Category Archives: Paul

If one builds a pillow fort to crawl into, what is one being protected from?

After all, fortresses are built to defend against outside forces and keep things safe inside, right? Leaving aside the structural effectiveness of pillows vs. stone vs. steel, if you’re building a pillow fort and putting something valuable in it (i.e., you, and maybe a special friend who knows the secret password and doesn’t have cooties), what are you defending them from?

When you’re a kid it’s probably your parents, your siblings, and of course, the aforementioned cooties. But what about when you’re an adult and you need a pillow fort? What are you trying to defend yourself from?

The news?

Being an adult?

Your job?

Your bills?

Or, to sum it all up, reality?

Someplace warm and soft with snacks and a good book and no news, no adulting, no job, no bills, no reality – that does sound pretty good.

Many folks despair over being forced to go back to work on Monday morning after a weekend of fun and relaxation. Or, at the very least, a weekend of not being at work.

Once again I’m here to report on my findings:

Working a huge chunk of the weekend on a project due Monday morning and NOT having two days of fun and relaxation does NOT make facing Monday morning any more pleasant. It’s not the transition from the “not at work” state to the “at work” state that’s the jarring and unpleasant part, so trying to eliminate that transition by never not (i.e., “always”) being at work is less than satisfactory.

You have been warned educated.

It’s striking to me how much a relatively small change can have a proportionately much larger effect on our lives.

For example, for the next few days I’m on a somewhat restricted diet. No nuts, no fruits, lots of bland stuff like cottage cheese, applesauce, and so on.

I’m not a “foodie.” I don’t get too worked up about what I eat aside from these days watching my carbs and watching my weight. But eating a healthier diet has never been an issue with me, so I don’t feel deprived.

But when you take away a chunk of those food options, even some of the healthy ones, I find that my daily habits start to bump up against a steady stream of “Wait, can I eat that? No?! Shazzbatt!!” moments.

It’s not the end of the world. I’m not starving. I’m not dying. But I do have to think and be aware of an array of new things that before were just habit, reflex, or background processes.

That’s a pain in the ass!

Somewhere along the line, probably about junior high, we had a math book which had illustrations from Through the Looking Glass at the beginning of every chapter. One that I always remembered was this one:

John Tenniel [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

“Well, in our country,” said Alice, still panting a little, “you’d generally get to somewhere else—if you run very fast for a long time, as we’ve been doing.”

“A slow sort of country!” said the Queen. “Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!”

 Carroll, Lewis: Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There, Chapter 2

A very wise woman at work today told me to have fun this weekend or she would kick my ass on Monday (I’m paraphrasing) and that got me to thinking tonight, with this picture being where I ended up.

Part of the route that got me here was realizing that this was the fifth night in a row where it was suddenly 23:30 or later and I had gotten so wrapped up in work pretty much since the moment I got home from the office (which was way after 20:30 tonight) that I hadn’t relaxed or breathed or done much of anything “fun.” It’s not that I don’t want to have fun, and I most assuredly don’t want to have my ass kicked on Monday (and she can and will do it, trust me!), it’s just that I’ve got so damn much to do!

One route, of course, would be to do less, to take on fewer responsibilities. There’s no law that says that I have to take on a volunteer position that takes up so much of my time and adds so much stress. And “volunteer” implies (correctly) that I can walk away and be a not-volunteer.

But that’s not in my nature. I would like to get out at some point, but I want to do it on my terms and I want to fulfill the responsibilities that I’ve agreed to. I don’t quit – there’s a whole psychological package behind that, but the end result is the same. Walking away is harder on me that sticking with it. At least, we haven’t yet found the point where that balance shifts.

So (and this also relates to that “marathon mentality” that I’ve referred to) the outlook is to suck it up, work harder, sleep less, believe that “the only way out is through,” and when I get caught up (I know, I can hear everyone laughing, but I’m going to finish this thought anyway) then I can slow down.

Which puts me in the Red Queen’s Race. If I want to get anywhere, I have to run twice as fast. Even if I’m already running as fast as I can.

I’ll be there on time Monday morning for my ass kicking.