0179 - Inertia - 2021.03.08

Comic!

Comment:

A lot of my life is spent managing my own energy.

I have inertia, I have motivation, I have willpower, and these things all wax and wane in accordance with food and sleep, good news and bad news, interaction and isolation, success and frustration. It goes without saying - I'm sure your experience has been similar - that the pandemic and all its associated inconveniences have really impacted all of the above. As someone whose self-identity and self-worth is strongly tied to my creative output, spending low-energy days not accomplishing anything... or worse, spending high-energy days not able to accomplish anything... has been rough on my image of who and what I am. As someone whose ability to pay rent is tied to my creative output, it's been rough on my stress levels, too.

Caleb, Zoa, and Lee, here, are the three voices in my head as I sit in bed and berate myself for sitting in bed. I lecture myself, I cajole myself, I distract myself, maybe I get up and complete a task, maybe I don't. And I'm one of the fortunate ones - I can't imagine how I'd cope with the increased demands of a disability or a dependent child or a shitty job I couldn't quit.

We only get so many hours in a day. We only get so many spoons. We all go to bed - and, eventually, the grave - with loose ends left untied.

Transcript:

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0179 - 2167/07/06/16:27 - sidewalk.
CP: Lee?
LC: Yeah?
CP: You're not done.
LC: Pardon?
CP: You're not done.
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CP: Human beings have... energy, Lee. Inertia. When you're d-doing a thing, you have the energy you need to do the thing. If you st-stop, you might not have the energy to st-start again.
CP: If you're told you have to run a hundred meters, you... you sprint. If you're told you have to run a marathon, you... you don't. If you think you have to go a hundred meters b-but it's actually a marathon, y-you'd sprint and st-stop, and if you tried to run the rest of the marathon, you... you couldn't.
CP: So you're not done. Not t-t-til you get b-back upstairs.
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Zoa: Caleb's right. Starting and stopping is less efficient, that's why traffic algorithms prioritize against it. You need to think of this entire outing as a single task, not discreet tasks with breaks in between. Energy up!
LC: I mean, it's not an outing, Zoa. It's not like this was an errand I had planned on doing.
Zoa: All the more reason not to break up the tasks! You didn't have a list made up! It's all just one thing until it's not any more!
LC: Oh, hey, that reminds me, where are we at on that list of ten things I need to do? Order a mole skin, order a sandwich, all that. Any closer?
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Zoa: I'd have to get Doc's opinion, but I'm reasonably certain that having a floating billboard tell you that residential services exist does not constitute "looking into a new living space".
LC: There's another apartment building across the street. That looks pretty good.
Zoa: That doesn't constitute it either!
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