Reflections on time well spent
Inspired by reading John Paul Adefarasin
If you are reading this now I want to offer my thanks: you have chosen to spend some of your finite time with me. Sure, it'll only take a few minutes to read this, but they are minutes that you will never get back. I hope it is worth it, though I understand if you need to leave and do something more important.
For those who are still here, I ask you to take a breath, slow down, and appreciate this time we have together. Rushing through activities in order to get them done compounds the sense that life is a destination rather than a journey and I really don't think you want to rush to the destination.
I am in a reflective mood because I just reread the blog of John Paul Adefarasin, a man I never knew but who I learned about via a friend. Johnny, as he was known, died in 2014 of motor neurone disease (MND), a condition where you gradually lose the ability to control your body despite retaining full consciousness.
A couple of months before he died he listed some statistics that summed up his predicament:
- 1789 days since i was was diagnosed with motor neurone disease
- 800(ish) days since i was able to feed myself
- 716 days since i moved back to my parents home
- 609 days since i got a percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy (feeding tube)
- 500(ish) days since i was able to swallow food
- 441 days since i took my last step
- 174 days since i went downstairs
- 174 days since i felt the sun on my skin
- 174 days since my last birthday
- 174 days since i was brave enough to look in a mirror
- 152 days since i got part time care
- 24 days since i got 24 hour care
- 0 days since i last begged a God i dont even believe in to set me free
Reading his blog (that he 'typed' using eyetracking software) chronologically is a life-affirming experience. You learn that he isn't going to offer profound reflections, but instead just say what he's thinking:
im just gonna be myself, i think thats the most important thing now. no point in trying to be something im not. ive probably done that too much over the years, trying to fit in and be the person i should.
Because he can no longer eat and is being fed through a tube going into his stomach, Adefarasin posts lovingly about the food he has enjoyed:
i would literally sell my soul for a chilli chicken, saag aloo, pilau rice and peshwari naan with extra papadums… standard. i can picture it now, steaming hot and spilling off my plate. arrrgh so delicious!!
Locked up inside his body, the realm of the physical senses had become a fantasy, but was no less real or important. He posts pictures of favourite food, attractive women, poignant poetry, and lots of songs. These, he seems to say, are the things that make life worth living.
Squandering time
At the time of writing this I'm feeling worse for wear from a late night spent with friends. It was a fun evening, though I am suffering now. In these hungover states, I tend to squander my time faffing around on the phone.
When you see how much time people are spending playing games, watching porn, or streaming TV what you see is a whole civilisation consumed by distractions and escapism. The question is not whether we are living in the matrix but how long it will take us before we voluntarily enter it ourselves. A satisfying life is one that has challenges and rewards but the games industry has managed to hack those circuits of habit reward until we can’t find anything better in the real world.
I often find myself playing an addictive little game called Golf Clash, where you compete one-on-one with people to win virtual cups and currency. The game collects statistics and tells me that I've played 749 games, which works out to about a week of my waking life dragging a line on a screen with my finger. You can also look at the statistics of other people and see that some of them have played a hundred times the number of games I have. I wonder how many of them would carry on playing if they were given a motor neurone disease diagnosis? These games provides escapism from whatever you're going through, but they amount to nothing.
What should you do right now?
I read a nice article from Jakob Greenfeld last week about being more productive by being aware of your state of mind. Most productivity advice is about task management and project planning, but Greenfeld suggests that we need to avoid trying to push through on a task when we feel bad and instead use meta-awareness in order to choose the appropriate thing to do. He summarizes his approach thus:
Step 1: develop meta-awareness of your state of mind.
Step 2: pattern-match to identify your mind’s most common modes.
Step 3: learn to pick activities that match each mode.
For instance, if you feel hyperfocused then you should tackle that big creative task. If you feel relaxed and curious, do some research. If you are tired, maybe do some admin. If you feel anxious, get out of the house and do some exercise.
By having meta-awareness of your state of mind, there is an opportunity to avoid frustration and do something ... beautiful.
I was going to say "do something productive", but stopped myself. "Productive" sounds like a joyless exercise, another tick in the to do list of life. The purpose of the meta-awareness should be to do the right thing, the beautiful thing, the things you will miss when they are no longer available to you.
For those of us that are still alive and able, I hope we can enjoy some food, some physical intimacy, some music, and some poetry in memory of John.