It’s been a few weeks since shelter-in-place has been lifted here on the island and I have to admit that some days I forget that we’re living in strange times. How are so many people still out buying so much stuff?? I don’t want to be psychic but I had felt something life-changing was coming for over a year. I only told 1 friend, cause ya don’t wanna manifest that shit if you don’t have to. But this poop was very persistent. I couldn’t shake the feeling no matter what. Exactly one year ago I was in a minor car accident but life continued and the feeling was still there. So that wasn't it. Then later that year I had minor surgery, but the feeling was still there! I concluded that whatever was coming wasn't something minor. Then Corona hit and I couldn’t believe this crap. It was like all the movies I love, except this one had the worst soundtrack. But you know what, then I thought I’ve been training for this all my life! I know what to do! That lasted for about a day and quickly changed into the week of not knowing what to do. After that came the week of we’re all gonna get it. Then came the week of is this a normal cough or do I have The Rona?! There was a week of I’m never leaving the house again. There was the week of fuck this shit I’m going to the beach. The week of I’m eating salmon every day because I deserve it. The week of you can never have enough chocolate in the house. There was a week of fuck the rest as long as my loved ones are fine I’m fine. The week of we need to make sure everyone has food. The week of I couldn’t care less about the Relato di Dia. And then came the week of corona schmorona. Whatever. I’m exhausted. Some days I believe no one should have to die. Other days I think it’s “natural selection”. And other days I’m convinced we ain’t seen nothing yet and we need to fasten our seat belts. There’s one thing I know though. And I’m not hearing anyone speak about it, but one positive aspect of being cooped up in the house has been that it has become crystal clear that we could be fine with way less. Less school. Less workload. Less consumption. Less moving around. And more taking the time to work on our homes and yards. More time to cook real food. More time for creativity. More time for conversations. What if, and this is just an idea that has sprung from my simple mind, but what if we all decided we were fine with less? What if kids could do with half the time on school? What if adults could work only 4 hours a day because we’re all consuming less and needing less of everything? What if we slowed down a little more? Hospitality and tourism workers could share a job with someone else who will be working 4 hours a day. Yes, with some retraining, but also with the perspective of having more time off. It’s becoming obvious that many, many things on the island are ridiculously overpriced. That needs to change. We’re robbing our own if we keep up these import rates and keep paying taxes upon taxes. I’ll repeat. We can all do with a little less. Yes, what I’m proposing is extremely simplified, but you know what.... the life we were living was extremely non-sustainable. Meaning – we could, in fact, not sustain this speed of activities and consumption in the long run. We all knew this, yet we kept on going as if we didn’t have children who will have children who will look back and curse the day we decided to have children. Yes, I said it. We owe it to our offspring to slow the fuck down and consume the fuck less. Earth Overshoot Day [Earth Overshoot Day marks the date when humanity’s demand for ecological resources and services in a given year exceeds what Earth can regenerate in that year. Source] has been moved back due to corona. The last time we needed only 1 Earth to sustain us all was in 1970. In 2020 we need more than this planet + more than half of an imaginary other planet we don’t actually have. To be precise we need 1.6 Earths to sustain the life we’re living. This year Earth Overshoot Day would’ve been in July, but we’ve moved it back to August 22nd. What does this mean? It means we’re capable of less. So, let’s take on this challenge and keep moving the date back more and more. The whole planet can eat, have shelter, have medical services and more, by needing less. We now truly know what is essential, quite literally. I can do with less travel or dining out or new furniture if it means that all of us, the planet included, are healthier and happier. We’ve seen so many spontaneous community efforts, people connecting, others sharing expertise without charge, clearer skies, fewer heart attacks and strokes, more gratitude and countless efforts to support the weakest members of our societies. We now know we can do this. Can LESS be the new normal?
