January 2021
Saturday, January 2
What seems important enough to think through is everyday life. Honestly, the only important thing I have to do these days is read and organize a paper for the lab. I keep thinking that I am struggling with just one paper. But if I look at it seriously, this is where my abilities are right now, and if this is the task I have been given, I simply need to do it. 'Be the master wherever you are; wherever you stand is the place of truth.' I need to become the master of the place I am in. When I find myself worrying, let me first quietly take ownership of where I stand.
Tuesday, January 5
When I think of myself as working hard, I tend to become intoxicated with myself. That tendency sometimes takes me to strange places—places where only emptiness remains, for example. My search for something to 'work hard' at may well come from the belief that it will somehow save me: that the achievements I earn through effort will finally prove my worth, and that I will be able to rest in that proof. But that is not how it works. Achievement, too, can become an addiction. If I keep relying on that intoxication and dismissing other ways of living, I will probably keep suffering from this same emptiness.
Thursday, January 7
I want to reclaim a daily rhythm. Some people might envy a life like mine, without any particular obligations, but the reality is different. A life without work is painfully dull and simply slips away. What about writing as work? I feel myself growing distant from everything. I remind myself that I should affirm what has come before, but it is not easy. I think I want to live by doing my own work—coding, for example. Then I need to act. If even setting a 'goal' feels overwhelming, let me at least decide what to do each day.
Thursday, January 14
'If you stop writing long pieces because no one reads them, one dawn you will discover that you can no longer write at length even when a reader is waiting. If you stop cooking because no one will eat what you make, even the meals you eat alone become rougher. That is how your universe grows smaller.' I really do feel my universe shrinking. Quite literally: I do not write things that will go unread, cook food I will eat alone, or practice guitar only I will hear. As I stop doing those things, my universe feels smaller.
Friday, January 22
There is no right answer. In the end, you follow your heart and what unfolds. It is okay to run away, and it is okay to stay and endure. Running away may be embarrassing, but it can help. That is the age we live in: an age without a single right answer, an age of inherited freedom. To enjoy freedom, we have to accept the responsibility that comes with it. First, that means listening to the noise; second, it means entrusting ourselves to time. Noise is inevitable because everyone is free, and there is no predetermined meaning because I am free as well. Entrusting myself to time—what would that mean in concrete terms?
Wednesday, January 27
I tell myself that it is fine to move slowly and that beginning something is always exciting. Yet I also know how difficult those ideas become when applied to my own life. 'If I do it, I can do it.' Strangely, I have a quiet confidence in that sentence. I simply do not do it. I simply have not found what I want to do. Everything feels ambiguous. Being vaguely good at things may be something of a curse. In most stories, the way to break a curse is much the same: set out on an adventure.