Last night I was half listening to old interviews with Louis C.K (American Comedian) and he made an observation I can relate to. If you get around 7 or 8 hours sleep, your dreams (or nightmares) are dealing with all the events of the day as they should.
When you get in excess of that, Louis proposes that your brain is saying "you're still around? You want to see some interesting shit? Here you go ..."
Well I have now been in the habit of sleeping in excess of 8 hours a night for a couple of weeks now and I LOVE IT. I usually read around four or five books at a time (quite slowly as I do it for pleasure), and in addition to this information or entertainment are the experiences, internet snippets, plans, annoyances and over analysis that floods my brain as soon as I wake up.
Upon waking, my competing thoughts go something like:
According to this book (A Perfect Mess by Eric Abrahamson and David H Freedman) a certain amount of disorder is creative and productive ... and a lot of the Tidyness gurus are selling us the idea of being a better person though order or neatness. What about Marie Kondo and her way of being tidy as a pathway to joy? Didn't she have OCD so intensely that she once fainted with anxiety over mess? This is what led to writing and selling her little book to all of us messy bastards.
Also, when it comes to mess, I keep thinking of what that guy said on facebook. He's written this intellectualised commentary on the nature of Poetry Slams and how we end up with this highly confessional and emotional style of performing that provides a platform for those coming from less privileged back grounds. His argument is that the poetry itself is often not that good. He may well be right, and this morning, sitting in bed with Toscat on my lap and coffee in hand, I thought 'he should start a poetry group for promising youth'. I started writing a note in my head to him about how he could be a mentor in terms of poetry structure or just awareness of how the perspective of victim in poetry has a very limited scope and that we don't always have to spell every thing out to get the message across.
I consider the confessional nature of much of my own poetry and how healing that had been for me. No one ever took me aside and said 'look, sorry darling, but everyone has heard this all before'. I was lucky enough to go along to Poetry Performance evenings when they were rowdy and inappropriate; if my poetry was shit no one listened to it. People would heckle or talk over you - I found it scary and also liberating. Now people go along to a poetry evening and everyone is quiet, even for the worst poetry. When I say 'worst', I personally find excessive self pity in a poem unbearable.
I remember there was a woman who had written a poem about a man who had treated her badly and it went something like 'you are the devil, you have dragged me to hell and stabbed me a thousand times'. It went on and on and on. I was in a silly mood and couldn't stop laughing, though I did my best to cover my face and it might have looked like I was crying. It isn't that I don't empathise - but taking that perspective and not even acknowledging that her interpretation further strengthens her identity as a victim is frustrating. It's also about as subtle as dragging someone to hell and stabbing them a thousand times.
Then I look at the big pile of mess on the window seat and wonde what it looks like to another person. I also remember that I said I was going to walk on grass and get earthed every day and report back. I have done so and it's good, a nice little habit. Go for it. I've also been making smoothies and getting all the nutrients that have been eluding me. Placed a bid on a juicer too, may as well get into this health thing. People will always be selling amazing juicers on Trademe (NZ version of Ebay) as people get excited about these things for a few weeks and then forget about it. Looks like I might get a $200 juicer for $5. Even if I only used it four times it would be worth it.
I think about sex and wonder who I will do it with next and if I will have to wait weeks, days or months. Of course I want it to be the man of my dreams, only what if my dreams have been overly conditioned by society, like this implanted desire to be tidy? What if I admitted that a certain level of mess is just fine by me? As the authors say in 'A Perfect Mess' - the world is not tidy. What if, as Marisa Peer is always saying, I am enough?
I consider my neighbour who gets beaten by her partner. She has the most amazing scream I've ever heard. She is 25 years old and has four children. I've talked to her about it. She doesn't know how to leave. Maybe I should encourage her to write a poem about it.
I could go on. You get it. Must be time to go and stand on the grass. Happy earthing to you.
When you get in excess of that, Louis proposes that your brain is saying "you're still around? You want to see some interesting shit? Here you go ..."
Well I have now been in the habit of sleeping in excess of 8 hours a night for a couple of weeks now and I LOVE IT. I usually read around four or five books at a time (quite slowly as I do it for pleasure), and in addition to this information or entertainment are the experiences, internet snippets, plans, annoyances and over analysis that floods my brain as soon as I wake up.
 |
| embracing the possumibilites |
According to this book (A Perfect Mess by Eric Abrahamson and David H Freedman) a certain amount of disorder is creative and productive ... and a lot of the Tidyness gurus are selling us the idea of being a better person though order or neatness. What about Marie Kondo and her way of being tidy as a pathway to joy? Didn't she have OCD so intensely that she once fainted with anxiety over mess? This is what led to writing and selling her little book to all of us messy bastards.
Also, when it comes to mess, I keep thinking of what that guy said on facebook. He's written this intellectualised commentary on the nature of Poetry Slams and how we end up with this highly confessional and emotional style of performing that provides a platform for those coming from less privileged back grounds. His argument is that the poetry itself is often not that good. He may well be right, and this morning, sitting in bed with Toscat on my lap and coffee in hand, I thought 'he should start a poetry group for promising youth'. I started writing a note in my head to him about how he could be a mentor in terms of poetry structure or just awareness of how the perspective of victim in poetry has a very limited scope and that we don't always have to spell every thing out to get the message across.
I consider the confessional nature of much of my own poetry and how healing that had been for me. No one ever took me aside and said 'look, sorry darling, but everyone has heard this all before'. I was lucky enough to go along to Poetry Performance evenings when they were rowdy and inappropriate; if my poetry was shit no one listened to it. People would heckle or talk over you - I found it scary and also liberating. Now people go along to a poetry evening and everyone is quiet, even for the worst poetry. When I say 'worst', I personally find excessive self pity in a poem unbearable.
I remember there was a woman who had written a poem about a man who had treated her badly and it went something like 'you are the devil, you have dragged me to hell and stabbed me a thousand times'. It went on and on and on. I was in a silly mood and couldn't stop laughing, though I did my best to cover my face and it might have looked like I was crying. It isn't that I don't empathise - but taking that perspective and not even acknowledging that her interpretation further strengthens her identity as a victim is frustrating. It's also about as subtle as dragging someone to hell and stabbing them a thousand times.
Then I look at the big pile of mess on the window seat and wonde what it looks like to another person. I also remember that I said I was going to walk on grass and get earthed every day and report back. I have done so and it's good, a nice little habit. Go for it. I've also been making smoothies and getting all the nutrients that have been eluding me. Placed a bid on a juicer too, may as well get into this health thing. People will always be selling amazing juicers on Trademe (NZ version of Ebay) as people get excited about these things for a few weeks and then forget about it. Looks like I might get a $200 juicer for $5. Even if I only used it four times it would be worth it.
I think about sex and wonder who I will do it with next and if I will have to wait weeks, days or months. Of course I want it to be the man of my dreams, only what if my dreams have been overly conditioned by society, like this implanted desire to be tidy? What if I admitted that a certain level of mess is just fine by me? As the authors say in 'A Perfect Mess' - the world is not tidy. What if, as Marisa Peer is always saying, I am enough?
I consider my neighbour who gets beaten by her partner. She has the most amazing scream I've ever heard. She is 25 years old and has four children. I've talked to her about it. She doesn't know how to leave. Maybe I should encourage her to write a poem about it.
I could go on. You get it. Must be time to go and stand on the grass. Happy earthing to you.
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