A couple of weeks off from writing should have built up a plethora of ideas to write about. I struggled to get out of neutral this morning. My morning routine is ironclad with the rare deviation. I like to say that I have to quiet the voices before engaging the world. Too much noise can obfuscate the right thing to listen to. In other words, the world can throw a variety of messages, musings and mail into our consciousness. I rarely have the bandwidth for variety nor am I able to concentrate on multiplicity. A variety of people will claim their ability to “multitask” when they scurry about yet the reality is more inefficiency than completion. Is it preferred to be 75% complete on 75% of all projects or 100% complete on one project?
Age might have something to do with my shifting into a lower gear. The reasons for slow and low might be overwork or exhaustion in my youth but I think there is another reason. I believe that after a series of uprooting life events, I crave the methodical or orthodoxy of planting trees. What I mean is that I see planting trees as a worthy effort made in a shallow world. Everyone desires a harvest with very little thought to the planting. You could also say that I am focused on digging wells instead of gathering ponds. The gathering of ponds is a multitask-quick and ephemeral. Digging a well is subdued and requires a level of patience. My painful admission is that I have not always been patient. I never saw the need to pause when I was younger. But now, I prize quiet and determination without the stimulation of spinning plates an action that can be described as sound and fury signifying nothing. I used to prefer looking busy instead of being productive. I could always shake my head and say, “I am so busy.” Never stopping to ask myself if I’m achieving 100% of anything.
This might be an unintended consequence of getting my teeth kicked in by life – thoroughness. That is the goal now: completing a task, digging a well, and planting a tree.
Albert R. Hartley
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