I had a weird reaction to my last deadline today.
My body didn't know what to do with itself. It was physical; not so much mental. I grew very quiet, wandered around kind of confused, and ate one bite of about 16 things in my fridge (mostly single ingredients). I looked for the cats, but they didn't provide occupation for my hands and feet -- not the kind I wanted, anyway.
So I went to meet up with my buddy David Smith, who's in town briefly from Montana. Everybody was eating dinner and laughing and drinking, all in good spirits. I was not capable of doing anything more than faking enjoyment while nursing a glass of champagne. I was unbelievably tired, even after having slept a full nine hours last night.
Left, bought ice cream cookie sandwich from the gas station next door. Ate. Drove to the office at 10 p.m. to clean up my area. Had a little moment of panic when I realized I had no idea what I wanted to occupy my hands with.
I expected a certain amount of purposelessness, but it wasn't quite that. Far more tangible; not the kind of thing caused by feeling useless, because those things induce thought and require actually feeling useless. I didn't feel useless at all -- I have so much ahead of me and so many things to look forward to -- but all I could think about was a car hitting a brick wall at 80 miles an hour.
The whiplash subsided by the time I got home, leaving no evidence of its course through me. I came up with what might be the best idea I've ever had, and no matter what the result of it is, it is intrinsically fail-proof. I've been sitting down here in my garage stewing in my own motivation soup for about five hours now, researching and plotting and enjoying my life in a way that I don't think I ever have before.
I've spent a long time tallying how much this job has taken from me. Now after the fact, I'm starting to see how much I've gained, and it's way more than whatever was lost. My head is full of plans instead of thoughts; gears are turning more efficiently than I knew was possible. I'm debugging the programs before I even lay the groundwork, testing my executions and soliciting advice from the relevant minds I've met through my work.
It's good to finally have the still air I needed in order to build my own machine. Likewise, it's good that I took a ride on someone else's when I didn't know where to start.
My body didn't know what to do with itself. It was physical; not so much mental. I grew very quiet, wandered around kind of confused, and ate one bite of about 16 things in my fridge (mostly single ingredients). I looked for the cats, but they didn't provide occupation for my hands and feet -- not the kind I wanted, anyway.
So I went to meet up with my buddy David Smith, who's in town briefly from Montana. Everybody was eating dinner and laughing and drinking, all in good spirits. I was not capable of doing anything more than faking enjoyment while nursing a glass of champagne. I was unbelievably tired, even after having slept a full nine hours last night.
Left, bought ice cream cookie sandwich from the gas station next door. Ate. Drove to the office at 10 p.m. to clean up my area. Had a little moment of panic when I realized I had no idea what I wanted to occupy my hands with.
I expected a certain amount of purposelessness, but it wasn't quite that. Far more tangible; not the kind of thing caused by feeling useless, because those things induce thought and require actually feeling useless. I didn't feel useless at all -- I have so much ahead of me and so many things to look forward to -- but all I could think about was a car hitting a brick wall at 80 miles an hour.
The whiplash subsided by the time I got home, leaving no evidence of its course through me. I came up with what might be the best idea I've ever had, and no matter what the result of it is, it is intrinsically fail-proof. I've been sitting down here in my garage stewing in my own motivation soup for about five hours now, researching and plotting and enjoying my life in a way that I don't think I ever have before.
I've spent a long time tallying how much this job has taken from me. Now after the fact, I'm starting to see how much I've gained, and it's way more than whatever was lost. My head is full of plans instead of thoughts; gears are turning more efficiently than I knew was possible. I'm debugging the programs before I even lay the groundwork, testing my executions and soliciting advice from the relevant minds I've met through my work.
It's good to finally have the still air I needed in order to build my own machine. Likewise, it's good that I took a ride on someone else's when I didn't know where to start.
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