Yesterday was a day off. Days off in the current climate have become 'do nothing ' days. The precarious nature of shop takings is so emotionally challenging, that the only way to make it manageable, is to make time away from it, completely away from it. Yes, there is stuff needs doing in the garden and the house is constantly grubby and in a tip, but to hell with that.
Yesterday was not a beneficial day off though. I hit the bored buffers. Unable to engage with anything to emotionally distract or refresh me. I watched too much junk TV, and in the process became frustrated and angry with myself. Normally I'd have some personal creative project on the go, the last one, the shrine, got abandoned in the early summer and there is not much interest to be summoned up in it now. Writing appears to have become my main creative outlet, I think largely because it doesn't involve the making of objects. So this blog provides a complete break from that norm.
Last night I had a dream, one I remember, which is itself unusual. As is often the case the remembered dream's theme was of 'the fruitless search on a bicycle' variety. I'm on a train and I decide to get off somewhere I appear to be familiar with. It starts off being North London, but it blurs into bits of Diss and Ipswich too. When I get off the train I have a bicycle. As I cycle round the place it becomes increasingly unfamiliar, I don't know where I am. I get off my bike to buy a map. But when I return to my bike the back wheel has been stolen. I bump into a friend from Ipswich who tries to help out. Eventually I even lose track of them and in the process also lose the bicycle altogether.
Underlying themes of going back to find something, loosing momentum and orientation. Are about as far as I'm prepared to go in analysing this dream. There is nonetheless some type of emotional truth being demonstrated here. It is a general human trait, that when things appear to be going badly wrong in the present, we look back to a former time for inspiration or guidance. Having lost motivation, inspiration or joie de vivre, we attempt to reconnect with it through doing what we did the last time this happened. Not necessarily a bad strategy, though it may simply be sentimentality masking another malaise which is really at the root of it. If in doubt call this existential.
A lack of engagement can be met by finding a fresh way to reengage. It maybe just a negative mood, that once passed the problem will evaporate of its own accord. General tiredness through lack of sleep, through overwork, or through doing a task for too long you have no emotional interest or investment in, all can cause a fatigued form of boredom to arise. Left alone, it puts itself to rights in a day or so. If I resist it, or panic, or strive too diligently to find a cure for it, this only aggravates it. Some times the simplest thing works best. For me, it can be just sitting by the sea for a while
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