts are difficult for me, in particular. I acknowledge that the rest of the world has a similar existential conundrum, but for some reason they don't seem quite so crippled by their own questions. They work, they go to school, they raise families, they pay their taxes --

Oh yeah, I need to do my taxes tonight.

Anyways... Meanwhile, I toil, sleep walk, stay up or sleep for days on end, find myself going for walks or taking sporadic night drives in an effort to "find myself." At least, that used to be the case. All this searching ended in part because I simply didn't have the time for it between work and a love life. In larger part, however, it ended because I simply decided that there was no "me" to find. Everything we are is dynamic, instantly malleable. Sure, we have standards, beliefs, ideas, habits that are developed through time and our interactions with the world, but -- assuming some general capacity for sentience and a tendency to be self-aware -- everything boils down to a single choice in the moment. Through that choice, every choice, we are determining, stating, who we are and what we value.

Struggling with a typo that makes me appear to support white supremacy, even unto myself, only troubled me because I was still denying myself choice and agency by attributing my presence and actions to a possible predestined character. In essence, a part of me still (the psychoanalyst, most likely) believes that the typo is a subconscious statement about who I am. I am drawn to extremes, and yes, drawn to defining myself.

Recently, though, I have been allowing myself the freedom to negotiate between making a choice that I, the concept of who I am, would make, and letting my own unfiltered decisions define me. As a result, I've been a much happier person.

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

And the Heart Goes To...

I'm wearing a new suit today. I'm not only pleased by its appearance, but also the fact that it is new. You see, despite the relatively formal attire socioculturally demanded by my place of employment, I'm not well-off and a new suit is a rarity.

We can thank the girlfriend.

I had mentioned to her recently, much to her surprise and possible offense, that I still struggle to think of myself as part of a couple. I am reminded only when I speak to others who mention that they are alone or when another member of a couple mentions their partner. This is despite the fact that I see her literally every day, and have since we started dating. It is not out of any desire to be with someone else, nor any desire to be single. Certainly, no. Yet every time I am reminded, there is a pleasant, sedated surprise -- as if I never really knew it until that point.

I struggle to concieve of myself as a member of a couple because it has been so long since I was in love and, truthfully, I've never been with anyone long enough for the feeling of partnership to set in, the kind of conceptual understanding that develops only with time and trust. Psyche glimmered with those possibilities, but our relationship was apparently destined to be transient, as if perhaps a dream. A vivid dream, but a dream nonetheless.

With Bean things are different. Yes, what a silly statement. Everyone says "with this one it's different", but I suppose it's always true given that no two relationships are alike. I guess I should say that with Bean things are different, in a way that is proven to be good and established.

One of the questions I constantly ask myself now is whether or not this relationship, despite it's passion, health, partnership, and understanding, could fail? The thought of it seems ridiculous, but I am a man of possibilities. I strain to see these scenarios, how they could happen, and how to prevent them. Bean and I are always offering one another reassurances, and we both sincerely mean it, and have little doubt, if any. Promises of forever are, however, on the grand scheme of things, a best intention and literally could not be more, given chance and life's randomness.

And its frailty.

My heart presumes no outcome, but it loves, and so it hopes and hopes and hopes. From those hopes, the seemingly endless will to fight so that it never ends.