My sister has been sending me memes on Instagram that hit the nail on the head each time given what’s going on with me in parallel. The below was a few weeks before the launch of my podcast:
In the same week as reading this article about millennials being the burnout generation, mapping out a trip in June, and tweaking a business plan, she hit me with this one:
Even decisions feel like accomplishments in the age of endless options and bullet points we voluntarily add to to-do lists. January is that month that gets you thinking about time and where you’re throwing it away. My resolution every year, without fail (or with?), has been to learn how to allocate my energy efficiently. To learn how to do more by doing less. Being selective with where you invest a finite resource (time) is a practice that needs to be consciously put into action when it comes to social, personal, and communal intersections. This is in all avenues, not just professional. That’s not to say that you only invest in the permanent or forever but to choose what’s worth it at all.
A friend of mine shared a Facebook status about his change of heart toward activism and choosing different battles. From long-haul fights like the political change in a young, dysfunctional country to even the most fatuous like having that third beer on Sunday night. It’s about trading the time for the fuel rather than the fire that will surely go out.
You’re swimming in multicolored post-its that will shape tributaries that you’re supposed to wade through to write a book that no one but your mother will read. You’re hopping through your own Bandersnatch without a back button. Is this where you want to pour your perspiration? Is there a campsite on the way to that summit? Is there a summit? Is there a pause?
A pause to let it yistéwe (Arabic for letting a stew cook through). A slow boil on low heat so the meat drips off the bone and the tender decision is soft and succulent. It’s not rushed and chewy, it’s cooked in fat juice and breaks down at the touch of a tongue. It’s fulfilling and digestible. It’s spreading the butter effectively so it soaks into the grain, it coats the bread and begs for rosemary & sea salt. Man, I’m going to miss the carbs of 2018.
I’m caught between wanting to write more but happy that what I do write is worth every peck at the keyboard. But I want to fill folios and I want to create. Fewer tabs, more pages. Fewer pixels, more paper. Less ephemeral nothingness, more tangibility. I want to become a creative machine in terms of production and expression but not in terms of pumping out identical cups of tasteless flan. Give me creme brulee or give me death. How much is too much? How much is not enough?
I want to write. I want to write. I want to write. I want to paint my life. Earthy, deep vermillion from wine and the soil that squeezes it tight, green from grape and olive leaves, and milky gold from sandy stones with wrought iron detailing. I want to paint my life with the palette this country gives me and the stories it hides under every fallen veranda.
But in order to make, you need to make time and found time is never lost.
Bambi's Soapbox 