Yet Untitled 098 - Enjoying myself at ease
On negotiating the sticky place between productivity and rest
Dearest Yet Untitler
I hope you are well!
Thank you for returning to yet another instalment of Yet Untitled. Thank you for coming back, even if you do so once in a bit. It matters a lot to me that you’re here today, on this page, reading.
Apart from posting Yet Untitleds each week, there was another thing I used to do with great consistency last year - running. A bout of pneumonia at the start of this year set me back. I still haven’t resumed my longer runs, but I miss them. Fortunately, the pneumonia exited my lungs and I have been feeling fit enough to resume more strenuous exercise, but something has kept me from resuming my runs. I’m pretty sure it’s a mind thing and not something physical.
It’s nothing all that complicated, dear YUer. I think I simply balk at the thought of going through the motions of training, pushing against my limits systematically until the boundary walls start shifting. I know that the incline up this hill is a steep one, and that my lungs will burn in the process.
However, I pulled together my resolve the other day and went out for a very very short jog - a teensy weensy one that wasn’t even meant to be a jog but became one. It was fun. I kept reminding myself that I could stop whenever I felt like it, but I kept deferring that decision because I was having a ball, coasting along - one foot after another. I also went shamelessly slow and got a chance to enjoy being in command of my breath while I ran. Running faster and for longer has its own set of thrills - but this was the enjoyment I was craving at the time.
All this made me think a bit about why I ever challenged myself to run longer in the first place. I know the answer - it’s pretty clear. I like challenging myself. Yes, me - the kid who collapsed in school because of breathlessness at a track and field tryout - likes to challenge himself physically. For that kid who has always felt a bit athletically challenged, physical prowess feels like an act of transformation; a step towards an aspiration.
But do I have to do it all the time?
There’s another something about this kid - me - that makes him question himself when he’s not challenging himself. Something has hardwired this vigilance within me - to take note and flag central command when I’m slacking. Coming from a guy who’s obsessed with productivity and enhancing it, this is a constant area of conflict in my head. Remember this instalment?
Today I’m scrutinising this tendency. Is it healthy? Or is it my treasure?
Sometimes I just need rest. But I have noted thinking at such times, especially when the times are busy, that sleep / rest will be a waste of time. What’s the source code of this hard-wiring? Draconian boarding school systems that are hard to leave behind? Perhaps it’s feeling that I’m not good enough as I am, and unless I challenge that, it’ll amount to no good.
But do I need to be challenging myself all the time?
My slow, pleasurable, not-for-betterment jog that seemed to suggest that getting off the growth and productivity superhighway can be joyous too.
But not for too long, surely.
Sigh. There it is, dear Yet Untitler. The conflict that sometimes keeps me from chilling the f**kcout.
My Buddhist practice offers a perspective that helps me with this conflict.
“This, my land, remains safe and tranquil, constantly filled with heavenly and human beings. The halls and pavilions in its gardens and groves are adorned with various kinds of gems. Jewelled trees abound in flowers and fruit where living beings enjoy themselves at ease.”
- from Happiness in the world by Nichiren Daishonin.
By now I have come to understand that Buddhism always speaks about our world in terms of the now: a world full of strife and challenge. But I’m always struck by how Buddhism sees the world in terms of its potential - its potential for joy and happiness. In the passage above - the living beings who enjoy themselves at ease are the very beings facing the strife and challenges of the world - recognising the potential for joy latent in them, thus already seeing the challenges as halls, pavilions and bejewelled gardens.
Arriving at this after writing about finding joy in both rest and effort, I find my belief has deepened. Joy is to be found everywhere - and perhaps I should be more grateful for accessing it in rest as well.
Perhaps I’m confusing rest with giving up. While my brain may tell me - “of course you’re not giving up”, my conditioning tells me “don’t stop”. My conditioning and I need to have a little talk! I’ll send my conditioning a calendar invite in a jiff. In the meantime, I will celebrate the fact that my humble, slow and short run was in itself a victory, over stasis and over my limitations at the time.
I thinks there’s scope to go further down this road but not today, dear Yet Untitler. But in case this little inner dialogue sparked an insight or a conversation in you, do tell me about it. As always, I’d love to hear from you.
Thanks for listening. Wishing you all a glorious run of challenging things joyfully.
Lots of love
V
Ahh pneumonia in the lungs made my covid era breathtaking (quite literally). I resonate with this. 😅 embracing the idea that you have the power to stop anytime is so important! ✨
Big hugs