Is this the audition and did I pass?
When is a quit not a quit and just a time out?
Don’t like reading? Allow me to read it to you 👈
It moves fast, the asphalt of life. Your legs, your car, your bike, your jetpack of propulsion, increase speed as they lose altitude, pressing your face closer and closer to the belt-sander tarmac of constant rejection. All the nos. The not for us-es. Then comes the heat of too little, too fast, too hard. Hard to maintain speed, commitment, and motivation in this flash of road broil. Even harder to keep the elevation.
If the high-speed rash of the gravel of rejection roughs up the skin of your ego,
quit.
Bone tired with it. Bone dry. Starved for the big break, you are all skin and bone with the dust and ash of dreams smudging a thumbprint on your forehead. In your doubt-haze, bones begin their slow decline to brittle, no longer willing to hold the form of your striving, persistent, creative flesh. Too much work for too little result. Too long with head high and armor laced, resisting the constant stoop of decline. Heartache breaks and both bone and spirit snap with the sound of a gun firing in a far-off valley.
If your very skeleton calls a car for the coast. If the creak and ache and calcium seep swells large and looming and each bone in your body crackles under the relentless assault of the word no,
quit.
Darkness is the feel of a weighted blanket. Creeping in from the edges of your constancy, it shrouds your crushed heart and smothers the get back up and do it all over again impetus to its inevitable death. It snuggles into the nooks and crannies of your loneliness on the road, stitching its slog memory thread into the fabric of please, no more. No more. For the love of God, no more. It is the “Should I just give up?” clap back on the rainy morning of decline. The darkened room of quietude and relief calling out to your battered, scarred heart.
If your shoulders sag under the weight of the relentless grind, leaving you with the desire to chuck it all in, “go to Gelson’s and get half a chicken and go home and close the shades and call it a night,”
quit.
For a day. A week. A month. A year1.
But know this. There is no hard quit full-stop at the end of your creative life sentence. A quit isn’t always a nevermore—sometimes it’s a not for long. Refocus, reframe, revive. Listen. From the edge of your quitting field, you may still hear your abandoned lamb bleat for you. From the edge of your field, your weathervane may finally spin to the true North of your purpose and back to your lost baby sheep.
Should the act of quitting tune your ears once again to the frequency and joy of your dream, stride into the field, scoop up that lamb, and with the energy of a shepherd who has found their flock momentarily lost to wolves,
come back.
Drink milk. For your bones. Take a tall glass of time out and enrich it with the calcium of reconstruction. Rebuild your body from femurs only. It’ll be a weird-looking skeleton for sure, but it’ll be strong and capable of supporting 30-times the weight of constant setbacks. Feel the bumps and boney protrusions calling you to battle with an armor-plated spirit upgrade. This is the clarity of distance made sharp. This is the framework of your journey printed in 3D on the tabletop of the world.
Should the act of quitting sprout bone-headed resilience to fortify your commitment, snapping your focus back to attention with straight-spined rigor,
come back.
Don your weighted blanket of darkness and absorb the warmth and security of your step away to the quiet mind. Feel the weight become lighter as the brain slows, the breath grows, and the purpose shows. Darkness absorbs light, but the comfort comes from knowing your light is always there. Hidden, but there in the dense shadow. Touch it with the very tips of your trembling fingers. Feel the pleasure of your secret intention. To quit or to quiet—weigh your final decision with each passing moment of snug.
And should the act of quitting reveal your true North weathervane, spinning to point straight at the black hole at the center of your universe while pulling you toward your calling at an ever-quickening and joyous pace,
come back.
To quit is to confirm.
To quit is to refuel.
To quit is to prioritize purpose.
Real Estate Agent? Or real agent of a life-long creative estate?
Quit.
For your soul.
For your sanity.
For your faith in yourself.
And should you come back, congratulations. You passed the audition.
Yours in tiny thought,
Janeen2
This week’s amends…
Tired
I am so tired of waiting,
Aren't you,
For the world to become good
And beautiful and kind?
Let us take a knife
And cut the world in two -
And see what worms are eating
At the rind.
- by Langston Hughes
On Rotation: “Für Dich” by Thomas Dinger.
Not sure why I dig this so much, but trust that I do. According to Google translate, Für Dich means For Yourself, so perhaps that’s why? I’m all about ME, ME, ME!
All you need is a floor and a bunch of clothes. Watch Shiny for a knock-down apparel-led brawl.
Via Boing Boing
Speaking of invisible things, here’s an invisible Goldberg machine using glass, oil, and light refraction.
Via The Ephemerist
Did any of this spark a tiny thought of your own?
In this episode of Fly on the Wall, both Molly Shannon and David Spade mention how at different times when starting out, they quit. Sometimes for a year. Jokes Davide: “To succeed, you have to be a quitter” That made me laugh. Sometimes you just need a break from the ego pounding to step back and see what—if anything—you have.
With humble homage to Charles Bukowski
This is great. I have long extolled the virtues of quitting — and have quit many things, before, of course, coming back to some of them.