A record spinning without the music

This is a more personal article housed in the ‘personal’ section of the blog so if you’re just interested in the tech, climate, or product related stuff feel free to not read this one. I probably wouldn’t. We’ll get back to that more interesting stuff soon.

A couple of weeks ago I left my job at South Pole. It was voluntary, I got a very nice severance package, but it was encouraged (more on that another time). Now I have months worth of time on my hands. I’ve spent a lot of that time sitting with myself. I had all of these aspirations; trips to plan, projects to work on, books to read, jobs to apply for, and friends to reconnect with. But instead of doing all of that I’ve done … nothing.

The last time I wrote anything that I wanted to publish or share was … wow, almost a month ago. In the meantime I’ve been on a retreat, been to parties, been to the pictures, gone shopping, finished reading a couple of books, been out with friends, but nothing … new.

Maybe new is the wrong word. I didn’t want to say ‘productive’ because it’s not about that. All of the things I have been doing are based in past ideas. What I mean is I’ve had no new thoughts or inspiration. No creativity. yes, that’s it. Another definition of ‘creativity’ for you.

To live and think in a forward direction, on new, or at leas the next, things.

Instead, I feel like a record that’s spinning without the music.

It’s an interesting dichotomy. Nothing is wrong per say, I feel fine, I’m in good health, in fact often enough I feel great. I have a lot of energy, I want to dance and sing and run and write. Physically I’m perfectly well.

‘But what about inside?’ you say. Aye, I think that’s the issue. Inside all of us there is an infinity. A boundless forever like an expanding universe inside your mind. It makes connections with a gravity pulling at ideas and observations and feelings in an endless internal sky. And I think mine has stopped expanding, or my gravity has grown weak, or …

Ah sod the metaphor. I’m not getting out of bed until late, I’m finding it hard to reach out to people, and I’m not applying myself to anything because I don’t have any motivation to do so. And the only thing I’ve thought to do something about it, for a week or so now, is to work. To find work and to bury myself in it. But I hate that. That’s ignoring the issue, if not even a cause of the issue. What I’m observing is that without work, without this daily tic-toc, even one that continuously stressed me out, I loose meaning. This is bad.

It smells like some amount of depression. It’s not debilitating or consuming, I’m not sad or incapable, I’m just indifferent, floating like a fish through water without swimming. Quiet and removed.

And then today I had an idea. I still have plans lined up until the end of the year so I don’t think I’m at risk of falling into nothingness, and I don’t want to just ‘work’ to ignore it, but I need to give myself something to reach for. So I’m going to do this. I’m going to write here, every day, at least until the new year.

I did this once before almost two years ago for a similar reason and it went reasonably well, in fact its what got me to write here more frequently, and so we’re going to do it again. I find getting the words out cathartic, and by giving myself a daily something to hold myself to, an external motivation, hopefully I can start to coax internal motivation towards something healthy before I do have to get back to work.

I don’t really know what I’ll be writing about, but they’ll all go out to the Substack mailing list. I’ll include a little disclaimer at the top like this one to give you an indication of what kind of thing you’ll be reading, but you should get something every day. If you don’t want something everyday, you can follow this article to unsubscribe from emails.

If you are interested in this or think someone else would be you can share or subscribe with the respective buttons below. Any problems reply to this email or comment beneath it on the website and I’ll sort it out for ya.

- Rhys