Journal. Rhythm, interruption, caprice
It’s another gloomy, Black Forest kind of day. Überwald. The rain was lovely last night, but hard to sleep to. A few smaller pine branches overhang the van, and after enough water gathered on their tips, super-sized drops fell on the roof. So there was this nice pitapat, pitapat, and then THUD. THUD THUD at random intervals. “Rhythm of the falling rain” my foot. It had about as much rhythm as a middle school marching band noodling in the practice room. Not easy to tune out. I tried reciting “To a Mouse” to distract myself and ended up in some hazy half-sleep thinking of rhythm and plans and surprises. “The best laid schemes o’ mice and men,” etc.
It really has been a stop-start summer, and that’s a rhythm that will probably continue until at least mid-November. Stop-start is the rhythm, like pitapat THUD pitapat pitapat was the rhythm THUD last night. THUD THUD. Interruption is the name of the game, not groove. I think most people’s lives are like that, though if you’re working, at least the workday/week is sort of an organizing principle that gives a rhythm to your days. Chronic illness is the organizing principle of my life THUD THUD, and it’s not a preTHUDdictable one.
Is that a complaint? I don’t think so. But I think this summer has illustrated how little wiggle room there is in my sense of groove. I do love a good groove. But maybe it’s something to look for at the equanimity level rather than the equilibrium level. You expect interruption, and so it doesn’t interrupt you, because your thoughts are looking for organization at a higher plane.
Yeah, that doesn’t work. It sure didn’t make it easier to sleep last night, and I suspect that the sensory world is a good indicator of how other levels of thought operate at their best, too. The brain is wired to enjoy continuity. (On the other hand, it’s also wired to enjoy novelty.)
Interruption is only a thing, though, if you expect continuity. This has all been making me think of The Path again, this time about Mencius and the idea of a fragmented, even capricious world—of unpredictability as a force to reckon with, as an organizing principle for epistemology. This isn’t a new idea to me, because illness introduced it to me decades ago. I think I saw it as an aberration in an ordered world, though, rather than actually a fairly important truth.
This must be something that’s churning around without resolution so far. I wrote about it in the “Response or Mastery” post and in the journal entry on safety, contingency, and control the other day. In another life, I would like to have been a surfer, because I think that’s the mentality that is relevant here, and even kind of exciting.