too much driving.
too much eating out.
too much thinking about things that do no good.
too much talking when it isn't necessary.
too much sitting on the white couch.
too much clutter.
too much rushing.
Surfeit [sur-fit]
n: overabundance; a general disgust with excess or over-indulgence.
In January of this year I wrote feverishly in a portion of my daybook on the concept of excess. Just excess in general, as it appears in so many different forms in my daily life. I’ve been stricken with a conviction about this periodically over the last couple years, and when it hits- maaaaan it hits.
I wrote once that I wanted to ‘wage a personal war on excess,’ within myself, and as a part of the greater society I subscribe to.
As of yet, I’d say I haven’t done a very good job fighting that war.
It’s everywhere. It’s literally everywhere. And one of the most mind-boggling thing I've ever tried to process is this: I take part in these absurdly selfish, excessive, unproductive ways, but am simultaneously disgusted by those cyclical behaviors. In a book on Benedictine hospitality, a monk wrote that immature distractions “just keep us running on the treadmill of our little egocentric worlds.”
Sometimes I find I’ve been sprinting on mine without realizing it.
What’s easy, comfortable, and instantly gratifying dangles in sparkling allure.. Even when headed in the right direction, I am by no means guaranteed a direct trip from point A to B. I get lost, lost. lost. to myself.
It’s the indelicate way I tromp through my day
Spitting out empty words and crumpled up goals.
To make a slightly over-critical analogy, I envision my priorities all written on bingo balls; they live in a gameshow raffle spinner and each morning I wake- reach in and pull out the purpose of the day. It’s a toss-up; to what will I prove my commitments today?
Vanna smiles and says condescendingly, “consistency isn’t the name of her game.”
The
simple and the
necessary hang at the wayside, because I’ve laid a red carpet for the trinkets of distraction.
This may be getting a bit overly-intense..**(see bottom) But regardless, it’s simple truth that I often I fail to do the things that will develop me into the person I want to become.
I sing in chorus with this tongue twisting conviction- “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate to do… For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do…”
And my behavior is as blatantly redundant as the verse is.
This poem by Tagore is unfortunately relevant:
Obstinate are the trammels, but my heart aches when I try to break them. Freedom is all I want, but to hope for it I feel ashamed. I am certain that priceless wealth is in thee, and that thou art my best friend, but I have not the heart to sweep away the tinsel that fills my room.
The shroud that covers me is a shroud of dust and death; I hate it, yet hug it in love.
My debts are large, my failures great, my shame secret and heavy; yet when I come to ask for my good, I quake in fear lest my prayer be granted.
-Rabindranath Tagore, Gitanjali(**This certainly wouldn’t be uncommon of my writing.. I often begin with a level-headed quandary or observation, but see it snowball into some frazzled rhetoric that’s facing an entirely different direction than when I began. I think it’s because I start with an idea, but during the written expression of it I get caught up in the description and syntax and movement of the writing.. I get a bit distracted from fluid thought while riding the wave of descriptions, analogies, rhythm of language..
Ooh I’ve just realized what it is- once I get rolling, the writing pulls my thoughts to and fro, rather than my thoughts dictating what is to be written next.
The act itself of writing becomes the guide, determining the next thought to entertain; whereas typically,
the act of expression is subordinate to the thought which is to be expressed.
Hmm…
Well clearly I’ve again lost cohesion of content. But at least in most cases there does remain a portion of what I've written that reflects what i originally set out to voice..)
