Let’s sync up.
This week’s question comes from Dinah Sanders:
What activities make you feel the most like your mind and body are in sync, in the same place, doing the same thing?
Almost none. And I think that’s ok.
When I was a kid sitting at my desk at school, the Sisters of Saint Joseph demanded everyone’s full attention. They wanted eyes on them, hands folded on our desk. They never got mine. Try as I might to give it to them, my folded hands would eventually wander to something, anything, on my desk. A pencil to casually roll back and forth. A dried bit of Elmer's glue I could pick at. The groove of someone's name etched on the desk that I could trace. Inevitably, I'd be found out, and a great heavy yardstick would come down on my knuckles. And Sister Eleanor would say, “Now can I have your full attention?”
Oddly she could, but not for the reasons she thought. She could have my full attention because my hands now had a task: being in fucking pain. (Fuck you, Sister Eleanor.)
This pattern (minus the physical abuse) continued into my work life. Bosses. Project managers. Co-workers. They all demanded “my full attention,” which they defined as my mind and body being in sync. Except my mind and body don’t work like that. I’m gonna go out on a limb and assume I am not the only one.
My mind and body are rarely on the same journey.
If you are talking to me my hands need something to do. I pay better attention to you if my hands have something to do. And most crucially, I understand what you’re saying to me better if my hands have something to do.
Work is hardly ever done where work is done.
I figured out how to reply to your question while washing the dishes. I've solved more design problems while sweeping the studio floor than I have while staring at a monitor. I came up with the kernel of my next book while painting. Washing the dishes is a marvelous time to send your mind on a joyride!
Which isn’t to say that there aren’t moments where mind and body are in sink. There are. And they’re either wonderful or terrifying, depending on the situation that demanded a unification of energy.
Being in sync is nice, but so is being out of sync. Honor both, and most importantly—honor both in others. The person intently sweeping the floor might be hanging on your very word.
As the great American philosopher George Clinton said, “Free your mind. Your ass will follow.”
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