Returning as a stance towards life

There's an idea that success requires constant effort applied over decades. In some areas, that's probably true. There's a saying that there are no prodigies in bridge: players have to plays thousands of hands to learn what works. Almost every soloist for a major orchestra has dedicated their life to the instrument. More mundanely, there are plenty of jobs which reward constant effort: few major CEOs work thirty hours a week.

But not every success demands dedication. I want to write music I am proud of, but do not want music to be my main project in life. There are plenty of friendships I have where I'd rather talk every three months than every day.

For such things, I don't think constant dedication is the right mindset. Of course, it would be nice to write music every day, but sometimes it will have to slip through the cracks. This week, I've been doing contract work on top of my daily job as a journalist; I don't have the energy to also be writing music. Other times, I've gone months without composing. If I hold myself to a standard of constant dedication, it become more difficult to bounce back from breaks. Then, I must both overcome my disappointment that I did not continue — and my anxiety that it's too late to succeed.

A better inclination, I think, is to focus on returning. If I don't compose for a day, or six months, can I return to the craft without shame? If I haven't talked to a friend in a year, can I remember to reach out? If I've spent the past hour scrolling the internet, can I go back to the project I was working on before that? Can I return to the people and the things that I love, over and over, even if I stumble along the way?

How to gracefully resume has a been a persistent theme of on this blog. Early on, I proposed a way to return from a journaling absence. The piece I'm proudest of — Correspondence texting — is all about how to gracefully add space into my texting conversations. Even the Noticing Game is about returning to the world around me after I've been caught up in my own head.

This idea feels a lot like basic mediation. Notice I have fallen off from something and come back to it. Notice I have a thought and let go of it.

Or it's like the aphorism that "the best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago; the second best time is today." I do believe it's important for me to write music consistently for me to become as good a composer I want to be. Ditto for friendships. For this blog. For exercise. For being moral. Yet I can't be perfect. For each of these, I would have loved to do it yesterday, but the best I can do is to do it today.¹

So I will try, I hope, to stick to this philosophy: return to the things I care about in life, over and over. To be kind to myself when I err. And to live the words of a poem I heard in a workshop in high school: "we are always going home."