A series of spectacular failures

I had a minor epiphany during a restorative yoga class, in a warm room lit with candles, supported by blankets and bolsters. It felt restful. I was resting. No, but like for real. I was still. And it was enjoyable. The kind of joy I usually only experience in motion. My mind had wanted to go to the gym. But my body was like no, dude, go lay on the ground for an hour. So I did. I made time for stillness, which I used to think was just a failure of motion, but now I think is a necessary compass. And it was glorious, this stillness. A glorious failure of motion, a glorious triumph of rest, relaxation and restoration.

I had a minor epiphany on a party boat, being yet again the only person not drinking in a sea full of people drinking (and playing icebreaker games. I hate icebreaker games or any sort of mandatory fun. Being forced to participate is the opposite of fun). At times like these, I feel isolated and irreparably weird for not doing the things everyone else is doing, even though I have no interest in doing those things. I feel like I'm failing the Turing Test, a lone robot amidst the humans. Then I had a sudden realization that many times when I've felt like I'm failing at everything, the only thing I was actually failing at was in being someone else. I was failing at doing the default traditional things or being what I thought I should be. Most of the time those should be things weren't even things I wanted to be, they were just what is expected or idolized by society. I was failing to be what other people wanted me to be because I was busy being who I was. (And the few times I did try to be what someone else wanted me to be, I became profoundly unhappy, which festered into seething resentment, which blossomed into relief and happiness only when I gave up and went back to being who I wanted to be). Looking at it that way, I hope my life continues to be a series of spectacular failures. In failing to be others' expectations of me, I succeed at being myself. In failing to do what others are doing, I succeed at doing what I want to do.

It's easy to get caught up in what other people are doing or all the cultural noise telling us to do certain things or be a certain way, to buy this and that and of course that too. Part of stillness, I'm coming to realize, is a break from all that external noise. It allows me the space and the silence to figure out what feels right to me, what I want to do and what I don't want to do, what will bring me joy and what I can let go. I used to rely on running for this space but now I know it's always available to me, if I pay attention to it. The external noise will still get through sometimes, but I can just think to myself "That's not true" or "I don't accept that" or "Not for me" and keep blazing my own weird, ridiculous trail to Awesometown. With stops for giraffes, obviously.

Lyric of the moment: "The walls in my mind. But I can climb. In the darkest of days, when I think I've lost my way, I step into the light..." ~Matisyahu "Step Out Into The Light"