I woke up this morning and looked at the clock. 6:00 a.m. My brain said "enough sleep," but my body hunkered down a little deeper. I pulled the blanket around my shoulders and imagined staying there all day. I tried to rouse myself with the reminder that I finished my grading yesterday and was free to write today. Who cares, I thought.
I did finally manage to pull back the covers and lift myself out of bed, but the fog of apathy followed me from my bedroom to the office where I checked my email, then to the kitchen where I made myself some tea and oatmeal and then into the dining room where I sat down to write.
Without conviction or hope I opened my notebook. I had previously committed myself to 6 pages every day. Today I was like a writing machine. The words flowed freely. I didn't worry about whether they were "good." I didn't care. I just fulfilled my obligation to put the pen to the paper. I didn't have the will or the energy to struggle.
More often than not I do struggle, in part because I care too much. I get attached to a particular outcome (like the desire to write well, have my writing acknowledged by others, get published, become rich and famous and worshipped by throngs of adoring fans) and it becomes a preoccupation; a distraction; in some cases an obsession. My energy gets focused on the outcome and I fail to do the work that might someday get me there.
Today it occurs to me that apathy is my friend. It frees me from my attachment to the outcome so that I can do the footwork.
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