It’s another rainy late fall day in Olympia, and I’m feeling a bit restless. This fall has brought a spectacularly busy array of projects into my life, and I’m really enjoying myself. Hannah and I have had some quality times, my house is in good order, and I’ve spent time outdoors. My brain has even been freed up to deal with some projects that have fallen to the wayside, like my unpublished books (4!) and business accounting and friendships and whatnot. All in all, its been a good season.
Somewhere inside this living has been the constant drumbeat of my culture, a little whittling voice that says, “Things can be better,” “You can do more,” and “Change, change, change.” However, with my transformation of heart over the last few years, my new slogan has become, “Be still my beating heart.”
I have uncovered for myself the learning that I’m never just a human being; I’m also always becoming. However, its also been shown to me that my job isn’t to worry about the second, only to do the first.
“Knowledge emerges only through invention and re-invention, through the restless, impatient, continuing, hopeful inquiry human beings pursue in the world, with the world, and with each other.”
—Paulo Freire
So, today I’m releasing the drumbeat, letting go of the whittling voice, and relaxing. No matter what they appear as, how I feel, or what I think, things are what they are right here, right now. I don’t have to convince myself that there is no other place I’d rather be, and when I’m ready to go somewhere else I will. But for right now, I get to chill.
Ahhh, restlessness…
Written by Adam Fletcher, this article was originally posted to http://commonaction.blogspot.com. Learn more at adamfletcher.net!
Adam F.C. Fletcher 