I decided to name this post Untitled because I’m typing it out in my text editor and that’s what it says at the top of the document. I pause. The cursor flashes before me over and over, as the seconds pass, and I realise – that is how I’m feeling, Untitled.
Time is a funny thing. We have so much of it, and the things we choose to spend that time doing are so fascinating. I only started my “leave” in January and I have 1 more week left of this “leave”.
As if as entrepreneurs we ever actually leave our jobs, switch them off. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to do that. I don’t consider the thing I spend the majority of my time on, something I need to take “leave” from, because it is my life. I choose this life, because I enjoy the “work” I do. I use inverted comma’s because work is life. Leave is life. This great separation between “work” and “family time” and “weekends off” is what always confuses me.
We are born, we live, we die. The living part is the present moment, the now, the place where we all exist, always. Why do we choose this separation and put our lives into little boxes all over the show, trying to achieve a work / life balance. Why do we act like the measurement of time matters so much, when all that really matters is how we feel in this exact moment, because that is all that exists.
I’m feeling Untitled. I’m one of the most privileged people I know. My life couldn’t be more peaceful and sheltered from the big bad world out there. I designed it this way, so that I can create from a space of calm and connectedness.
And I do feel calm and connected. Connected to the floor beneath my barefoot feet. Connected to the sound of the wind outside. I love this house because it’s built with an A-frame roof that allows me to hear every sound of nature all around us as it happens. I’m connected to the birds singing their evening songs outside, and the sun rays that are slowly fading in my lounge as I type these words.
Untitled. What am I in this world? Why am I here? I’ve been asking myself this question since I was 5 years old. I remember that. I remember the first time I knew there was a me, and then there were my thoughts – my ego, I just didn’t have a name for it yet. I was walking around my pre-school looking at other children and asking them how old they were. If they said they were 4, I’d hold my hand up in their face and say “well I’m 5!” and then move on to my next victim. I remember doing that and thinking to myself as I did it, “this is important, it’s important that I am 5 and they are not.” I felt powerful and I felt the opposite of Untitled, but only when someone else was 4, if they were 5 too, or low and behold 6, well fuck them.
So what is my point here? The point is that every moment counts, this one especially, and this one especially… and this one especially. Every single moment. Whether it’s leave, work, weekends, life, sleep, friends, it all matters. It all has the potential to be thoughtful, sacred.
The sadness matters. The tears matter. All the “bad stuff” matters. They are points of contrast for us, so that when we’re stuck in these gaps of Untitled, we have something to draw from. Just don’t hang out there too long, drawing from events, working things out, asking why… although you will… but you’ll always find your way back. Your way back to where? To here. Because here is calling us all.
Untitled. Because that is lighter than any title I could bestow on myself. 5 years old. 38. What does it matter? What matters is what we do with our time, how present we are to that, and… if it’s conscious intention or unconscious running on auto-pilot.