Over the past week I’ve followed a strict digital curfew, which involves keeping my phone out of my bedroom before going to sleep, and not looking at it (or anything else on the internet) until I’ve gotten my journaling done.
But sometimes you come out of meditation and feel like you just have to google something. I thought I’d cheat a little bit this morning. Everything went to shit. Before I knew it, that search turned into me watching two videos, which reminded me that I needed to text someone back, which hurled me into a couple of conversations, which made me need to check my calendar, which made me need to check my email. All of that happened within the course of an hour, so I was able to reel myself in, but as I sit here to write, I’m recognizing how different I feel in my mind and my body right now than I normally do. I already feel like I need to hurry up and finish this, since a ton of other to-do’s saw that crack of light and are rushing to the top of my mind. Each comes with a person or an opportunity that would be disappointed if I dropped the ball, and that urgency makes something like writing a personal journal entry seem all the more arbitrary. With so much that presents itself as more important, I struggle to remind myself that I AM A WRITER! I must write, otherwise I fall back into the familiar trap of making it my job to maintain my life as an artist as opposed to just being an artist.
We are living in a time where more people are talking about doing than actually doing. Social media allows us to convey like we’re living lives of action and accomplishment, but can we really do it for the gram while doing it for ourselves? Maybe I’m just too old for that shit, but for me it tends to lean one way or the other. I choose me.