Pursuing the Art of Nothing

Life… happens. Just one Thing that has to be Done, like a bill to pay, or something needs cleaning, or fixing, or mending… And then suddenly there’s another Thing.

“But I’m not even finished the first Thing,” I complain.

“Yes, but now you have me as well,” says the other Thing, at trifle smugly and entirely unsympathetic.

Sigh. Oh well, I’ll just get this other Thing Done and, hopefully, the first Thing can wait. Only, in order to do the other Thing, I need to Go to a Place. Generally that is an inconvenient Place involving driving or some such, and Going to a Place takes time, time that is not spent doing any Thing. Still, I do eventually, once I’ve Gone to a Place and done something – though not a Thing of course – once I’ve done all that, I do get a Thing Done.

Phew, success! Thing Done! I am triumphant. Except… the first Thing is still not Done. And first Thing has pupped. There are now more of these Things that all must be Done. By me.

And all this time the Thing I really want to do, is write, and post it on Vocal, and read other people’s postings on Vocal too. But instead, I’m Doing other Things, in an ever turning manic circle.

All the Things I scurry about Doing (Instead of writing as I should be) all the feverish scuttling and scrabbling, they’re all the Things of the purportedly Adult World. This is a made-up world, the Adult World, almost entirely a figment of our imagination, a collective hallucination that demands we act a certain way, achieve certain goals and, above all, Do Things. It is a world where everyone always seems to be doing something, yet perversely no Thing ever seems Done; at least, not wholly and in perpetuity. No, the Things that are Done, they keep popping up again with monotonous yet alarming regularity, demanding that we Do the Thing again! Why?! Why can’t the kitchen just stay clean? I mean, at least for a week. Actually, I’d take a day.

But no, it seems that hourly the epic saga of “Michael Cleans the Kitchen” must be re-enacted, often with more and greater expanse of unwelcome props, sometimes with less, but usually with more. Sometimes with a vast array of plates and baking dishes with burnt on quiche or pasta-bake, the latter needing to be soaked before being chiselled off with a butter knife. I don’t even like pasta-bake.

So with each subsequent and recurrent Thing that must be Done to satiate the mythical Adult World, so my attempts at writing are delayed. I put off to another day taking up that tasty challenge, or reading that exemplary winning entry, or enjoying the efforts of those amazing honoured mentions. Instead, I must settle for penning a brief haiku, or a sonnet, or perhaps a limerick; poorly constructed, ill-conceived, and struggling to match rhyme or meter. An altogether inadequate verse, briefly enjoyable, but ultimately unsatisfying; like a back seat quickie in a shopping car park.

Perhaps then… perhaps the Adult World needs to be ignored a trifle more. Not entirely of course, things like working and getting paid are quite important. How else does one afford to buy books to stack in piles next to the bed and not read? But perhaps it can be ignored a bit. Perhaps the kitchen can be messy for another hour, maybe the washing can wait to be folded, or the lawn wait for mowing, or the book pile next to the bed can stay there a little longer. (Who am I kidding? Of course the book pile’s gonna stay there.)

And that is how I will engage with Vocal this year, that is my resolution for 2024. I resolve to be less enamoured of the Adult World, I will strive less to act in the prescribed “adult manner”. In short, I’ll be less adulterous… I mean, less adulty. I don’t resolve to do more, quite the opposite. There will be no vows to write a certain amount each day or complete a certain number of challenges. These are the goal-setting mentality of the Adult World, the so-called SMART goals; an acronym to help remember the proper, adulty way to goal-set. (It stands for specific, measurable… um, something, something, something.)

I shall become as a child again, lounge back and just enjoy where the writing takes me. After all, I didn’t start writing because I’m a serious and intentioned author – and I wish all the best to those who seek that, may the words flow easy and your pen be light – but for me, I do this because it’s fun. And so my resolution is this: I will enjoy myself. Not in some hedonistic and shallow sense of merely, “that’s nice”, but rather the manner of enjoyment that comes from throwing myself into a good writing challenge and giving it a really good crack and, incidentally, ignoring the kitchen.

If it doesn’t work out, if I don’t finish the piece or it stutters and splutters and won’t fire, like a 30-year old lawn mower that’s done double duty as a boat anchor, then fine. It doesn't have to be good, it doesn’t even have to be done. It just has to be tried. And the thing, I think, is this. As the writing returns to its first intention, to bring joy, to bring fulfilment, so it will naturally come more easily.

But most of all, I will stop scheduling my writing around the mundane and uninspiring demands of the Adult World. Write first and tidy later. Draft the next chapter of the book, compose that poem or song lyric or fiction story. Ignore the sniping demands of the unmade bed, the messy yard and the unread emails clogging up the inbox. And as for the washing; it can go hang. Writing is far too important to leave to the spare, bent moments when I’m at the edge of exhaustion.

These are the things I will be remembered for, if I am at all, not how many hours I put in at the office, not how tidy my house was, or how well-presented I was for a job interview that I didn’t get. No, the ways we reach out and connect with each other, these are our meagre legacy, and I’d like mine to shine, just a little; a gleam in the dark, a faint glitter in the dim immensity of history.

And I’ll never do that if I’m busy Doing all the hallucinatory Things demanded by the Adult World.