"I found it easier to trail off in the middle of any sentence that seemed likely to reach a point."
About two weekends ago, my wife declared herself human soup and spent the entire day lounging around and refusing to do anything.
We’ve had quite a few soup days since, some inadvertent and some by design, where one of us (or both of us) are so overwhelmed by work or by our personal obligations or by the simplest tasks around the house that the only thing we’re good for is laying in a blanketed puddle and hoping against all hope that our cats somehow develop a sense of responsibility and also opposable thumbs.
I’ve been here many times before, where burnout and existential dread have gotten to be too much to handle and so I just avoid everything. Back in 2012 when I spent more time applying for jobs than I did paying attention to my (unpaid) internship, I declared myself dead, created a death certificate for myself, and sent it to anyone who tried to talk to me about anything that would be even slightly mentally taxing (this could include anything from going to interviews to office small talk).
Human soup, in retrospect, seems like a step up.
Somewhere between getting a paying job and my second (or third) period of burnout at said job, I started to amass tools and skills that kept me from pulling out the old death certificate again (although I did consider printing it out, laminating it, and sticking it to my forehead during a few particularly rough meetings).
The most important skill I learnt was to just let myself be soup when my body demanded it.
Being soup does have certain requirements, however. The first and foremost¹ is that you cannot feel guilty about it, no matter how much your brain wants you to. The second is, if you can manage before the soupiness sets in and your spine turns to liquid, to change the sheets and put on some clean pyjamas. The third is that when you do end up feeling guilty about your soupy state of being, because we’ve all been trained into tying our self-worth to productivity, to refer back to point one.
Eventually, your soupy urges get fewer and farther between.
¹ It goes without saying, of course, that the first and foremost requirement of being human soup involves privilege and having savings or a job—almost always a white collar job—that allows you to take days off to deal with your mental health. If you’re in that position, consider supporting those who aren’t financially, materially, or politically.
The title is from Sea of Crises, an essay in Brian Phillips’ Impossible Owls. Once, after a terrible day in a series of bad days—and it’s probably noteworthy that I don’t remember what even happened on that day—Phillips gave away several hats that said “Sea of Crises” on them.
I wear mine at least once a week.