Looking up and looking out
It’s taken me a while to get around to writing this because it turns out that settling back in after a month on the road takes, well, a while.
But in that while, I’ve had the benefit of getting a little distance from the walk, and a little distance from the words and images I shared with you here.
In other words, I’ve had the benefit of being able to start to make sense of it all.
But before all that…
I promised you that, when the time came, I’d remind you that you can unsubscribe from this list. This is that moment. Scroll down to the bottom of this email. Hit that button! Get out while you can! RUN!
But if you chose to stick around, then – in full transparency – I’m still working out how I can best honour this connection with you moving forward.
I already have a regular, workish-focussed newsletter and podcast in Looking Out. Go take a look if you like.
You can find me on Tumblr and Mastodon and, vanishingly, Twitter
And I’ve started writing more personal reflections at drewpasmith.com, where I also share my photography.
The posts there are turning out similar to what you’ve been reading here, but are more irregular, a bit more wide-ranging in their subject matter.
My current thinking is that I’ll share those posts to this list, but if you think that’s a bad idea, send me a mail. Let me know. Suggest an alternative.
Or unsubscribe.
Otherwise, dear companions, read on…
The thing about burnout, if you chose to address it properly, is that it reveals itself to be a symptom of a much deeper malaise, a misfitting between what you’ve been doing, and what truly sets your heart alight.
Parker J. Palmer, in the beautiful Let Your Life Speak, says
Though usually regarded as the result of trying to give too much, burnout in my experience results from trying to give what I do not possess-the the ultimate in giving too little! Burnout is a state of emptiness, to be sure, but it does not result from giving all I have: it merely reveals the nothingness from which I was trying to give in the first place.
…
When the gift I give to the other is integral to my own nature, when it comes from a place of organic reality within me, it will renew itself-and me-even as I give it away. Only when I give something that does not grow within me do I deplete myself and harm the other as well, for only harm can come from a gift that is forced, inorganic, unreal.
The scary thing about the early stages of my recovery was that all I could see, once it was revealed to me, was the nothingness from which I was trying to give. There were times when the blackness threatened to swallow me whole because I’d lost all sense of what I deeply cared about and what I was good at. I knew only other peoples’ priorities, and felt only their pressures. And I had no fucking idea what I was going to do next.
I’ve been fortunate – incredibly so – to have burnt out in a country that takes the condition seriously. I’ve had the enormous privilege of time to heal. And, slow by slow, I’ve found the courage to shine a light in to that blackness and see that my scaffold – my container, in Richard Rohr’s terms – is still there. It’s just waiting to be filled.
Writing this newsletter, connecting with the 25 of you that had no idea what you signed up for but who stayed until the end anyway, was the first step in filling me back up.
It didn’t matter that my feet hurt. It didn’t matter if I could barely hold a conversation at a communal dinner table. It didn’t matter, even, that sometimes there was that little voice in the back of my head telling me to give it all up because nobody cares what I think or feel or see. Because all I came to care about was sitting down at the end of the day, reflecting on what I’d experienced, and trying to put it in to words and images. All so that I might make sense of the world around me and my place within it, and so that you might be able to walk alongside me and take from it all what you will
I’m starting to reintegrate in to working life. I’m focusing on the restorative and regenerative relationships that beget good community and good work. And I’m going to fill that yearning frame of mine with the stuff that sets my heart alight and connects me with others.
Image: Netflix
A few nights back, we watched Stutz, a lovely Netflix documentary about the relationship between a man and his therapist. Part meditation on vulnerability, part presentation of pragmatic psychology, one way of thinking – String of Pearls – really struck me:
In Stutz’s illustration, each circle or “pearl” is an action — and, since each pearl is a similar size, you can think of each action having the same value, no matter what it is. This means that every large or small action in your life (brushing your teeth, deciding to end a relationship) is just that: a thing to do. You are the only person who can put the next pearl on the string. But, within each pearl is a dark spot (Stutz calls it a “turd”), which is a reminder that no effort you make will be perfect. The key is to acknowledge that and keep adding to the string anyway.
The Camino, and writing A600AASS, reinforced more than anything the power of stringing pearls. Get up. Pack up. Walk. Eat. Write. Edit. Publish. Sleep. Get up and do it all again.
But it also normalised the turds of life. My body failed me. There were typos. And damn, some of those images were dark! And yet still I strung those pearls, because exploring, interpreting, creating and sharing, I now know beyond a shadow of a doubt, is what I’m here to do.
Thanks for joining me.
And here’s to more looking up and looking out, more to all of this.
Drew.
