I’ve been thinking lately about the words we use to describe success.
Killing it. Nailing it. Crushing it.
Such violence.
I saw an Instagram post the other day where someone was talking about ‘smashing meditation.’
I wondered what the Dalai Lama would make of it. Does he ‘smash’ his meditation? Go to bed patting himself on the back for ‘dominating’ the spiritual world? And ‘winning the day’.
‘I really showed the Pope who’s boss,’ he might think, as he takes off his robes. ‘I put Oprah back in her box.’
Maybe he wakes up in the morning and does some Rocky style air punches in the mirror. ‘YOU RULE’ he’ll tell himself…
I also saw the ‘winning the day’ line on Instagram and I didn’t really know what it meant. Is each day a competition? If so who with? Does your win mean that someone else lost? Or is the battle with the actual day, which you ‘win’ once you’ve grappled it to the ground? Take that you PESKY DAY!
I dunno.
I know I’m very tired and spending way too much time on Instagram but the world is feeling a bit nuts to me at the moment.
I can’t be arsed to win anything. Or have a fight. I don’t want world domination. To smash or be smashed.
I just want to have a nice, gentle day, where nobody wins, loses, gets crushed or killed. I want to go about the business of being a semi-decent human; pay the bills, maybe have a walk, kick some leaves and have a chat with my neighbours followed by something lovely for dinner.
Speaking of which I just ate halloumi and cabbage. At 5.30pm. It was delicious. I imagine I’ll be in bed pretty soon.
I am not crushing anything at the moment - and I’m wondering why I ever wanted to.
Speaking of not crushing/nailing/winning things, I’m sorry for the patchiness of this newsletter. It’s stupid not to keep writing here as it’s my favourite place to write but I’ve been spending my days getting dropping further and further into the swamp of book writing. It makes no sense. I am neither making progress, nor money… but still I plod on.
Will it be worth it?! I honestly don’t know! But as I said I’m tired so my perception is wonky. I’ve now made the Elizabeth Gilbert deal with myself which is something along the lines of ‘this book might not be good but it will be done.’
And it’s very almost there.
I just read a very good book called How to be Broken by Dr Emma Kavanagh which tells me it’s just perfectly understandable to have the cognitive powers of a drunk goldfish right now. Dr Kavanagh is a psychologist specialising in how humans cope with disasters and her book charts what’s happened to our minds, bodies and emotions through the stress of the last couple of years. If you need an explanation as to why you might feel like everything is wonky right now, do read it. Or just read this piece she wrote in the Guardian which sums it all up. The headline is ‘An invisible threat has pushed us to our limits. Small wonder our brains are overwrought.’
The good news is that most of us will come out just fine and some of us will come out stronger…
Until that day I’ll be playing Fairytale of New York on loop.
Ok that’s it for now.
Love and again I’m sorry for dropping off. I think about you all and will get the workshops going again soon. Let me know your news if you’d like to.
xx
Dalai Lama would say “ Marian you are the great perfection “
Getting the newsletter , whenever it comes is always a treat for me. Thanks for sharing x
Now I don't feel so mad or so crazy. Thank you for the link about our poor tired pandemic brains. It explains a lot. Love your newsletters they always resonate with me.