musings / 13 Jul 2024
Waiting for Vizzini
I am waiting for you, Vizzini. You told me to go back to the beginning. So I have. This is where I am, and this is where I’ll stay. I will not be moved. When a job went wrong, you went back to the beginning. And this is where we got the job. So it’s the beginning, and I’m staying till Vizzini comes.
Sometimes, the best way to move forward is to just stop.
What I’ve been doing isn’t working. There is progress, but not accomplishment. There are perpetually too many balls in the air, and not enough time and attention to go around. It feels like always being on the edge of falling down the stairs: a constant anxiety, a constant sense of something forgotten, something lost. And for that cost, so little to show. Enough.
I am letting every ball that can drop, drop. I am letting go of all the “should” and “ought to”. I am releasing the attachment to the specific outcomes I’ve been carrying: projects to build, skills to learn, experiences to have. I am allowing myself to be methodical, to be focused, to be slow.
I am going back to the beginning.
This is not easy. This thought has been building for some time, constantly batted away as I tried to do harder. It comes with a sense of immense loss but, as I finally accept and lean into it, an immense relief as well. That was a heavy load.
Sitting with a quiet mind and empty hands, considering all the balls now scattered about, and considering which, if any, to pick up again. Recognizing a persistent anxiety that has haunted my work for years: knowing the value of working with the garage door up, yet doing nothing with this knowledge. Feeling disconnected, working in a vacuum, yet doing nothing to connect. I do this because, intellectually, it seems logical that I must make something of value first, otherwise any knowing I share would lack validity. Working from a feeling of lack, it feels logical to focus on those things that offer the highest potential reward.
Let’s do things differently this time. There’s a simple, straightforward next step to address this anxiety head on: I can reboot Industrious One. I can share this thought. I can use the base code I already have and build the simplest thing possible. I can do this today. And then, I can come back here and begin again, with that piece in place and that anxiety gone.
And now, it is done.