An Escapologist’s Diary: Part 81. Crash.

As you know, dear diary, I am on sabbatical. I’m taking it easy for six months as a restorative measure following a busy 2024. How, you might ask, is it going?

January was strange. There was at least a week in there, somewhere, where I dubtifully did nothing.

And yet I was perpetually doing something. While I stuck to my guns of not starting anything new, not getting caught up in the harebrain schemes of others, I still had to tend to my estate. By which I mean I still had to (and wanted to) ship books to readers, keep things tidy and make the bed, make the odd blog post (it’s a reflex), be available to certain people, honour promises, etc. etc.

I wonder if this is the worst of both worlds: being busy with ‘duties’ without working on a Great Project. Normally, these errands would happen in the margins of, say, writing a book, but they’ve conspired somehow to almost completely fill the place left by a Great Project to become the main thing. That’s no good at all.

Two weeks into February and I’ve experienced a sort of crash. My eczema has been bad, which I believe is psychological or stress-related. And sometimes, full-body eczema leads to a crash. In these moments, I physically can’t take it any more. It’s not the itch itself, nor the soreness that comes from scratching, but a full mind-and-body exhaution arising from the constant application of willpower when trying not to scratch combined with feelings of guilt and failure that come from inevitable scratching. Plus there’s the accumulation of: fears of infection, the sheer amount time taken to apply creams multiple times a day, the frustration of not being able to get an appointment with a doctor, mystification as to why nothing really works to resolve any of this. Twice already in February have I retired to bed for a day, sleeping for much of it, because of this utter knackeredness.

I spent this past Saturday in bed because of it. Today, three days later, I feel a “general malaise” like something Flaubert or Proust might write about. I’m not exhausted like when I retire to bed. I’m not depressed, the weather inside my head being relatively clement. But I can’t do anything. I feel distracted, unable to concentrate. From here on the couch, I don’t want to move, even just to get more tea or to plug my laptop in.

When I realised I was doing too much in 2024, I joked that I’d lose my reputation as The Waster Humorist or as one of the Idler givers of no hoot. I suppose that’s been corrected now at least, while I do nothing. It’s just so embarassing for this to have come after a crash, presumably from being stressed, presumably from doing too much. It’s a shame to have arrived here not through decadence but through depletion. Bah.

I need a new mindset. I need to escape the inner policeman (is it superego?) that tells me it’s important to Get Things Done. Most of the time, there’s no reason for it. Any one of my projects could be a lesiurely walk through a flower garden. Seldom are my deadlines anything other than self-imposed. Rarely is there a need for me to do anything for anything other than its own sake. So where does the stress come from? What am I afraid of? If go on a trip to Paris — as I did in January — it’s because I want to see the catacombes, not because anything will be lost if I fail to see the catacombes. If I write a novel, it’s because I want to write a novel, not because anything will come crashing down on my head if I don’t, say, do my thousand daily words. Why do I fret? I need to jettison or otherwise escape that attitude somehow.

I have tried to relax. According to my records, I’ve read over ten books in six weeks. That’s a lot of sitting on my arse. I didn’t “achieve” this “feat” by trying to achieve it. My reading is not affected by the inner policeman. At least, I don’t think it is. Bewildered by those “how to read more” videos on BookTube, I just read when I want to read. So I need to apply whatever lack of hoot-giving I feel towards the number of books I read to other areas of life.

No, the reason I checked how many books I’ve read since the start of the sabbatical was to gauge how much sitting around I’ve been doing. So there’s at least been some of that! I’ve also been trying to meditate, which is not a practice I’m naturally drawn to. I think main the barrier, as with sport and exercise, is an aesthethic one. So I’ve tried to put my snobbishness, if that’s what it is, aside by reading clever friend David’s posts on the subject and just doing what I can, without being hard on myself when it doesn’t work. I’ve got to a point now where I can body scan from my scalp to one of my arms without being seduced utterly by other realms of thought.

This diary chronicles what a person does when they don’t have a job. I too often write about the positives, the ups and never the downs. So I thought at last I’d give you a downer of sorts. Being truly idle requires constant vigilance: vigilance against the inner policeman insilled in us by, one assumes, parenting and schooling and the cultures of capitalism and protestantism; vigilance about the drive to strive. I didn’t know I had it so bad, if at all. But there’s still time to escape it. There’s always time.

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