How to survive this moment: Go dormant

The only thing to do right now is nothing

The hope that you had has been washed away, stolen by forces bigger than yourself. Much like those sunglasses you dropped in the ocean when you were 22, you know that any optimism you had about the future is not coming back.

I’m not here to tell you it’s going to get better. I don’t know if it is.

But I see so many people trying to figure out the next thing. It’s like watching someone who just got hit by a car try to fill out a job application while they’re still lying in the road.

Figuring out “what’s next” is the wrong thing to do right now. You couldn’t figure it out even if you wanted to. Your brain is rattled, your soul is crying, and your neighbors will not stop blowing the fucking leaves. Ever.

So go home, close the windows for God’s sake, and consider trying this thing I did earlier this year that helped me recover after I hit the wall with life.

Go dormant

Be like a tree in the fall and drop your leaves. Drop the extra weight of life. Drop anything that’s not serving you right now. Drop your seeking and striving and hoping and planning. Drop the things you think you’re supposed to hold for other people. Let go of everything but the essential elements of life.

Don’t explain. Don’t plan. Don’t think about it. Open your hands like a toddler and let the blocks fall where they may. Let other people clean up their own blocks. Or not. Right now it doesn’t matter. Don’t spend any energy even thinking about it right now. Fuck it all.

Your only job at this moment is to exist and let yourself conserve energy. You’ll regenerate at some point. Into what I don’t know. Neither do you. Trees don’t spend all winter making vision boards so you shouldn’t, either. Your only job right now is to drop leaves and sit there.

Instructions for going dormant

Now … sigh. I can hear this already. Some of you are going to get all literal about this. “Well, that’s nice for some people but I have kids and a job and blah-fucking-blah …”

If you’re not smart enough to understand a metaphor and make a small attempt to understand the nuances here, I am dropping you from my notice. Buh bye.

For those of you who remain, here’s what I mean:

• Don’t worry about what’s next for the country or your life. You are too depleted to spend energy on worry right now. If you force it, you’re going to land on wrong, twisted answers. Rest.

• Use this quiet season to go quiet. There’s research somewhere (and I don’t feel like digging it up right now) showing that our bodies naturally want to sleep more in the winter. I know it’s fall right now, but we’re naturally powering down at this time of year. The orange one isn’t in office until January. Rest now in case you have to run (literally or metaphorically) later.

• As much as possible, stop spending time (online and in life) in places that make you feel bad. Disappear. It’s OK.

• Spent time alone. A lot of it. There’s been so much noise for so many years. Do you even know what silence sounds like anymore? Do you even know how to figure out what YOU think, deep down in your soul, without the context of everyone else’s judgment and expectations? (A good clue is to look for the word “should.” Should usually comes from someone else.)

• Dare to not be there for people. Yes, there are some people you want to be there for. So do that. There are some critical situations you need to show up for. So do that, too. But don’t do anything out of obligation and don’t volunteer to be someone’s emotional dumping ground, especially when they’re more invested in talking about their problems and creating new ones than they are in fixing anything. Let the emotional vampires feed on someone else.

• Don’t do anything at all of out obligation (either real or perceived). Learn to say no. Or if that’s too hard, just stop showing up. People will figure it out eventually.

• Stop paying attention to the news. I mean it. You can come back to it later. If something catastrophic happens, the news will find its way to you. In the meantime, you don’t need the play-by-play on anything.

For extra credit:

• Journal. Dudes, I don’t care if you’re not a writer. You don’t have to be. This is just an effective way to clean out your brain closets. Declutter that head of yours. You can even throw out each entry after you’re done writing it. Or delete the document. It doesn’t matter you what you write. It just matters that you purge.

• Get a box and put your phone in it for several hours every day. You don’t even have to turn your phone off. You just need some separation from it. Somehow taking it out of your line of vision dilutes its power.

That’s all. I’m sorry for your loss and mine. I don’t think things will be better later and I’m not optimistic about America right now. But I am optimistic that if we clear out some of our old, inefficient ways of thinking, we might have some space to build solutions we can’t imagine in this moment.

Rest up, my friends.