Nothing Left Undone

I consider myself a lazy person. I don’t have a job anymore, and I don’t socialize much voluntarily*. Even when I had a job, I became efficient at it, delegated the things I didn’t like and spent most of my time doing as I pleased.

*Through Heather, I am almost surely in the top quartile worldwide of socializing though.

I don’t worry about money. It’s not because we are so wealthy, but because I don’t spend much, living in Portugal, fasting once a week, not dining out at fancy restaurants, being frugal in day to day expenses, living below our means.

I run at the outdoor track, and I’ve recently been doing pull-ups at the public jungle gym in the park. I walk and take the subway. I buy clothing that’s on sale. I have free time. I have stress about various things in my life and the world, but mostly I have time on my hands, and I don’t do much with it.

I write essays, and I podcast. I post thoughts — mostly vitriol toward authoritarians on Twitter and odd musings on Nostr. I have a sports web site and do a sports podcast. I do Sudoku puzzles, watch my daughter’s basketball games and play and write about fantasy sports.

I wake up early only because I am incapable of falling back asleep. I drink coffee, and I intermittently fast. I walk Oscar. I lean in close to him and explain how though we’re of different species, we’re good friends and how maybe I’ll be his dog in a future incarnation. He usually licks my head.

. . .

Often I get out of bed with barely enough motivation to change into my running shorts and put on my shoes. But I find myself walking down the steps from my third floor apartment, then waiting for the subway, and pretty soon I’m at the track, activating the timer on my watch.

I can’t do it. I won’t do it. I am unable to do it. It’s not possible. Of course, it’s not possible as the one contemplating the task is paralyzed, stuck in a dead inertial concept-space, incapable of acting in the real world.

But the watch beeps, and body does it anyway. It could probably do 10 more miles, or run the intervals much faster if I dared ask it. The body thrives on hormotic stress, requires it in fact to maintain its health.

“How much do I have left?” the ego wants to know. “One mile, half a mile, a quarter mile?” It clamors to figure out how much longer before the discomfort subsides, so it can get back to the business administrating the internal narrative, the fears, the plans, the hopes, the identity.

Lately, I’ve listened to its complaints in a different light. I hear them, but because I realize the administrative state, so to speak, has no capability, nothing substantive to offer, I don’t heed them as often. “You can’t bear to go for a run in the chilly rain this morning? Well, of course, you can’t. You can’t do anything, but the body-mind surely can.”

And it’s in this way that despite being so lazy, so incapable, so avoidant, that I somehow write essays, record podcasts, go to Sasha’s games, hit the track, run errands, buy groceries, cook, travel and learn.

Nothing is done, nothing left undone.