Inertia, Apathy, and the Risk-free life

Yesterday I wallowed in the half-asleep lethargy brought on by cold medicine, the kind that says ‘May cause drowsiness. Do not drive or operate machinery.’ It was my excuse for bumming around the house, desultorily surfing the net, refusing a short stint to relief-teach at a nearby school, rejecting all social invites, being generally brain-dead, dull, negative, dead.

Of course, I was under the weather and needed to rest, but what came as a quiet shock was that my day of sick rest was no different from my usual day! I repeated the same pattern of time-wasting, committing to nothing, creating nothing, just hanging around and maintaining my current immediate needs like food, Facebook chatter, emails, picking up around the house, job-searching and sleep.

Clearly, one hits a minima at some point, and I think I’ve hit mine.

There is no risk in my current life. Inertia and apathy comes about when there is no risk, and no fear, making me slide comfortably down to sleepy la-la-land. Which makes me realize that everything I’ve done before worth anything has been motivated by fear/insecurity/deadlines… in other words, no simple certainty of success, or risk.

Somewhere along the line I’ve forgotten what risk tastes like, and was content to chug along. End result: end up lazier, narrow, smaller, flying under the radar. And it’s an exponential decline from there.

So how to drag myself outta that muck? Actually, I exaggerate. Things aren’t that bad, with jobs and social life etc getting somewhere. The problem of inertia and apathy is actually located closer to the heart – the lethargy I feel when questioned about what I love and what I want to do, and the quiet little very sian feeling that it doesn’t really matter. Contrast this to my previous post where I swore that I must must must find a passion. I think I’m facing a slide into the Quester’s Apathy, or at least a questioning of the belief that I will find what I love.

Note to self: beliefs are often almost religious in nature. By this I mean, no matter how much rational and reason prop it up, there will always be a gap and you got to take the last leap of faith and say, regardless of anything, I believe!

On second thought, isn’t believing, beyond rhyme or reason, but the pure act of will, actually the greatest risk of all? The thought that I will find what I love, and I will jump into the abyss after it (if necessary), and f**k all notions of money, prestige, expectations, opinions?

I am still uncertain about my appetite for risk in life, especially in such large ideological doses. So let’s start small again. More in another post, on how to structure my day-to day life to bring about practical and manageable risk, and eliminate inertia!