Year 44: Now Departing

Twenty years is a long time to spend in a stasis largely of one’s own making. But by my account, that’s about how long it’s been since I tried to do something with my life beyond “exist”. Day after day, I’ve spent my life repeating the same cycles with the same actions and the same ways of thinking that have kept me locked in a loop.

A couple of months ago, I was reading Creative Quest by Questlove (thanks to my local library!), and one specific chapter hit me a little harder than the others: “The Departure”. I’ll quote the opening paragraphs here; emphasis is mine:

Creative people have specialties. But they also have restlessness. That’s part of the paradox: how do you keep your talent sharp while still exploring ways to expand your talent? How do you keep doing the thing that you’ve been doing while also doing other things?

The answer, at least as far as I can tell, is a version of the principle I outlined in the section on micro-meditation. The trick there was to simultaneously be present and be absent, to immerse yourself in the moment but attain a state of mind that momentarily suspends you and takes you away from the task at hand. There’s a broader, less internal version of this same strategy, and that’s something I’ll call “the departure.” Make an effort to make your life different. It’s the only way that it will stay the same in terms of creative inspiration and creative energy. Meditation helps you switch the channel when it comes to what is moving through you. The departure helps you switch the channel when it comes to how you are moving through the world.

In years past, I’ve tried a little thing where I picked a word to “define” the approach I take with the next year of my life. I’ve failed miserably at keeping true to that challenge, mostly because I keep looping back into the same cycles and systems after an initial effort to change. But that one word — departure — kept me thinking for days after I finished Creative Quest. (Excellent book, by the way. I’d recommend it for people who want a good perspective on creativity.)

In the days-and-weeks that followed, I kept thinking back to that word and the concept Questlove describes. That word sticking in my head got me thinking about my plans for at least a good chunk of the next year of my life. To that end, I’ve chosen departure as the theme word for my next year of life.

What that means in theory is simple: I must depart from old systems and cycles. I have to change how I think, how I act, and how I feel about how I think and act. Nothing will change in my life until I decide to enact that change. That decision begins today, on my 43rd birthday.

What that means in practice is a far harder bargain with myself: I have to give up things that have kept me in comfortable stasis for two decades.

The Internet in general makes for a good starting point. I’ve spent too much time over the past two-plus decades of my life glued to a “black mirror”, rushing from one site to the next and refreshing endlessly out of FOMO. Social media didn’t make things better when I was still a major user of Twitter and the like. Replacing Twitter with Discord and frequenting video/livestreaming sites like Twitch haven’t helped, either. To break that cycle, I have to “depart” from the Internet at large. Starting today, I will “depart” from my usual roundup of sites/services by blocking…well, pretty much all of them. (I can still keep Twitch streams on in the background through my TV, at least.) This self-imposed sabbatical will last for at least one month; I may extend it depending on how I feel after that month.

Other systems and cycles will follow soon after that. My diet is trash to an absurd degree, so I’ll need to “depart” from my comfort foods and try more new stuff. I barely exercise due to the shape my knees are in; to that end, I’ll look for exercises I can do to work around that limitation. Creativity is the throughline of Creative Quest, and I’ve been mostly “departed” from creative endeavours for far too long — writing, yes, but also art that’s either hand-drawn or pixelled — so that, too, will change.

“Departure” from a comfortable way of living will hurt. It won’t be fun or easy. It won’t produce instant results. The process will take more time than I’d like, especially given how much time I’ve wasted avoiding the process. This will be a test of patience, focus, and determination. I will either make myself a better person or fail miserably in the attempt. Either way, this is the first step of that departure, and I take it without hesitation.