“But the driven person is never at peace with the soul, for the productivity is a defense against the angst of powerlessness.” James Hollis.
Do you know when you read a book and find yourself all over it? This is my experience with the The Eden Project by James Hollis. I am there on all the pages. It is like he is reading me and then writing about me. And it is consciousness raising while also being very painful.
I have always been a driven person. And I always assumed that a good thing really. I get shit done. Grass does not grow under my feet. I am out there in the world getting shit DONE! I can accomplish more by 8 am than most people do all day. And to be honest, it isn’t even hard. I mean, well, most days. So very infrequently do I find myself lost in the day. I had one such day yesterday that was wholly unproductive and restless. But that was just one day...in a long line of many.
But Mr. Hollis pegged me when he said I was never at peace with my soul. It is true. I am very often completely lost to the deeper, spiritual connection with myself. Attempting to just drive the shit out of myself and my life all in some sort of misguided effort to relieve myself of how truly powerless I feel.
All this driving and striving and achieving, really is all to make the angst of my own feelings of complete powerlessness go away. All the driven energy and accomplishing of tasks (large and small) is just another way for me to push myself past the ever growing feeling of powerlessness I feel in this world. And the more afraid I am, the more activity you will see. True Story.
But yesterday in the face of my father’s continued up and down decline, I accomplished nothing. Instead I evaded the extreme exhaustion I felt all day by mindlessly starting tasks that I lacked the ability to follow through with...I just spun my wheels in other words. All fucking day. I had no zeal for Sunday chores that I usually enjoy doing. I didn’t enjoy reading in the backyard because my mind kept wandering and going places that were hard and scary. I didn’t go to the gym, for a walk, or anything. I was not still, but I also was not driven. I really spent the whole day in some sort of crazed neutral state that was neither productive or not.
It wasn’t until I read James Hollis book, “The Eden Project” that I came to understand in a new way and on a new level that if you scare me badly enough, I can move a fucking mountain. My defense to the abject fear of life is managed, pretty well actually, by my hard driving nature to check off boxes and accomplish tasks.
But what I realized yesterday is the tasks I take on and endeavor to mark them off are really not my tasks. They are the daily living tasks required of all of us: grocery shopping, laundry, meal preparation, personal hygiene, pet care, child care. And then I do the work tasks. Get shit handled and under some sense of control. But the tasks that come dead last for me are the tasks that are most important...the actual living tasks: meditate and prayer, exercise, being in nature, mindful, soulful connection. These are the tasks that come in last for me. When I really do believe they should come first.
And this is why I know that I drive to avoid. I drive to stave off the feeling of helplessness. I push harder and do more all in some sort of effort to relieve me from the stress of my own angst ridden psyche that compels me forward and onward...consequences be damned.
So now I must look at what is driving me and how. And I don’t want to. I just want to keep achieving and moving forward. I don’t want to look at any of it really. I am tired. I would like to go to sleep and rest for like a week. But that is not something that life avails me the opportunity for today. Too much to handle and deal with...and even if I could put all that shit aside, I don’t know that I could do it. Even my down time is filled with activity and striving. It is just how I do life.
I find motivation in everything I do. And I am always looking for more shit to add to my plate. Because that is how one maintains the driven person defense...always.
But as I age and life is unfolding in the manner it is currently, I do see the need to find and care for my soul a bit more. To find some peace for this restless and somewhat tortured soul I harbor. I can see that all my doing and driving and accomplishing is all in some sort of mad effort to avoid my own soul and its unfolding.
Again...still.
I am not sure what giving up the driven person defense looks like...but I know that there are times lately where my rush and fervor to do and drive is pushed aside and I am just there. Walking the beach. Laying in the sun. Writing with no particular end goal in mind. And those are good moments for me, full of contrary action and if I let it, peace.
It is hard to keep up with me sometimes, even for me. And while I know there is another manner of living available to me, I am not sure how much I can avail myself of it, and how much I will allow myself to. This hard driving, forceful way of living is all I know. And the ways of the soul feel out of reach and inaccessible to me a great deal of the time...
I do feel the desire to become lost in soulful pleasures...but that seems like an activity to be done only after all the tasks are done. But I know, I really do, that the tasks are never done and always reappearing. And that the attendance to one’s soul is something that will always be sidelined and waylaid until and unless the soulful pursuits are placed in the front and center of your life.
Again...still.
Namaste.
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