"Maybe, just maybe, a total lack of inspiration might prove to be inspiring enough today."

Boredom might be the single unforgivable sin in our chirpy, self-help society. Each of us has been schooled in the doctrine of self-determination, in at least the rudiments of self-promotion, and with plenty of positive self-regard crammed in the few remaining spaces. We are not allowed Blah! days and we are not supposed to talk about them if we experience them, for they admit to the most personal sort of failure, the kind no one can credibly claim that the dog or anybody else committed. These are all on old number one.

They tried to teach me. Perhaps I wasn't listening. Maybe I didn't want to listen. Maybe I wanted to run in the opposite direction of serenity, mindfulness, and even enlightenment. Maybe I'm feral at root, unteachable. Unreachable. Unworthy. The day slid sideways and I felt powerless to shift it back onto course. I woke with a long list of likely activities but managed to avoid engaging in any of them. Maybe the shift in the weather caused the disconnect, with the wind swirling in from the Southeast rather than the usually reliable West. That thunderstorm that passed through might have disrupted the chi.

I recognize that I'm depended upon to maintain some continuity of presence. I should avoid changing temperaments or identities because that sort of shifting confuses the fanbase. It confuses the protagonist, too. How much simpler to maintain a steady sort of outlook, perhaps always slightly amused, and not step down onto darker rungs. Or at least have the generosity to avoid burdening anyone else with the harsher realities behind the generally authentic mask. I could fake it, I suppose. Who would know?

Well, I'd know. When I first started teaching workshops, I tried to maintain a rather etherial air. As the teacher and convener, I thought it beneath a certain standard of decency to delve too awfully personally into what was happening for me. I'd stay focused on what was happening for the other participants so, I told myself, I could attend to them. Of course this perspective violated the Put On Your Own Oxygen Mask First Rule, and served to separate myself slightly up and back from my proper role as full participant. I treated myself as reserve goods, not to be fully engaged except in an extreme emergency, the sort of emergency that would likely never appear. Consequently, I was only partly there. Participants noticed, especially when I'd act as though I didn't notice. I eventually noticed and check in more as the me I knew rather than as the one I hoped everyone else would see.

Authenticity involves the whole spectrum. The glowingly great times and the boringly dismal ones, too. No, I am not a depressive, though I seem capable of playing that role, too, never completely inoculated from experiencing down as well as up sides. I seem not wholly capable of elevating myself some days, and while this admission might get me shown to the door out of The Church of Sacred Self Reliance, I recognize that I do not always belong within its doors, either. Go ahead, exhort me to tug myself back upright by grasping onto my own bootstraps, or any of the hundred other absurdly paradoxical bits of advice we all employ when trying to help. This Blah! day will pass and other brighter days will follow. Today, I can't imagine caring less about anything anymore. I'm bored and feel uninspired. I thought perhaps this journal of daily inspiration might be able to handle some of what it's not. Maybe, just maybe, a total lack of inspiration might prove to be inspiring enough today.

©2018 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #AnotherSpring, #PureSchmaltz