Outrage

I’ve been trying to impose a sense of order on my otherwise seemingly chaotic approach to life. It seems like a valid thing to do, doesn’t it? I’ve been in pursuit of this my entire adult life, and most of my teenage years before that.

I’ve always thought, just as soon as I can get myself organised, I’ll be right. I mean, I’m doing pretty well, but just THINK what I might do if I was actually productive, organised, under control!

Control. School—learning abstracted into linear chunks; life’s beautiful complexity unbraided, straightened and taught strand by sterile strand. Years divided into terms, weeks cut up and timetabled, days divided into hour-long lessons, spans of attention determined by someone else’s clock. 

“The biggest thing I learned from school—truly learned deep in my bones, and silently steering me my whole life with its invisible unspoken force, is this—I cannot trust myself. ”

Without lessons, I won’t learn. Without studying, I won’t remember. Without homework, I’ll just play. Without tests, I cannot prove myself. Without proof, I have nothing to show.

When a system removes an individual’s choice, preference, creativity and free will, it suppresses the individual’s mind and replaces it with its own. The voice of the system becomes the voice in our head. Work harder, aim higher, focus, comply.

And so I am left with this: Without order, I am lazy. Without structure, I’ll achieve nothing. Without a goal, I’m aimless. Without a plan, I’m adrift. Save me from myself. Order, accountability, consequence, something…anything! Someone, please, tell me what to do.

Now that the world’s mouse wheel has stopped spinning, I’ve discovered a well of outrage, unexpressed. 

Here’s how I found it. I was hunting for an old notebook with an unfinished poem in it (because despite all my efforts to corral my mind, my system of numbered and dated notebooks fell to the wayside some time ago). What I did find was my diary. 

I haven’t looked in my diary for weeks. Honestly, I hate my diary. When it comes to diaries, I start out all excited (“this is it! I’m finally going to get myself under control!”), I get organised, write in it every known appointment, deadline, every conceivable reminder, birthday and anniversary then I close the cover and push it aside. The organised feeling lasts for approximately three minutes. Then I hate it. I hate that diary with a passion. It has gone from saviour to tyrant and I then refuse to open it. 

The answer to this, I’ve thought for years, is more discipline. More willpower. More structure. Set a reminder in my phone, and when it goes off—DING!—check the diary. Set a timer for 10 minutes and take care of two items on the list. However you do it, just crack the goddam whip already. 

If you’re a certain kind of (organised) person you might be aghast right now. You might like your diary, your planner, your year-at-a-glance wall chart. This denigration of every organisational widget that actually works brilliantly for you might be making your skin crawl. Perhaps I should have given a content warning up top. Feel free to finish here (or read on; your choice—you’re the boss of you). 

If you are like me, and if you have a similar love/hate relationship both with being organised and your own self-worth as a result of that, read on (if you like—you’re the boss of you). 

You might be wondering where I’m going with this. Actually, I’ve no idea. I’m writing this as I go. Which may just be the point.

“Life unfolds as we go. We unfold as we go. We are allowed to unfold as we go.”

I don’t want to be the product of a system. Thanks for trying, System, but you haven’t served me well. As a rule, systems do not seem to serve the humans that they rely on for their existence. I just don’t fit your get-up. 

My brain doesn’t work in grids, but it loves patterns. I reject timetables, but could think about space and time all day. I hate being tested, but I’m happy to share what I know and love. I’m allergic to your KPI’s. (I’m allergic to grass too. But I’d rather roll in grass, sneeze all day and come out in welts than have you assess me against a checklist.) 

I’m not interested in ladders, progressing, advancing or capitalising on anything. I’d rather cycle like the seasons. 

I don’t want to be productive. I don’t want deadlines. I’m not interested in taking on a quest that demands more of me than it gives. But when my song comes, I promise to sing, sing, sing.

I am not a highway, I’m a scenic route. I’m not a high rise, I’m a yurt. I’m a river, and my way is to meander. 

I want to flow with the land, change with the weather, deal with whatever circumstances come my way. I’ll flood when I need to. I’m willing to break banks, knock down whatever ramparts obstruct my natural way. But I’ll also pool, and eddy, and sing my way over stones. I’ll make music with whatever I encounter. Listen as I go by. 

“Maybe you’re a river too.”

Maybe you’re a river too. Maybe your life is not a straight line. Maybe you’re just waiting to shuck off the structure. 

May you know yourself as a spiral, a seashell. May you feel your sap rise and fall like the tide. May we gather together, like small knots of found objects, communities of feathers and stones. Let’s return to hearths and homes. Let’s eddy, and pool, and meander.