Friday, July 15th – 10:22am
I am a runner — a jogger really. A walker-jogger hybrid. Maybe 65% walking, 35% jogging. Unless it’s hot, then that tips in the favor of that hands-over-head walk that gives the illusion of a hard-earned break.
It’s not.
For me, it’s not.
In fact, for me, the more I walk, the more I walk. No, I’m not having a stroke. I’ll repeat myself: The first heel-first step in the midst of my so-called “run” can directly account for the second heel-first step and the third and so on and so on … until I’m home and hit by the air-conditioned glory of a faintly vanilla-smelling house that I don’t pay rent for.
But forget the vanilla smell and the AC, that crap doesn’t matter for the lesson this man-child-turned-writer still living with his parents (Hey, isn’t that an oxymoron?) is about to enlighten you with. Yes, I, Sean Patrick Greene, hold the glorious manifestation of that fabled, smoke-up-the-a** lesson of life called “momentum.”
Momentum (mo-men-TUM for the syllabically-challenged) is that special word in the jargon of every speaker on a TEDx stage and then some. But what does it mean? I mean, really, what does it mean? Not “push your glasses up with a finger and read from the Oxford dictionary” meaning, but the visceral, physical, usable meaning.
SIDE NOTE: I don’t think we (that’s “me” spelled upside-down in a mirror) push ourselves as hard as previous generations. I’m talking full-blown, Rocky, “Aye, yo, Adrian,” round twelve in the ring level pushing ourselves. This is especially true of the suburban-born, man-children (men-children?) running around their disgustingly suburban neighborhoods in a constant state of ennui:
“The comfort is unbearable,” I cry while I fall into my fainting chair and fan my face as quick as a hummingbird.
But I digress. I reflect. I realize. I realize that there are two kinds of momentum: the good stuff and the bad stuff. The good stuff is the crap people are always yammering on about; you know it. The bad stuff we call “bad habits” and “addiction” … but I think that’s an oversimplification. What do we call the momentum of malaise, of boredom, of okay-ness? all of which you’d really be amiss to call “bad” as you would a physiological, health-destroying addiction.
- It is not negative or positive; it is zero.
- It is comfort — unearned, yet undesirable.
- It is to be stuck between a rock and a hard place: If the rock was a couch and the hard place was that heavy thing called “gravity.”
And excuse my non-political-correctness but don’t label this shit with something from the DSM-5 and write up an SSRI script. It’s not that serious … yet all the more sinister.
So how do we remedy the ennui of the suburbs?
I think, as simple and redonkulously stupid an answer this may be, the solution is to keep pace — at all times.
ANOTHER SIDE NOTE: Every morning I wake up (yes, really, I wake up just like you). I sit up in bed and look at my phone; refresh my email, look at my sleep score, etc., etc.* I piss, brew some coffee, then sit in a chair to meditate for the shortest amount it’ll let me on the phone app. I check my phone some more after that.* I put earbuds in and listen to the sweet sounds of very explicit rap music, then … the world is my oyster I suppose.
Oh, the phone!
The comfort rectangle for all ages! You adult pacifier, you!
You mindless little screen full of infinite possibilities!
I hate my phone. It is the momentum-killer of this era; of which I see no equivalent in history. The phone — not only social media but definitely including social media — has become our excuse to walk instead of run, metaphorically speaking.
But I’m mixing metaphors with side notes here, so let me get CRYSTAL CLEAR on my point:
On runs, everyone moves out of the gate at a solid pace. Eventually, though, our feet hurt, our lungs are crying out for more oxygen, and we want to walk. The paradox is that the first heel-first step makes all the jogging stuff seem awful in comparison: To walk for a step makes walking for another step all the easier.
The equivalent mindset takes hold in the domain of getting stuff done: Difficult but rewarding stuff. We begin at our keyboard, with the steam still pipping from our coffee, and the words flow on the page like water through a stream. Then a ding — someone texts you. Or the music you turned on has gone stale and now you’re poking around in Spotify; or the “research” you’re totally doing has got you watching “educational videos” on YouTube for that “article” you’re definitely writing. At some point, though, you realize, you’ve let up — you’ve lost pace.
Usually, it’s impossible to tell until you go back to the page from before. It’s different now: Archiache, disconnected — like a relic of a “you” which might have once existed …
Two cases of lost momentum. And as much as I’d like to use the internet and the iPhone as a scapegoat, the fact is that momentum is lost when you (or me) stop pushing. I think our phones can only be blamed as fuel to the fire for an already existing desire to give up when we feel a bit of pain. WE DESIRE THE DISTRACTION. That’s how momentum is lost, when we decide the pain of pushing through (i.e., pleasurable in the long-term) is worse than giving up (i.e., painful in the long-term; pleasurable in the short-term).
The desire to distract ourselves when we do creative work is the equivalent of the pain felt on a tough run: It’s unavoidable. … BUT giving in or giving up is not inevitable.
Momentum begins anew every morning. Do not feed it bullsh*t for breakfast. Do not give yourself a taste of distraction before you’ve begun the day. (Even the weather app can be a distraction if you’re honest with yourself). Consider that every “give in” to whatever unimportant thing just chimed on your phone is the equivalent of one more heel-first step on a run: It makes it that much more likely that you’ll give in again, and again, and again.
No, you won’t sweat and be gasping for breath by the end of a writing session (God, I hope not). The pain is different; it’s subtle. It is the shame and doubt of creative impotence. A shame that makes us idealize our old work, and revel in the popular stuff on NameWhateverSocialMediaYouWant.com.
Forget all that crap. Sit with the impotence. It’s only in distracting ourselves to the end of the day that we never see the thing to the end. Momentum returns to those who are patient and willing to suffer (in the self-doubting, shooting blanks sense of the word).
Ride it out, my friend. Keep pace.
P.S. For those looking for an actionable takeaway, try this: Next time you go running on something other than a treadmill, maintain a jogging pace or faster. Don’t let yourself walk or stop AT ALL. Even if you look like an idiot running in place while you wait for cars to drive by. It’s an extremely effective mental exercise for pushing through minor discomfort.
P.S.S. I just released a short film that took quite a bit of time and may have inspired this post. If you’re curious, you can watch Bugging Me on YouTube.
*As a person who hardly uses social media, I can tell you that we’re being too limited in what we qualify as distracting and addictive on the phone.