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We are living in a society where boredom is viewed as a problem. We should always be doing something. Meeting up with friends, going somewhere, taking on new hobbies, texting, scrolling through social media, binge watching series online. Never a dull moment, right? Wrong. We are overloading our brains. I sometimes jokingly say 'I do not have enough GB in my brain to comprehend this shit!' when someone does something stupid. But there's a big truth in my not so funny joke. Research shows that we digest 5 times more information than in 1986. And those numbers aren't even recent! Those results are from 7 years ago. So imagine the amount of information we get to process now on a daily basis. It's insane. Not figuratively, no, literally. We are driving ourselves insane. Just look up growth numbers for social anxiety, depression, burn-out or substance abuse. And don't just think of the information we take in from our computers and devices. Also think of the amount of brands of the same product, like chips, in the supermarket, the amount of billboards on the side of the roads, the rapid succession of singles being put out by artists, fashion trends, news, seasonal products in the shops. It's not uncommon now to find Christmas decorations in the shops in September! We are already starting them young too. We're conditioning babies to never be bored. Hang a mobile toy above the crib! Get a car seat toy! Stick the pacifier in their mouth! Sign them up for baby yoga! I just made up baby yoga. I don't even know if it's a thing, but whatever. It sounds pretty useless. What about when they're older? Get them into tennissoccerballetdrummingplaydatestutoring! What's wrong with letting a child stare at the fabric of the front seat in the car. Have you ever noticed the beauty of the pattern? Or would it be so horrible to let them watch the streetlights as they glide by in a steady cadence? Or, heaven forbid, they follow the rain droplets on their window or the shadows of the trees on the windshield. No! Entertain them before they get bored! But do you, yes you who has been bored plenty times when young, remember what happens when you're bored? Our brains scale back to our immediate surroundings. Starts observing more. Starts seeing patterns. Starts seeing things that were overlooked before. Starts wondering. Starts analyzing. Starts being creative. Curious. So let it! Let the brain do what it is made to do: flow from one process into the next, naturally. Not forcibly, because the toy is shiny, or the phone bleeps or the 3 seconds are over on netflix. Let a new desire be born, naturally. I'm as much a victim of the enticement of binge watching 5 episodes in 1 go as the next person. And I suffer from FOMO too. I also take my phone to the bathroom to poop (yes, I poop!) and I also check social media first thing in the morning. But I do try to be more conscious of the information I take in. (Which can be hard with a brain that is a slave to text. If my eyes see text they have to read it, even if it's for the umpteenth time. Labels, billboards, text on a t-shirt, memes, catchy titles for bogus articles, subtitles, endless lists like these. ) I have been tv-less since 2006. I listen to (yes, the same old) songs on my phone instead of the radio. I'm not subscribed to a newspaper. I have most phone app alerts on silent. I try to multitask a little less and I try to put out less information on social media. Did you know that every day we produce more than 6 newspapers worth of information, compared with just 2.5 pages 30 years ago? In an effort to step up my boredom game I'm going to stop checking social media first thing in the morning and start a gratitude journal instead. I thought and looked up some other tips to allow more boredom into your life, in case your curious mind is curious: - Set a fixed time slot for the two minute stuff. 'If you have a lot of little tasks, designate 45 minutes or an hour every day to plow through any items that will take you two minutes or less, like emails, phone calls, tidying up, checking your financial accounts, etc.' [source] And then be done with it. What didn't get done today will get done tomorrow. - Daydream. 'The brain operates in two oppositional modes: "one is when you’re directing the thoughts, and the other is when the thoughts take over and run themselves.” In daydreaming mode “one thought melds into another and they’re not particularly related.” This daydreaming mode acts as a neural reset button and replenishes some of the glucose you use up in staying on a task.' [source] - Leave your phone when going to the bathroom. Leave your laptop when going on vacation. Put your phone on silent during dinner or at work. (Did you know recovery time to get back to a task is 10-20 times the duration of the interruption?) - Practice beelining. In the supermarket, walk straight to the products you always get and train yourself to ignore all the other products and sales and 2-for-1 specials. - Turn off the tv when you're not watching it (and get rid of the one in the bedroom!). Turn off Netflix after 2 episodes. Turn off the radio for a while when you're in the car. - Quality over quantity. And need to know over nice to know (no more clickbaits for you!). - Use an ad-blocker in your browser. And use another search engine instead of google. - Let your kid be bored. Be bored together. Stare at the ceiling together and see what comes up. I resolve to breathe a little more and slow down a little more. To not be in the know. To be more conscious of my information seeking and information output behavior. Which is kind of ironic, since I blog sometimes and my main income at the moment is from freelancing as a content manager. I know. The irony doesn't escape me, but I see it as even more reason to be conscious about what is put out there. And I hope to have activated some overload awareness in you with this blog.
