9:15PM
My watch alarm goes off at 9:15PM everyday. At first, the purpose of
this alarm was to get my eyes off screens and get myself ready for
bed. The routine reminder helped pull me out of deep computer trances
and put me into a good sleep hygiene. (Though many times my alarm
beeped on ignored.)
When my lifestyle changed and bedtimes became later, the alarm stopped
having any useful meaning. My watch still dutifully beeped at 9:15PM
everyday, but I didn't look away from screens or begin my bedtime
routine. All the same, I was compelled to keep the alarm. Maybe I'd
get back to my routine, I thought. Not tonight, but maybe
tomorrow. Well, the routine hasn't come back. But I did find a present
use for the alarm.
Now when the alarm goes off I perform a teeny existential inquiry. I
look around my environment, I look within my head and heart, and I ask
myself: "am I where I want to be right now?"
It's easy to be somewhere sometime without wanting to be there
then. Many occasion I've found myself in an experience I don't want
for myself, that I'm tolerating simply to maintain social
graces. Someone wants to keep the good times going when I'd rather go
home. Or someone wants to get the good times going when I'd rather
they didn't start. I don't get much from going to bars, going for
coffee, or going to parties. I am fulfilled by quiet activities like
drawing, writing, and sewing. These things are not easily made
multiplayer. No wonder I feel compelled to concede to activities
others enjoy.
9:15PM. That's my cue to check-in with myself and ask if I'm where I
want to be. And recently I've found myself content with my choices,
happy to be watching a movie or playing on the computer or ambiantly
sitting with a friend. To feel that "yes" is a great feeling, like the
touch of warm bath water all over my soul: warm, weightless,
erasing. When I am where I want to be I feel most like myself, which
is to feel like I've melted into my surroundings. There's such little
latency between thought and feeling, such immediate palpability of
gratification. That's life: when the wires and joints disappear---when
I'm fully inhabiting a moment without counting the minutes.
9:15PM hasn't always been a "yes". Sometimes, resentfully, I have
answered "no". I've been in conversations, though I wanted quiet. I've
been among people, though I wanted solitude. I've wanted to be
somewhere so revoltingly different than what was before me. And I
suffered for this, feeling despair and loathing for being untrue to
what I want to do. Worse still, I'm not able to extract myself from
these moments. I'd like to do something about that, but it's not the
subject of this writing. To be instrospected on another day, maybe.
But how different would my answer be given at 1:00PM, 5:15PM, or
8:20AM? I have wondered about the implications of answering my
existential inquiry in the evening, compared to say afternoon or
morning. The truth is that I know I'd say "no" in those moments, for
they are usually given over to another person: my employer. 9:15PM is
consistently my own, though. By then I've decompressed, cooked, and
cleaned. There's nothing left I need to do, so I can fulfill what I
want to do. Thus when I ask myself "am I where I want to be" I am
expecting the answer to be "yes". After all, with the little time I
have to myself I should always spend it on myself.
Lately I've found myself teetering on the edge: either equal measures
of "yes" and "no", or ambivalence to either answer---like I'm not even
sure how I feel. These moments are worrying, but permissible. This
routine is only an exercise in existential inquiry: to ask and
observe. The moment isn't one for great celebration or upheaval in my
life. The alarm goes off, I check-in with myself, and I carry on with
my day. Answer or not, that brief moment of reflection is powerful.
So what next? I've considered changing the time of my inquiry. Maybe I
would make surprising observations in the morning, or mid-way through
work. So too I've considered making the time random each day. I'm not
sure I'll do either just yet. To be honest, I'm not even sure how much
longer I'll keep up this routine. Only time will tell...