Finding my bearing

Steaming in the husk

I don’t feel like me right now. I feel like a husk. Something shifted a few days ago, and hasn’t settled, yet.

I’m in SF. I’m working—and doing work I think is useful and interesting, to boot. And yet, I’m spending most of my latent energy pining, and I’m not sure what to do about that. I can’t see me.

I can half-imagine what it would look like if I were fully in tune with myself, right now, away from the feelings of loss and longing. The image I can see is of a Joshua with more agency, one who pursues the things that light him up (the sparks of which aren’t quite firing right now), and gets lost in things that enrich and transform him.

Unfortunately, the Joshua that I am is not quite ready for that, apparently. The Joshua that I am is nursing some self-inflicted wounds and wishing for a future that may never exist. I am him. I am the guy stuck between two worlds.

The answer—and I know it’s this because it comes from my gut—is to let this be. To love the resistance. To love the part of me that’s trying to solve it early by loving the resistance. This recursive little game I play, trying to re-associate with myself... to play that game more honestly and less “skillfully,” to play it for fun rather than profit, to slow down and let the world slip through my fingers again and again and again... that might put a gentle end to this cycle forever.

In essence, I am doing that now. I’m sitting with it. I’m writing from it. There’s nothing in me that wants to leave, nowhere to go. I’m almost relaxed...

And yet, there’s a bit of me holding out. I can feel it. In my stomach. I can feel the “holding off.” Ah, so. The game is to not wring compliance out of every inch of intestinal muscle, but to let it wring itself, as and when it chooses. Can I be with the wringing? Can I love the “holding out” as it is, without needing it to change? Can I change...?

Ah, so.