Hello from the Himalayas,
The last couple of weeks were rather ‘productivity-focused’ and led to some burnout. I guess many of you also had that experience recently. So, today’s note will be about recharging ourselves. A lot of remote-work and free-agent life has to do with keeping ourselves sane and healthy in our living space. Your living space could be your living room or your porch. It could be some other place where you spend most of your time unwinding from the day’s exhaustions. With that same motivation and recognizing the newsletter-fatigue, I’ll keep it relatively short and a light read. Let’s get started.
Understanding Your Living Space
What is a Living Space for —
A space to lay down your guard and feel free to be yourself
A space with all the little things you need frequently
A space to reenergize your body
A space to aid in your self-identity formation process
The Functions and Aesthetics of Living Space
First and foremost, a living space serves its purpose of being a place you can “crash” at, without worrying about anything. It’s the sink of your stress. It’s where you lay down your guard —the tiring pretensions. You can keep the aesthetic ‘relaxing’ by minimizing the unordered clutter and adding things like —a conscious color scheme of the walls, adding instrumental music, fluffy cushions, soothing fragrances, or paintings of nature.
If your brain is a computer, living space also serves as its RAM. Holding things like the book you’re reading, the pack-of-cards, your watch & keys— it is a ‘drawer’ for quick-access to things you need most frequently. Usually, it’s the place where you look first for most things.
You come to your Living Space often when you need to reenergize your body. Even if you eat at your desk or at the kitchen-table, you come to the living space to give your body the space-time to recover and revitalize.
Once the above three needs are fulfilled, you use your living space to be an aid to you envision your self-identity. Old photos of friends, your favorite stuffed toy, souvenirs from your previous travels, and posters that inspire you. All these trinkets and toys are there to emotionally and spiritually aid you in believing that you’re the person you believe to be.
Living at Home with Uncertainty
Uncertainty crushes our self-confidence of being prepared for the future. Almost reflexively, we react by aggressively searching for and doing things we are certain about. Some do it more and others less, but we tend to tire ourselves to get little victories that reassure us that we, after all, have some control left with us.
Penguin Cafe Orchestra
One of my favorite experimental bands is the Penguin Cafe Orchestra. Apart from the music, the origin story of the band is equally delighting. English guitarist Simon Jeffes co-founded the band described that the origin idea came to him as follows:
In 1972 I was in the south of France. I had eaten some bad fish and was in consequence rather ill. As I lay in bed I had a strange recurring vision, there, before me, was a concrete building like a hotel or council block. I could see into the rooms, each of which was continually scanned by an electronic eye. In the rooms were people, everyone of them preoccupied. In one room a person was looking into a mirror and in another a couple were making love but lovelessly, in a third a composer was listening to music through earphones. Around him there were banks of electronic equipment. But all was silence. Like everyone in his place he had been neutralized, made grey and anonymous. The scene was for me one of ordered desolation. It was as if I were looking into a place which had no heart. Next day when I felt better, I was on the beach sunbathing and suddenly a poem popped into my head. It started out 'I am the proprietor of the Penguin Cafe, I will tell you things at random' and it went on about how the quality of randomness, spontaneity, surprise, unexpectedness and irrationality in our lives is a very precious thing. And if you suppress that to have a nice orderly life, you kill off what's most important. Whereas in the Penguin Cafe your unconscious can just be. It's acceptable there, and that's how everybody is. There is an acceptance there that has to do with living the present with no fear in ourselves.
My favorite music-piece from Penguin Cafe Orchestra is Perpetuum Mobile. The title means ‘Always Keep Moving’ and the music makes you feel like getting up and getting on with our lives—with a smile.
To wrap up, here is a pleasant reminder to:
I hope you enjoyed the note. Now, take a breather.
Until Next Time,
Vinay