Graceful Non-Linear Burnout

I am le tired

This post is part of my series of Graceful Non-Linear Experiments in life, work, productivity, and so on.

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March 2
Occupational hazard: trying to express paths to the ineffable, using words.

Words words words words words.

Twitter: words.

Substack: words.

Somatic Resonance course: words.

I was probably heading towards a break one way or the other—feeling a raw hunger to touch back in more deeply with the Current-Beneath-Words—but I think doing taxes hastened the process quite a bit.

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March 3

Took a couple days off, just rested and meditated and took long walks listening to vibey music.

Some things are becoming clear that I would rather not be clear.

Largely because I’m already in a 😬 financial situation, and the clarity that’s coming into focus would increase the uncertainty.

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March 4

Yeah, turns out I’m not even sick of words, I was just sick of writing about the things I’ve been writing about.

Having huge outpourings of words and eros and aliveness of expression,,,

Just not about anything that will help me pay rent.

Which is… stressful. And a bummer. But not exactly unexpected.

Still; I’ll need more runway than I thought, and more than I currently really have. If god (or you, dear reader) wanted to drop a grant or a patron or a really great idea on my head, about now would be a great time.

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March 5

I’m definitely feeling very into working on a couple things (two brief manifestos, specifically), and am enjoying tinkering around with the core of each.

One is on a praxis of Future-Bending: pushing against Ghost City futures (where money and power try to push one of their futures into being through sheer force) and towards more graceful, artisanal futures (where interesting, livable futures are woven into being from the bottom up). I don’t have anything close to systematic answers on it, but I do see 3 or 4 overpowered opportunities that get constantly routinely ignored.

The title of the other is still something I’m keeping close to the vest for now, but I will tell you an image that is very close to the core of it: in the spring of 1900, William Butler Yeats kicked Aleister Crowley down a set of stairs. This is often treated as a zany historical episode, but I’m going to treat it how I see it: as a profound act of world-shaping. If our high-minded ideals and mythopoetic aspirations aren’t important enough to make us kick a motherfucker down a flight of stairs when the moment comes, they aren’t worth much.

(This is also gonna be a manifesto against what I’ve come to think of as “The Whiteboard Imaginal”)

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Okay. I’m still tending myself carefully around burnout and boundaries and so on, but I do feel like I’ve at least got a handle on the situation at the moment.

I was pushing too hard on projects I wasn’t feeling, simply because they’re the things most likely to make my life financially viable in the near- (mid-?) term.

If I believe what I’m doing is worth it, I need to actually do it, and not accept half-measures and grasping from myself.

At the same time, I need to recognize my limits—the rent has to come from somewhere. I need to find ways to fill the gaps, even when inspiration is flowing in non-remunerative directions. There’s a balance here that needs to be struck, and I think I need to stop hoping for it to be comfortable for awhile.