In the end, they
wrote eighty-five essays, in the span of six months
John Jay got sick
after writing five
James Madison wrote
twenty-nine
Hamilton wrote the
other fifty-one
How do you write
like you’re
Running out of time?
Write day and night
like you’re
Running out of time?
Ev’ry day you fight
Like you’re
Running out of time
Like you’re
Running out of time
Are you
Running out of
time?
How do you write
like tomorrow won’t arrive?
How do you write
like you need it to survive?
How do you write
ev’ry second you’re alive?
Ev’ry second you’re
alive? Ev’ry second you’re alive?
Dear Athena
I was listening to
these lyric; reading them from the cover of the album. I imagined Lin Manual
Miranda praying to an ancestor, begging for advice while trying to write and
compose his own works. "How do you write every second you're alive?"
I woke up this
morning with the words in my head: "How do you write like you're running
out of time?" I don't know how to characterize or begin to write about
what the last several months have felt like: Lethargy, Meh, Stuck, Aimless,
Settling?
When Carl and
Suzanne came to visit, we went for a drive in the mountains and talked about
the election. We covered everything from the shock of that night to the rise of
a world run my multi-national corporations. We agreed on so much, even the new
thoughts we were just learning from one another. We diverged in one idea
though, what to do next? Carl explained how he had talked with Kate and Ryan,
that they were all ready to fight in whatever ways they could. I explained how
I felt like all the fight has been taken out of me. Out of desperation to
resolve a feeling that I no longer wanted to exist, I deactivated my facebook.
Not as a statement, just as need to protect myself from the flood of noise. I
have stopped watching any news, I just leave the room when the TV is on. I
might glance over a newspaper, but on the whole, I've stopped consuming
"news". I don't want to know, because knowing creates feelings of
wanting to do something about it. Anger is exhausting. So I don't want to
fight, I want to, as much as I can, be completely unaware.
At work, I've spent
a year waiting patiently for this promotion. Advocating in kind and polite ways
only to have it diminished to the least possible denominator. It went through
at the turn of the year. I found out because I emailed my boss about whether it
would be reflected on my pay stub this month, to which he informed me that is
should have already been processed. It had been. No one bothered to inform me.
"Whatever"
I thought. "It's still a decent salary and I can get a more flexible
schedule to work from home. Try to see the upside."
I felt myself giving
up. I'll collect a paycheck, take my benefits, and complete the tasks that are
required of me. Then spend the rest of my time on other things. I tried to
envision a four day weekend in the mountains every week, "doing fun stuff".
But when I had a four day weekend off recently…I didn't go the mountains.
There's many different factors for this: health, friends, family. But I don't
live for the weekend. I have spent much of my life since freshmen year of
undergrad thinking about my work.
Last night my friend
Keith wanted study at a coffee shop. Afterwards we went to an all night diner
for food and talked till 1:30 in the morning.
Keith shared with me a new way he had heard to categorize "the four
reasons people work" (Keith likes simple labels and categories that can
help him organize the world). The short
of it (1) stability and regular pay (2) money to buy stuff (2) power and
control (4) passion and self-fulfillment. They started categorizing their
friends. According to him and Amy (his wife), I am Power and Control. Labels
are a necessary thing in our world for communication, but they also reduce
complexity to ever increasing levels of stupidity. "Labels initially free
and clarify but eventually constrain and mislead" I was about to
off-handly dismiss these labels, but it didn't feel wrong. I could write a
piece critiquing this model and the science that it contradicts, but this label
helps clarify somethings for me. I do work in order to have control. But I want
power, not as a means of ego or money, but I work in order to craft a world
that deserves to exist.
Hamilton questions
Burr when he refuses to help with the Federalist papers:
"What are you
waiting for?
What do you stall
for?
We won the war
What was it all for?
Do you support this
constitution?
Of course
Then defend it
And what if you’re
backing the wrong horse?
Burr, we studied and
we fought and we killed
For the notion of a
nation we now get to build
For once in your
life, take a stand with pride
I don’t understand
how you stand to the side"
I often want to ask
my boss Matt "why you equivocate when we finally have a chance to do
something of value?"
But I have found
myself settling in to complacency.
Yet, I woke up this
morning with the words "How do you write like you're running out of
time?"
I've been rereading
Harry Potter, and since the first book I've been pondering "What would I
see in the mirror of Erised?" only to develop a pit in my stomach that I don't know. When I
first started talking about this job, I said that I wanted the authority to do
the work I cared about. I might have been using it as a "line" at
that time, but I think I was more right then I realized. In the negotiations
for this promotion in the last few months I ended up pushing first on pay and
then on flexibility. But when I got the pay increase (which was disappointing),
I realized the monthly bump in pay didn't really excite me. I have a large
degree of flexibility already (I took off a few days over winter break without
using vacation) and I haven't really done anything with it, over than try to
use it to start my own LLC on the side. I was happiest when he was giving me
authority over new bodies of work.
I was consolidating
my 2016 journal in a single folder; I saw how much I have written this year. I
may have felt unproductive, but I was struggling through thoughts and words.
One my might say "Hamilton wasn't written in a year." I've been viewing
my flexibility in the wrong way, as a vacation, but, more importantly, it is
opportunity to invest my attention in those things I want to grow and change. Volunteer with a non-profit, build the LLC with my friend, write letters to my congressmen about gun control, write letters to my friends in other states, write. When I left for grad school, I had an indomitable spirit. It may not be entirely spent. I'm going to invest in those things that matter to me.
The beauty of Hamilton is the words and rythym can be repeated as a prayer or chant:
"How do you write
like tomorrow won’t arrive?
How do you write
like you need it to survive?
How do you write
ev’ry second you’re alive?
How do you write like you're running of of time?"
My New Year's
Resolutions last year were to lose weight and move out. I'm not letting those go.
But my resolution
this year is work like Hamilton and Angelica.
"Look around, look
around at how
Lucky we are to be
alive right now"
+Augustine
