On Not Working Hard

This morning I wake up with a headache. Allergies?   Lingering cold symptoms? It’s hard to say. I’m not feeling inspired. I start writing about the fall colors which are now peaking and then switched to the story of my first COVID test (negative) but both feel contrived and boring. So I figure I’ll take the risk of hanging out here in the doldrums and see if there is anything to notice right where I am.

It’s a challenge to avoid working hard. My new definition of working hard is doing what you do because that’s what you do. Working hard is losing touch with the purpose but going on with the activity. ‘I write every morning so I must write every morning because that is what I do.’ If I follow this logic, I end up becoming a well-intentioned copy of myself. I go through the motions and follow the pattern but the joy is lost. When I lose my connection to intention, it’s all hard work. I can still put words on a page, but it’s not fun or alive in the writing nor, I imagine, in the reading.

One of the things I learned in the improvisational dance company I was with so many years ago is that you can tell the difference, both from the inside and the outside, when performers are genuinely in the moment. In our time rehearsing, teaching and performing, we explored the possibilities and the challenges of presenting the creative process itself as the performance. From the inside of a dance, the work was to be aware of what was arising within yourself, within the other dancers and within the space as a whole. We practiced not planning in advance—which is much harder to do than it sounds. When the mind comes in to ‘help out’ in a self-conscious way, the dance becomes artificial, predictable and boring. The best dances were surprising to both the dancers and to the audience.

This improvisational presence is the discipline I am most interested in—in writing and gardening as well as in meditation and in life. I want to practice and live in intimate responsiveness to what is arising in the moment. True beauty is a kind of courageous authenticity—a willingness to follow some inner necessity—not a carefully curated arrangement of appropriate materials. This is what most interests me in my daily writing. Of course I want to offer whatever wisdom and experience I have, but I want to do it in such a way that I get to learn too. I don’t want to blab on about what I knew yesterday, I want to find and share what is arising new in this moment.

As I write, I’m conscious of meaning and shape and the craft of it all even as I hold fast to not knowing where the thing itself is leading me. I go back over what I have written several times, both in the process of writing and after I finish to adjust and refine. I am trying to use my self-consciousness without being ruled by my self-consciousness. A high-wire balancing act. I am curating my presentation self in service of presenting some authentic self. I’m always choosing and editing—revealing some parts of myself while hiding others. But my intention is to use all these kinds of awareness to more clearly present some moment of aliveness that is beyond my conscious control.

When I know where I’m going, or even when I think I have to go somewhere, it’s not much fun. It’s hard work. And I am increasingly determined to avoid hard work. Life is too short and too precious to just go through the motions. I don’t mind working hard when there is some inner necessity. When the thing itself is alive, it’s all adventure. I’ll happily dig holes, pile rocks, or sit in the chair with my laptop morning after morning—as long as I have the sense of following and offering something more than myself.

Like a dog sniffing and sniffing, I wait for and follow the arousal of that invisible scent. Sometimes I dash off into the dark woods and get totally lost. Other times this impossibly sweet and subtle fragrance leads me leisurely forward. Other times, there’s barely a trace. Still I wait and trust as best I can.