“Want a bit of unsolicited advice?” my cousin said to me. “Take a nap. If you push yourself and don’t sleep your work won’t be very good. You look tired. You have bags under your eyes.”
Relaxing is a skill. The other day I was at a coffee shop doing work and stressing out. After a few hours of this, I zoned out. I looked at the house across the street as the sun was setting. The textures and colors were so pretty. Time didn’t exist.
Zoning out rocks. When the world is a slow moving soup, ideas can solidify and float slowly past each other. Since they are moving slow, they can click together and make big idea islands. That’s how PCR was invented: on a zoned out car ride in California.
Zoning out is when you really appreciate the incoming sensory streams. Yesterday, I took a walk and looked up and zoned out. Flies were swarming like schools of fish, bats flew overhead eating them, all with the backdrop of cotton candy-pink clouds. On a daily basis, I miss so much of the world that’s right in front of my eyes.
It’s these pesky adrenal glands. They are the Piglet of the endocrine glands, always stressing out. I’m going to get a surgeon to install tiny inflatable pillows behind my adrenals. When I want to relax, I’ll just push a button and inflate these pillows. My adrenals will then be able to get comfortable, switch off the lights, and take a nap.
When people as me how I lived so long, I tell them that when I was told to stand, I sat. And when I was told to sit, I lied down. – Winston Churchill (I think!)
danscreativeoulet 