Tag Archives: free time

Writing As A Way of Interacting With the World…

I’m trying to step left and do things differently in my life. So much of my existence has been defined by work and making money. Left to my own devices, with no idea what I want to do for a living, I have to take a look at what I end up spending my time doing.

When I worked, it was like I earned my free time. I am a rebellious person by nature, so I thrive on resistance. Basically, when I’m doing something I hate, I write the best words and music. When there is no opposition or resistance in my life, well, I’m pretty mediocre. Or at least I feel this way.

When I’m writing, everything stops. I’m not aware of the passing of time or any big obligations. I’m so grateful my mother started me writing in a paper journal when I’d barely learned to talk. The habit of keeping a journal and just writing out whatever I’m feeling or perceiving is cathartic. Without that outlet, I would be destitute.

I live a pretty solitary life right now. I see people at least once a day, and I see my husband and my dog, but I do spend a lot of time alone pondering my existence. Writing fills up the time, and helps me reflect on what is going on in my life. I can write down insane ideas and read them later to double check whether I’m coherent or not. We need to bounce the crap in our brains off somewhere, whether its other people or a piece of paper. I think writing gives me that sense of being alive. If I’ve left something on a piece of paper, I feel as if I’ve created something outside of me, and my voice and ideas won’t die in the trapped island of my brain.

So back to my first paragraph. What do I spend my time doing when I’m predominately alone? I end up writing a lot. Walking a lot. Cooking some, meeting up with people some, taking baths some…but mostly writing and walking. These two things anchor me in ways I cannot explain. Writing never really seems like an empty gesture to me. I just can’t capture what it feels like to express myself in words…I’m waxing sentimental here…but without writing…sheesh. I’d be so boxed in.

You would think with all this free time I’d be down at the soup kitchen or something, giving away what I’ve been so freely given, and I plan on doing so. But I’ve spent the last couple of years working like a stiff at jobs that really blew, so I’m trying to be thankful for this respite. We all need space, and time to reflect. After living in the city for years, I always had this go go go mentality. It is so hard for me to slow down, and when I don’t fill my days with activities, I feel completely useless. And then I get completely knackered because I’m always running around, and I have no gauge to measure my progress.

I’ve always been outwardly structured by school or a job. Somewhere along the line I learned that going to school 9-3 or working 9-5 makes you a better person, and sitting around wondering what the point of life is, staring long and hard into the sunset, being a human being rather than a human doing, is worthless.

But what are we here for if not to experience life to the fullest? To feel what it’s like to be in this crazy suit of skin, interacting with other wacked-out people, trusting that there is some element of synergy to the universe? And really, what is life without human interaction and self-expression? If I had been born in a vacuum, and never interacted with another human being, I think I would have ended up like some type of non-speaking pod person. One thing I find very meaningful is being around other people like myself. They’re harder to find out here where I live right now, but I know they’re around. And if I’m not around people like myself, I can learn why I’m different and what makes me tick by hanging around people who are my complete opposite.

But what I’m getting at here is that socializing with other people is a rope to measure myself by, bounce my inner voices off of, experience things not just through my own eyes. Writing fills in the gap. I can interact with the universe through writing as well. So the combination is really what makes me tick. Human interaction and reflection or creation through pen and paper. That is what makes my life meaningful. Throw in some hiking with my dog or other people, and the soup tastes just right.

Too Much Free Time = Too Little Art.

Well, OK. I’ve strayed off topic a bit, with the move and the job stuff and everything…

How’s the writing and the art going? Eh.

I’m struggling with the catch 22 of being unmotivated and apathetic about life and what I love. I can’t imagine that anyone else my age spends this much time ALONE. I used to like alone time. Now I just have too much, and self-motivation is a bitch. I want my schedule to be wide-open, and I am terrible at commitment.

I’ve had almost three months to pick up the guitar, pick up the pen, do something.

It’s true what they say about having more free time not necessarily contributing to your art. Being a starving artist just makes you focus on getting yourself fed, you know?

If I were busier, I feel I would be more inspired to do the things I love. But perfection is getting in my way. Perfection and laziness. Start small, or do nothing at all. But just start small. I have so many plans and ambitions to get myself going, I just need to light a fire under myself.

I’m dazed and confused for much too long now. I could drive off somewhere…but where? Where do I go?

Doing Less, Work "Ethic" and Free Time

Ok. I told you I would be back with the importance of doing nothing.

But I got deeper than that. I went from the eight-fold path of Buddha, to the so-called “work ethic” in our country, “free time“, and the Zen “lazy manifesto” on doing less, more.

I read a piece on anarchist idea of doing nothing, and then accidentally ran into a badly morphed celebrity picture of Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston, which I won’t link, because that will be the only thing I’ll get a comment on. I know how these things work.

Our society works us too hard, encourages we be “ethical” about our own slavery to the grind, and then when we do have “leisure time” we need to use it to decompress because we’re so tired from working on something we didn’t want to do all day that we’re reduced to trash TV, movies, or books with no deep intrinsic value. But that’s just the problem. If I had a solution, I’d be running it like the mafia.

