đź“… Don't just do something, stand there!
Tuesday, March 23, 2021
Adventures in becoming a non-anxious presence.
Welcome to the fourth day of spring, and the third quarterly issue of This Mortal Portal.
It's best read out of doors.
-V
Don't Just Do Something, Stand There!
Adventures in becoming a non-anxious presence
“Dad.”
My 3 year old was annoyed, and I was not responding.
“Daddy!”
My thumbs typed faster as I tried to finish the email. Just one more sentence.
“Daaaaaaad!”
Too late. Her tiny fist swung toward me in a desperate bid for my attention. And she was just the perfect height for her punch to crash into… my crotch.
Oof. It's come to this.
I'm perennially curious about human motivations, choices, compulsions, desires. Why do we want what we want, and do what we do? How do we change?
These matters weave through my work as a recovery chaplain and a web designer. And they touch the deepest parts of my identity as a father, husband, friend, disciple. One vein that I’ve mined for years is the technological strata of our lives - the tools we use and how they shape us. And I've experimented with all manner of apps, hacks and unusual settings to weaken my devices’ distractive power.
But the pings and buzzes are the easy part.
I'm only beginning to focus on the internal triggers that drive me to distraction. The noise inside my head, it seems, is even louder than the noise outside.
My wife used to tease me that I have a to-do list in my heart. I’ve realized that I tend to live like a perpetual motion machine. And while I've been practicing solitude and silence for two years, I struggle to slow my mind and just be.
So last month, I took a radical step: I abandoned to-do lists entirely.
Maybe this wouldn't be a big deal for you, but I'm one of those people who has used task management apps for over a decade and always carries a little notebook in his pocket. Todoist, my task app of choice, sends each user a personal productivity report at the end of each year, and I've consistently ranked in the top 1% of Todoist users across their various productivity metrics.
I used to view these reports with a quiet, German-Mennonite version of smug self-satisfaction. But now I was realizing the unwanted impacts of my work habits. What do you call a habitual behavior that persists despite negative consequences? Apparently, I had become a task addict. And there's a less-cutesy term for that: workaholic. I could stop getting things done, sure. I’d just be thinking about work constantly until I got back to it.
So here's what I did a month ago: I worked through my entire task list, hundreds of items deep. And section by section, task by task, I deleted them or moved them onto a specific time on my calendar. Recurring tasks became recurring calendar events. Then, for the first time in over a decade, I deleted my task app from my devices.
Already I'm feeling a bit calmer, and I think I know why. Every time I looked at my to-do list (which was probably a few dozen times a day), I’d be reminded of all the things that “needed doing.” My brain is terrible at prioritizing, so distraction came easily.
Moving everything to my calendar forced me to face my normal human limitations from yet another angle: time. Like you, I'm given 168 hours a week. A third of that sleeping, maybe, but probably closer to a fourth. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble. So shifting my focus from a task list to a calendar pulls me back from the Everything Everywhere Future to the This Here Now. Right now, there's only one thing I need to do, and one place I need to be.
What's the point of all this? Nir Eyal says the opposite of distraction is traction. It’s spinning your wheels versus gripping the dirt to propel in your desired direction. So where do I want to go? Who do I want to become?
My desired direction could be summed up in a phrase: non-anxious presence. It’s crystallized from several sources: CS Lewis and Tim Keller on humility, Dallas Willard and John Mark Comer on hurry, Edwin Friedman on leadership, the sayings and personality of Jesus. My spiritual director, Scott, and one other friend, Josh, are particularly practiced at this. I'm drawn to it when I encounter it in others and long for more of it in myself.
There are encouragements along the way. This weekend, our family went for an after-dinner walk around our neighborhood. Our youngest (she of the crotch-punch) was losing steam, so I took her hand in mine.
Unhurried, we dropped further and further behind my wife and our older daughters. For a time we trudged quietly in the waning light.
Then she broke the silence: “I love you Daddy. Just the way you are.”
I scooped her up into a bear hug, three thoughts hitting me at once:
I haven't thought about 'being productive' since before dinner.
This is a whole lot better than getting punched in the nuts.
Winter 2020/21 in a GIF
Vic’s Picks
Here’s a cross-section of what I’ve been lovin' this winter:
Food
All the smoked meats
My wife, brothers, and parents ganged up on me this Christmas and got me a pellet smoker. Let's just say my triglyceride levels are a little elevated.
Music
Art Tatum - a masterful jazz pianist who died too soon. Watch him make it look easy.
Langhorne Slim - Written straight outta rehab, his Strawberry Mansion record is raw and lovely. Morning Prayer (video) keeps getting stuck in my head.
Video
How landlords fix relationships (0:11) (Good for a quick chortle. Eleven seconds, not eleven minutes.)
Article
Growing My Faith in the Face of Death - My old pastor Tim Keller is fighting pancreatic cancer. He just wrote about it for The Atlantic.
From Peanuts by Chas. Schultz
For The Record
What I made or helped make this winter
Video: Thanks, Pinhead
My colleague at HUM, Mike Rallo, has a peculiar way of teaching with movies. It's inspiring, and it drives people nuts. I found a voice impersonator who can do voices from many of the movies Mike uses - Red from Shawshank, Mufasa from The Lion King, Gandalf from LOTR, etc. Then I wrote a tongue-in-cheek tribute to Mike, hired the voice actor to perform it, and used footage from the movies to create a teasing send-up of my boss. (Pinhead is his epithet of choice.)
Short Film: The Birds of My Youth
For 2 years now, I've been chipping away on a short doc about love, music and dementia.
My friend Rodger worked for years as a hospice chaplain, and he and I teamed up to tell the beautiful true story of Helen and Roscoe, an Alzheimer’s patient and her surviving spouse.  Rodger helped Roscoe keep his lifelong promise to his late wife: a legacy of their love through music.
We finished it this winter, but now Rodger's running it around the festival circuit, so all that's showing right now is the trailer.
Climbing Wall
The latest addition to our treehaus.
Thanks for reading! I’d love to hear what you thought of Issue #3.
Tempus fugit,
Vic
P.S. The cicadas are coming.
