monday evening reveries

the steppe is growing and the time is slipping away

by Vincent van Gogh

Dear reader,

It’s 22:13 on a Monday and our little girl is asleep and I have some time to write. The only problem is that I don’t have anything to write about but if I’ve learned anything from the past, is that that’s not a requirement for writing. In fact, by writing, I get more ideas on what to write about.

Maybe I should tell you that the trees and the grass are very green this time of the year around here. The gentle rain drops so usual right now are so irritating to hear because they remind me that the steppe on our piece of land is slowly growing. Thankfully today was a sunny day, but instead of dealing with the steppe, I decided to fill up my walking reserve to last me this week. I decided to visit the city.

It appears that I like traveling by public transport now, although I didn’t like it all these years when I had to travel for school. Now that I just travel to visit a city a little, I’m enjoying it. We have a saying here in Croatia, that goes “that what you must do is not hard” and like with almost all the sayings, the exact opposite is true. And I like the city more now that it’s on a safe distance. I remember reading recently “good fences make good neighbors” which reminds me of this. While I was living in the city and I was in the hustle and bustle, I got annoyed with it. Now when I’m in a quiet town when the only thing I can hear right now are frogs and crickets, I appreciate the hustle and bustle more. The dose makes the poison, as they say.

Looking back after yet another great day I’ve been lucky enough to experience… This will sound like bragging, so I apologize for that, but all I’m trying to do is “write the truest sentence” that I know of. Let me try. I’ve been feeling pretty good lately.

I feel like I’ve finally learned what I should do to be in the right frame of mind. Like I’ve known all of this for a long time and now I’ve finally started taking action in accordance with that knowledge and that feels amazing. It feels fulfilling to finally take myself seriously enough to act on what I believe to be true and to validate my assumptions. To know that the acting me will not sabotage the thinking me if given a chance.

I feel silly for thinking for so long that the self-respect comes from the applause, from the accolades, from the likes when in reality it feels like the essence of it is taking my own thoughts seriously enough to act on them, especially if that means going against the grain and making hard decisions. I’m embarrassed that not much has changed externally for the past two months, yet my self-respect has grown just because I have started behaving differently.

I feel bad knowing that I’ve been kidding myself thinking that habits are not important and post-hoc rationalized my abandonment of some good habits with self-love. Using it as an excuse to oscillate from the drill sergeant mode to the zen master mode¹ all the time. I’ve built elaborate structures of intellectual fallacies to persuade myself that the whole self-improvement movement is beneath me instead of experimenting a little and seeing for myself if some of the practices are useful. I’ve mistaken passivity and complacency for self-love.

And I’m glad I’ve realized this on time, which is slipping away, dear reader, and the night is getting darker. I better stop here before frogs and crickets become silent again.

As always,
Thank you for reading,
Until next time,
SH

1. If you want to read more about this zen master vs drill sergeant mode oscillation, read this excellent post: A different and better way to live.