Dillard Motivates

Annie Dillard is a writer I remember from my mother’s bookshelf. I never read her. I remember picking up a book, a thin book if I remember correctly; a book about a tinker and a pilgrim and a creek. Probably distracted by the pages of some other book, I never moved from picking up to reading the Annie Dillard book that sat on my mother’s bookshelf.

Later, when I harboured delusions that I was going to be a writer myself, I found and picked up yet another Annie Dillard book: The Writing Life. Again, I didn’t get to reading it. I did however store it amid my book collection where it eventually was transported from Middle, America to The Big Smoke, England.

Recently I picked up The Writing Life again and have actually started to read it.

The first thing I noticed was that amongst the pages was a receipt for the down payment I made in 1996 for my wedding dress. At the bottom of the receipt there’s my signature with each letter clear and consistently leaning to the right. My signature has changed over the years. It is sloppier than it used to be. Letters have disappeared. It’s as if I’m always in a hurry when scrawling out my John Hancock.

The next thing the struck me was a quote from Goethe that Ms. Dillard uses to preface the first chapter of her slender book on writing. It is a one sentence quotation containing 6 words, a semicolon, and a full stop*. On the surface of things it is a dispassionate, undemonstrative sentence; yet its pertinence to my modus operandi and the wisdom behind the words fills this short, obvious sentence with a personal poignancy.

"Do not hurry; do not rest."

I do not know where it started, whether it’s just my way of being or whether professional conditioning to get-things-done-fast has bled over from my work life into my personal life. The origin is immaterial. The fact is I am almost always in a rush. I am almost always splitting my energy and focus between two or three or four different tasks or topics. I am very rarely in the here, in the now. I keenly sense time slipping away, and this makes me rush, rush, rush to get things done today, today, today!

Why not tomorrow?

I get caught up in the speed and forget to slow down when slowing down is ok. I am impatient and rude to loved ones.

I imagine you, a sympathetic reader/friend, jumping to my defence, “No you don’t. You’re ok. Don’t be hard on yourself.”

To comprehend the generality, you need examples. Here are 3:

(1) When I talk to my mother on the phone, I put her on speaker so I can simultaneously check my emails on the laptop in the kitchen where I will also be peeling garlic and onions for subsequent chopping whilst darting back to my bedroom to prepare my travelling bags for the next day.

(2) When I discuss a customer issue with a team member, I sit and pretend to listen because I know the team member needs to get the fact that the customer is being a pain in the arse off his chest. Inside I’m dying for him to get on with it …

I know. I know.

... so that I can go back to my office and compose an email response to another issue and then talk to another colleague about a personnel issue (another conversation during which my mind will partially travel somewhere else, to other things that need doing, and I will wish that this colleague too would get on with it so I can go and call the customer who will bluster on and on, and I will half listen with the phone cradled between my ear and shoulder whilst I use my hands to tap out mails to address, escalate, progress, open or close item x, y or z).

(3) When I’m out walking The Dog after work and she takes too long sniffing her favourite tree en route to the park, I give her a (gentle) yank and snap, “Come on; let’s get to the park already.” When we’re in the park, and she stops to sniff the light post where numerous other dogs have peed, I moan, “Coooommmme on, Dog. We need to get home so I can feed you and then me, so I can have some time to read before it gets too late so I can get to sleep at a decent time so I can wake up at 5:05 with as little pain as possible, so I can get to the gym in time to get enough of a workout before I have to get to work where I need to …..

So it goes.

I get caught up.

I would benefit from less rush, more focus. Annie Dillard’s writing book, has given me a little mantra: Do not hurry; do not rest**.

* Period.
**It dawns on me that the 'do not rest' bit might not seem right; it's because it's been taken out of context; but I like to think it's like Voltaire's conclusion in Candide. On has to cultivate one's garden. Even though in the context of writing it's probably more related to momentum. The god damn quote is motivating me so don't ruin it for me by asking probing questions!