Before I found all these compelling articles though, I took a long, probably illegal nap, in which I thought my husband had come home and was tucking me in and one of the guys I grew up with had killer (read: hideous because I like lean and mean) biceps that looked like huge wasps when flexed, and I couldn’t find a shower that wasn’t occupied by Oaklandite thieves who were sneaking in to take showers by leaving their toe pedicure kits in the doorjambs. I was going bat shit, and my friend with the superman yoke kept following me around going what’s wrong? How can I help? At one point I took my tongue ring out, because I had a dream it was warning me my tastebuds were dying, and at another time I swore my dog kept trying to jump on the couch, because I felt something distinctly lie down on the couch, and I felt something distinctly touch my shoulder, just like I swear I heard my husband walking around the kitchen.

Now either I’ve gone completely wing nut, or I’m breaking through the realms of sanity because I have too much “free time”. If that is so, then perhaps I am getting somewhere our society doesn’t want me to get: mystic, otherworldly, “experienced”, insightful, perceptive, enlightened or even changed to the bone.

Just a thought.

"Free" Time

I find that with more time, I seem to get less done.

But that is not true. I am getting more of the stuff *I* would like to get done, done. Yup, that’s it kids, I am doing what *I* want to do and studying what *I* would like to study. It’s amazing to me that so much (money, food, security) has to be sacrificed for the privilege of free time. Free, when associated with time denotes some type of lack of compensation. As if time itself only exists for compensation. That all freedom is timed, or time should be paid out in increments.

I’ve always thought that time is irrelevant. I came to this conclusion some time in my teens, when I realized that five months of vagabond traveling with friends could go by in the blink of an eye, but one month at home on restriction could seem to take a year.

Just like how in classes I disliked in college, the clock on the wall seemed to pivot on an unrelated axis in proportion to how much time I seemed to be sitting on my ass listening to the professor drone on about the sociological implications of this and that other blather. I had quite a few classes I did not like in my human sexuality minor, to tell you the truth.

But time, as it stands, is disproportionate to reality, space, distance and amount. I don’t quite understand how an hour is an hour to everyone when shit, an hour just flew by like a minute yesterday and I’ve lost whole weeks in the churning engine of various day jobs, while my weekends flew by like birds vacating the north pole for the south.

So should I be compensated for my time? I’ve been spending some time doing absolutely nothing. Because my dad always told me that we are human “beings” not human “doings”. I was lying on my side on the bed this afternoon, oh, about three-ish, staring at the white flower blossoms on the tree outside my window, and the blueish/green house across the street, the sun shining and a vain attempt at a cloud drift wafting slowly by, and I felt like…I should be doing something. But then I started asking myself, why? Why does it matter? What should you be doing instead of lying on the bed enjoying the view outside your window?

I actually ended up ruminating on the fact that I have never stared out of my bedroom window, or even enjoyed my bedroom in the year and three months since I moved into this apartment. Because I always need to be doing something in order to earn my time.

Time wasn’t given to me by society. So why should society put constraints on my time? This is turning anarchist fast, so I need to back peddle a bit to get myself in the clear.

I don’t affiliate with anarchy as a whole. I like certain ideas, and idealistic views ensconced within anarchistic literature. But I still think that even anarchy has it’s rules.

Who told me I had to earn every moment?

It started with my parents. I needed to do chores and eat meals with the family (at times) to earn time to play. I had to hang out at the shop all day in order to earn time to hang out with my friends. I had to go to school all day (grooming for adult society) in order to earn time to create, draw, read and jump in the creek, ride my bicycle, or explore the neighborhood.

Then came adulthood. I had to keep a job in order to earn time to go to school. I have to pay back my time in school to the government, because nothing’s for free. So who told me the job I have to have is a 40 hour a week nine-five job?

I think I just fell into that. Because I certainly didn’t learn it from my parents. I found out quick that I could make a lot of money doing something I didn’t really like for someone else I didn’t necessarily believe in. Call it my own rebellion, or self-empowerment. My parents encouraged me to be artistic, to be unique, to follow my dreams. They praised my writing and anything else I deemed to pursue. My father did warn me about the implications of choosing a career in music, and my ex wanted so much from me in order to be a part of his record-label success that I put the dream of being a musician aside for quite some time, and continue to do so. My dad was a performing artist most of his life. He doesn’t really feel he got to do all the other things he wanted to do, and he’s not feeling valued for who he really is.

But when I learned I could earn money, on my own, doing the opposite of what my parents were doing, and could even earn more than half of what they earned in a year, I felt a bit empowered.

Until I realized I had no time for writing, music or riding the bicycle I no longer had. No time to run or play, no time to make a lot of friends outside of work.

The 40-hour workweek expanded into a prison term, while the “free” time I earned seemed so little in comparison to what I was sacrificing.

I want to choose happiness and enjoyment of the time I spend in life over financial gain at any cost.

My time shouldn’t be something I have to put myself in slavery to earn!

Do what you love and the money will follow.

We’re about to experiment with this little assertion, from here on out. While I enjoy my free time. (That my husband has now put in hard hours and another motorcycle accident to earn for me.)