We cannot live a totally disconnected life, and maybe we shouldn't want to try to either, but we can be conscious of how we allocate our gigabytes of internal storage. I'm about to break a record. The longest I've lived in one country was seven years. When I was younger I didn't have a choice. I moved when my mom moved. Then, as an adult I moved when I got what I call "the itch" to move. The itch is a mental restlessness. It starts very slow, very faint. If you're new to the itch you won't notice it in the beginning. Not until it grows until a real, serious itch. A feeling that you can't resist but scratch. And the scratch is: looking for other places to move to. Doing research, taking a trip, looking for jobs online, researching rent prices and more. And more. Which actually makes the itch worse. It makes it unbearable, until you're ready to move even without a job or a place to live in (which I don't recommend). I haven't had the itch in 8 years. I'm actually proud to say this so I'm gonna repeat myself (normally I hate repeating myself), I haven't had the itch in 8 years! In August I will be living in Curaçao for 8 years, officially, because I was back on the island in February 2009 but had to go back to Barcelona for a month to pack. If you ask me, I think a huge part of not getting itchy has been buying a house. I call it my anchor. It keeps me from drifting off to Itchland. Although being a third culture kid I always have my eyes open for life in other countries. But now, without getting itchy. And there's more to this record-breaking milestone in my life. I want to keep this itchless life. I don't want to move to another country if I don't have to. No epic life for me, please. There. I said it. My life wasn't any kind of epic before, but it was restless. When I look around I keep seeing people trying to have/living epic lives, having epic meals, taking epic trips to epic countries where they meet epic people who tell epic stories. As if being epic is the new "I have succeeded in life". More power to you if you want that. I will epically enjoy your stories while I'm living my boring life. And there was no sarcasm there. I really will and do enjoy your epic stories, if they come from a genuine place. My boring life will be me living in a nice house with a nice yard, and some day with someone to share life with. I'll get groceries at the same supermarket. Get gas at the same gas station. Drive on the same roads to the same job for years and years and years. No one will know me, except maybe the people at the supermarket and the gas station, and I will know no one, except maybe the people at..... yeah, you get the point. I have been living a pretty unepic life for a few years already and I think I'm getting good at it. The people at the supermarket and gas station know my face, but I see them wondering about my story. Maybe they don't know yet, that a story is just a story. I just smile and say hi. For the next few years I'm finding the bigness in the small things. The hugeness in the micro. I would like to read and paint and go to the beach and work in the yard or decorate the house. I would like to spend time with friends. Have true connections with interesting people. Encourage more kindness around me. I would like to have enough time to disconnect as well. Be by myself in peace, under my rock. I want to explore the farthest and darkest corners of myself and, if he will let me, of my special life-sharer. Epically boring. Yeah... I'm so looking forward to that unepic life!
The other day I went to a pet shop to get dog food for my puppy. The store owner and I got to talking about all the things a puppy can learn. Since I'm now training the puppy to walk on a leash, I took my time to explain what I've been doing, but the man barely listened and interrupted me to recommend a choke leash for this. I told him that I'd prefer the puppy to learn without being afraid of how I could hurt her. 'Yeah' he said 'well expect to be training her for at least two weeks then. With a choke leash it'll just take a day!' Again I explained why I didn't want that. He said 'but do you prefer to spend all that time on training her, when you can get it done in one day? Time is money!' I then explained that I have the time and that I don't mind, but the broken record kept repeating that time was money. A thought kept banging inside my mind, trying to break free, but my polite upbringing kept my tongue in check.
ALL THE PROBLEMS IN THE WORLD ARE BECAUSE PEOPLE LIKE YOU HAVE PUT MONEY ABOVE WHAT TRULY MATTERS
You know what? People like you were all wrong, sir. Time is not money. If time were money, no time would mean no money, and that is not so. No time means, no bonding, no connection, no rapport, no engagement and no willingness to be of service.
Ask any volunteer if time is money. Ask any terminally ill patient if time is money. Ask any new parent who is out working all day if time is money. Ask any person who is madly in love if time is money. Ask any homeless teenager if time is money. Ask any person who is about to commit suicide if time is money. Ask any addict if time is money. Excuse my bluntness, sir, but since my time is not money I would like to take a moment right now to very loudly yell a big fat NO to you and everyone like you. Time is exactly what we should be taking. Time, to be with others. Time, to connect and really find out what the other person needs to feel connected. Why is connection important? Because it fosters happiness and who doesn't want to be happy? Yes. The pet shop owner. All he wants is money. Maybe he eats it. Everyone else, I assume, wants to be happy. On the other hand there are people like this other man at a local building materials store. He saw me wandering around the store, probably looking lost, and took his time to ask what I was looking for. When he couldn't help me he directed me to another employee who might know what I could use for my idea. I thought the man would then leave and continue doing what he was doing, but no. He stood there with me and helped think of options. Then the three of us walked to an aisle where I found something that could work. And then, when he made sure I was satisfied with what we had found he left. That was awesome. I felt taken care of as a client and I felt taken seriously, even though what I was looking for will probably not save a whole construction from collapsing. To me it was important and it felt good that someone else saw that. So take the time. Be present with others. Put your device away. Stop the engine of your car. Take off your sunglasses and look people in the eyes. Connect. Even if it's for only 30 seconds, but connect. And then... when you've given all the connection you can, disengage and connect back to yourself. Oh... and money. Money = effort. |
Photos used under Creative Commons from julian_fern, Humphrey King