Scheduling as Survival

5 May 2020

Since the lockdown, many of you have raised boredom, scheduling, and interrupted routines as factors messing with your recovery.  In my own quest to know the basics of the Western canon, I recently began reading Montaigne, a French aristocrat who retired to his estates, four-hundred-years ago, where he ended his life writing.  And guess what?  Montaigne and this lockdown have points of intersection—who knew!?

If we do not keep [our minds] busy with some particular subject which can serve as a bridle to reign them in, they charge ungovernably about, ranging to and fro over the wastelands of our thoughts.  —Montaigne, 1:8 On Idleness, 1580

As discussed in our meetings, it is better to be busy doing something than to be idle, worrying, or, worse yet, spinning your mental wheels which invariably leads to thoughts of using. If you need a focus around which to build a schedule, the WHO’s definition of health may help: “…a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.”

Anatomizing that definition might yield meditation, rest, good food, water, and exercise—mental, spiritual, and physical.  Physical exercise consists of cardio-vascular endurance, strength, and flexibility.  YouTube is your friend here.  And so are modest, easy beginnings, as it’s more important to build a routine you can return to than one you’ll work to avoid.  Call a friend, call a relative, call someone you met in a meeting.

After taking care of at least one of the physical components, read about a subject that interests you, read a novel, learn a new skill, or draw an abstract doodle.  Schedule this stuff.  Then walk the dog, take a nap, make a meal, rinse and repeat.  Don’t worry about the importance of the tasks for now—worry about making a schedule and completing it.  What’s important is maintaining health until when the lockdown ends.

When the soul is without a definite aim, she gets lost; for, as they say, if you are everywhere [scattered thinking], you are nowhere.  —Op cit.