Client GS7.AZ1 - Session 1

(Beep. Music fades in)

If you still want productivity tips, I can tell you how my girlfriend arranges her to-do-list, which is something I only learned about her… kind of recently. She doesn’t use this mechanism at home. Only at work where she would keep it hung up in her small office, but… Well, things happened, so she had to pack up as much of her office as she could fit into her various tote bags to bring it all home. 

No one could deny that it was a daunting task, but we couldn’t deny the necessity of it. She needed to be at home. So I offered to go up to the university to help her pack, but apparently they were limiting who could come in and out, which was understandable but inconvenient. 

Regardless, we’re making the most of it now, particularly that we both have to share a home office. Which is great but sometimes awkward. Like, and this is a fairly specific example, during video conference calls when one of the other participants is being absurd or when I’m frustrated or something like that, and I just want to turn to my girlfriend and make a snippy comment. And she’s right there, so I could totally do it, but I shouldn’t because, you know, HR and all that. 

I recognize that this is a problem born from privilege, but lately, I can’t stop thinking about how dependent I’ve become on the cathartic release that is complaining to my partner, this thing that was made so much easier and more possible by a stricter work/life balance or a hard dividing line between the two. 

But like I said, I know it’s petty. There are things about it I can still enjoy. A lot. And I do. I love being around my girlfriend. It’s other people that I have the issue with. But I do get to spend more time with her, and I’m happy about that, but that’s not the point of this. The point that Istarted to talk about before I got sidetracked was her to-do-list set up. And okay, I’m getting to that.

(Music fades out and new music fades in)

First, she doesn’t keep it on a device or a computer or laptop. Like I said before, it hangs on the wall. It’s a… somewhat converted whiteboard that I now get to gaze upon in wonder whenever I want. 

I mean, it’s still technically just an ordinary whiteboard. She wrote headings on the top with permanent marker, but because the rest of the white board is still very much intact, that isn’t so much of a change that you would call it “altered”. Like, the heart of the thing is still very much the same. 

But okay not the point. On the top and not in permanent marker, she writes the date every morning. It’s part of this ritual for her. She writes the date, and below that, she’s divided the board into three categories. And those headers are the ones written in permanent marker, so she can never be tempted to change the balance.

The first is “Stuff I need to do today.” 

The second is “Stuff that I should probably do today.” 

And the third is “I would be amazed or proud if this happened.” 

And of course, the tasks for the day are prioritized accordingly. With the addendum that the need column really has to be a need. There has to be real consequences if she does not get the thing done. And anything that doesn’t have a real consequence goes on “should probably do.” And then the conjurings of whimsical dreams of productivity go into the third list. Which is always super long and sometimes needs additional space from post it notes, but it’s on a wall with a lot of space anyway, so it works.

I mean, technically all of our walls have a lot of blank space because we’ve been having a hard time committing to art or the sort of decorations that requires you to punch a hole in the wall. It’s a somewhat new apartment, remodeled just before we arrived and breaking the seal of newness has been a difficult process for us. It has nothing to do with the landlord and everything to do with the fact that we’ve never really had nice things, never mind a shared nice things.

Even the to-do-list itself is taped onto the wall, but I think that might have partially been wishful thinking on our parts that this arrangement would not last for long. Certainly not long enough for a nail.

(Music fades out and new music fades in)

And in many regards, some of those details don’t matter to you. I mean, you will happily take whatever productivity tips you can get. There is wisdom in properly contextually things that need to be done, but that’s not really your problem. Because you haven’t felt that productive lately. You haven’t felt like doing much of anything. 

And that might seem like the symptom of something, and that’s because it is… But it’s also the sort of interpretation that just can’t be relevant right now. 

Because that’s the sort of thing people would say when the world was going on as usual. For better or worse, there was a collective norm. It was like a map, you know. Maybe it wasn’t pretty. And maybe it could have been better, but a map is a map. It’s a guide made by human-hands, however flawed it might be.

