Monday, April 6, 2015

Gravity, Motion, and Perpetuity


"You know what you gotta do when life gets you down? Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming, swimming..." ~Dory, Finding Nemo

There's something to be said for efficacy and the perpetuity of motion. Standing still, conceptually, is not an option. Stillness leads to chaos, fragmentation, and disassociation. Think of gravity. Gravity exists because of continual motion. We adhere, orient, and balance in a constant state of motion. The inclination of disorientation is to stop and stand still, but I fail to see a single law of nature that supports this practice. We think of rest as the cessation of motion, but it is more realistically the constancy and normality of motion. So when life gets chaotic, just keep moving. Moving forward, moving on, moving up.

It's been 8 months since I last wrote. That's bad. I've missed it. The more time that passes, the harder it is to find any form of internal motivation. External force is needed to overcome the inertia of inactivity. The resistance would have felt much less awkward had I simply maintained forward motion, regardless of how little. Bad things happen when motion ceases. Fusion dwindles. Matter collapses. Gases combust. Stars explode. Destruction ensues.

Ok, it wasn't all that bad, but it has been ridiculously hard to write as I have not made the discipline a priority. So this is me, applying a little force to get things up and running again. I imagine there's a recommended minimum to how much I should write to be productive.

500 words.

A day.

I'm at 250.

This is lethargically painful. Must get through it. Just keep swimming, swimming, swimming.

Life doesn't really have me down per say, but I like quoting Dory. She makes me smile. I have felt somewhat unproductive lately and I need to kick that or at the very least discern its veracity. Sometimes I beat myself up unnecessarily because I interpret change or unmet expectations as failure. Sometimes true. Sometimes not. Change of motion always elicits resistance. It doesn't make it negative - just different.

I've been reading Kathleen Norris' Acedia & Me. I find it comforting to read the account of another writer's struggle with motivation and hope. I'm only a few chapters in, yet her explanation thus far of the malady invokes fear of the ensuing despair that so frequently accompanies it. Left to simmer too long and acedia can lead to the onset of depression. I'm not fond of that idea. I've been binge watching science shows on Netflix as well. Hence, the cosmic pondering of motion and change.

100 words to go.

I'm making changes. Little ones. I'm sitting here writing. I've changed my workout routine. I've modified the kids' schedules a bit. Made more time, precious little, for reading. But it doesn't have to be big; it just has to be something. The changes are to prevent stalling or burning out. They maintain motion. And motion is good. Motion fuses, coalesces, orients.

Enough of me bleeding on paper. I do have topics I intend to address. Some of them serious. Some of them not. I figure a week or two of icebreaking tidbits and I'll get into the heavy stuff. But for now, this is just me trying to amalgamate.


1 comment:

PeggyLee said...

I needed to read this. Thank you. I also need to shake off the lethargy and just write. :-)