000020 — Never again

I have nothing I have to do today. Not “nothing to do” as in no responsibilities, nothing on my schedule, nothing demanding my attention, nothing that has to be answered right now. I can choose freely what I want to do because there is nothing I have to do. I guess I do HAVE one thing to do today, keeping myself from doing what could be done, turning what could have been rest into work.

Why do I do that? Why do I take something good and demand that it be without fault? Where did I even learn this distorted idea of perfection? I looked up the definition of perfection for the first time, and it’s defined as “without fault.” Without fault. How in the world did we come up with this insane word as a goal. What were we trying to describe when we started using it. Something beautiful. Something rare. Something that felt finished. And somehow we landed on “without fault,” like anything alive is capable of that.

Even the easy example breaks. That “perfect” diamond had to go through pressure, heat, cutting, and polishing just to become what we call perfect, and even then, there are impurities.

So what am I actually trading something good for. Is it perfection. Or is it simply that good isn’t enough.

Then what is enough, Darryl. I don’t know, I’ll let you know when I find it. Which also makes no sense. Best case scenario: I eventually stumble into “enough.” That’s funny. Literally laughing out loud at a construct that’s been an unconscious guiding principle running my thinking and acting. The strategy is movement. Constant movement. Even if it’s directionless. Wow.

I’m realizing how critical, absolutely critical, having an idea of where you want to go and a way to assess where you are really is. Otherwise I’m lost. And when I was most lost, I was crashing into other ships. Causing destruction everywhere. Moving in chaotic directions with great inertia, toward nothing true, toward nothing really real. 

It wasn’t until I had an aim and a way to inspect that my life began to improve. Improve so much that I can sit here and have appreciation not that I stopped running, but that I stopped running away and toward.

My very first journal entry was over sixteen years ago on the same app, and it started with “Never Again.” That was the first time I had nothing to do because I couldn’t. That stillness was not chosen. It felt like consequence. No schedule to optimize. No escape route to manufacture. Just me, the room, and what my choices had finally cost.

I wrote: “Never Again.”

Now I have nothing to do by design, and I’m saying the same thing.

Never again.

Never again will I confuse motion with direction.