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bear with me
The ways we live are seldom stable. Obviously, circumstances and events can change, taking our acute lifestyles along for the ride. Even if, however, some situation - oh, I don't know; a pandemic, let's say - were to render our lives utterly stagnant (the fortunate end of the pandemic-situation spectrum), fluctuation might still emerge in the way we go about our daily lives. It certainly has in mine.
To relieve you from the despair inevitably caused by trying to comprehend the title of this post, I'll characterize the two extremes of my recently sinusoidal lifestyle as one of tension and one of...slack? Sure. One of dogmatic, almost monastic discipline; one of icky lifestyle-sludge. I'll restrain the discussion to free time because obligatory/committed activities are deterministic and, as a result, boring to talk about. Suddenly, Ty-slack sucker punches Ty-tension out of nowhere and therefore will go first while the latter re-learns the art of breathing.
Ty-slack is what the cynical among you may expect of me, a young male university student. He plays a lot of a video game (sic), watches myriad video entertainment on Netflix, Hulu, YouTube, etcetera, does dishes sporadically, and exercises on every other dish-day. He disappoints me; however, there is a certain joy in embracing an aversion to productivity and an affinity for following impulse. There are economies built on that affinity or [insert political commentary] or something. I would discuss Ty-slack further, but he is a rather predictable character. Besides, I do believe there is negative feedback in these woods. Ty-tension has arrived in my subconscious mind, finally chanting loud enough with his back-and-better-than-ever lungs for me to hear his pleas for discipline, productivity, and creative and professional growth.
Even Ty-slack can be productive when necessary, but if I do say so myself, Ty-tension is a force to be reckoned with. He meditates every day, stretches every night, is always reading and learning new things, and keeps both inbox-zero and kitchen-sink-zero. He is more than content, and in fact often likely, to sit quietly with his thoughts when his RSS feeds have deemed his daily media consumption complete (post upcoming, I promise/am sorry). The reason I feel comfortable being so braggadocious, besides having an ego prominent enough for me to use the word "braggadocious", is that this state never sticks. While I have before had contiguous months of successful tension, the desire to slacken builds over time before demanding a period of release.
It is strange to both love and hate each phase in different ways. Tension is beloved by the intellectual, spiritual, and professional souls, all of which despise the halting of progress effected by slack. Slack, on the other hand, is the favored child of the fun-loving, social, and spontaneous souls, all of which languish under the cold supervision of their more focused counterparts during eras of tension.
Perhaps you can tell which I prefer, but I am trying my best these days to place these selves in balance. Truthfully, both lead to some enjoyment of life; I believe I just need to change my perception of slack. If I can learn to see it as a valuable, unique state of being rather than as the simple absence of something called progress, I'll be the happier for it.
Reader, maybe you share my experience, a seasoned surfer of a similar sinusoid, the period of which may be weeks to months, like mine, or perhaps hours or years. Maybe you benefit from either luck or intense effort, and your selves live in frequent harmony. The luckiest among you may have no idea what I'm talking about; this state may be indicative of the highest auto-harmony. Whatever your experience, at least tense up enough, once in a while, to appreciate the beautiful. That the mind is complex enough to ponder like this is a beautiful, appreciable thing, no matter how tense the lariat with which your brain drags your body along.
Until the next time I get my act together,
Ty (tense)