We are all in a new normal, though we all hope it is only temporary. I only use the phrase “new normal” to explain how profound this shift really is. So many lives have been changed down to the very nuts and bolts, so what else can you call it? I agree it doesn’t fit. I agree there are bad implications to it. But this is really a limitation of human language. Every human creation is limited. We just aren’t inclined to see it. We can’t see it. There’s too much comfort in the mere perception of our power.

(Music fades out and new music fades in)

On the other hand, there’s also fear and dread, right? Because the consequences of it all. Or that’s a good summation. Power would be a finite good, after all. Or it is when you think of it as control or domination, which is what most people mean when they talk about power. 

But you remember learning a different definition in college, right? From a visiting professor who just happened to teach one… (sigh) I can’t wrap my head around the quarter system. But that’s what your university used and still uses. 

So one quarter out of the two that professor was there, you signed up for a course that you thought… Well, you thought it was like a once in a lifetime opportunity. I mean, yes faculty teach at their home institutions, but that school might as well have been in another world to you. So you stood behind that conviction and took that class. And it changed your life.

I know that feeling. I know that class and the philosophers featured in it. But that’s not the point. That’s another tangent I probably should not be going down right now. 

The point, though, is that you learned--in that class--that there are conceptions of power that describe it as a collective, shared entity. That power is the thing wielded by the masses acting together. Together. As one.

Now, there’s several interpretations of that. Many hot takes that could be made. But I don’t care about hot takes. I don’t care about other people’s opinions about other things. I care about you. And the fact that you feel alone. 

You feel alone. And there are implications for that sense of isolation, regardless of how it came to be. 

Because it wasn’t just… Well, it wasn’t just these events, was it? This surprise. This twist of fate.

In some ways, it was always in the plan. And you were given a sort of… stay of execution because of current events. Execution of the plan, of course. That’s what I meant. Your plan to leave the job that you are now removed from. Almost removed from. You’re still a part of the company. Technically. But now that everyone has to telework, (sigh) well, it’s been a bizarre experience for all of us. Let me just say that.

Look, I… I know I complain about my job and some of my coworkers. But there are others that I genuinely miss. And while getting all my social interactions from my girlfriend is absolutely amazing because it means I get more time with my girlfriend, there’s only so many times I can tell her the same joke or moderately humorous story. And that number is three across maybe our entire relationship but certainly this period of social distancing.

The way I see it, there is a pressure to rework, rediscover, and reinvent just because we both need a sense of social variety. We’ve always had that need, but it has to be fulfilled in a different way now. And there were some coworkers who could offer that social gratification. It doesn’t matter how few and far between they actually were. I valued those talks. And even the worst person could entertain me on a good day.

I miss talking to other people. Just because they were other people.

You do too. And you always knew you were going to miss those things. But you did not imagine until you had to experience it how much it would really hurt to go without. So here you are now: really feeling a loss you didn’t think you were going to feel ahead of a big shift in your life that you had previously been so excited about. 

Did you ever ask yourself what it really meant to be self-employed? In some ways, it seemed so glamorous. You knew it would be hard, but you thought it was the paperwork that would make it hard. You didn’t think it was going to be so hard to do everything alone. Or at least you didn’t think it would feel like it has.

And you think that’s the root of all our problems right now. You think that’s the issue. But really, it’s not that simple. I could tell you more about it, but are you ready to be wrong again? To be wrong about being wrong. That sounds nice on paper, but so many things sound nice on paper. You should know very well now. That those sorts of things always bring more complications.

(Music fades out and new music fades in)

The Oracle of Dusk is a production of Miscellany Media Studios with music licensed from the Sounds like an Earful music supply. It was written, edited, produced, and performed by MJ Bailey. And if you like the show, tell friends about it or the quasi-friends that are still on your social media feeds because social norms evolved before words did, am I right?