I took a timeout last night. This week seems to be full of slowing down and catching my breath. My next project isn’t particularly clear and as a result, I’m meandering a little bit. Or a lot. Masquerading as Kratos and tearing the wings off of some harpies has done me some good in terms of focus. I guess I needed some recreation and a little time unplugged from the things that I think about all of the time. It’s like solving a problem that you’ve been staring at all day on the drive home from work. Disengaging from the item at hand sometimes leads to inspiration and insight.
I second guess the idea of a break often. Is this just resistance creeping in? Or is this some bit of wisdom that I have acquired that lets me know when it’s time to back off for a minute.
It’s far more comforting to think that I know something without it being a conscious decision. I fall back on that because I have a physical reaction that’s similar. If I have been working too hard or too stressed out for a prolonged period, my body will take a Saturday or Sunday off. That is to say, I’ll be sidelined by a headache or some other sickness that can only be cured by sleep. Everything shuts down for repairs. Now this is nowhere near working until I collapse or anything extreme like that. I’m not my Granddad. I don’t work in a coal mine and on the railroad on the same day. Give me a break! No, this is the kind of soft shutdown that happens well before something awful could come into play. I’d like to think I’m smart because I listen to it. I rest. I recover. And then everything is OK.
Does that work for everyone? Probably not. We’re crazy in this culture. We prize obsession. And I mean that in the “unwanted thought” way. We admire workaholics and those who simply can’t stop doing what they do. We don’t recognize the sickness of being unable to step back or sit still. That’s sad. And it’s not my way. I’m quite happy with being able to put things on hold for a bit. It provides space and perspective. It also saves good work from overwork.
Looking around at all of the pressure to produce and the 24/7/36(5|6) world we have developed makes me wonder how much better what is being produced would be if we forced ourselves to step away for a period of time. Maybe that’s the best part of having a day job: the forced separation from the work. Maybe that’s seeing the glass as half full. It doesn’t matter as long as I see the limitation as a benefit.
So I’m taking a bit of a timeout. That means plenty of time for instrument building and a little housekeeping.
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