the era of deoptimizing

get over yourself

The world is a beautiful place for those who can guilt-trip themselves into anything. Arriving at the glitter-adorned prison of proficiency and sensationalism is tiring enough, but one can get there on their two feet, three packs of gum, a protein bar, and a Gatorade bottle. I know that much because I’ve done it. Luckily, I don’t have to do the heavy lifting anymore: as a woman allegedly competent enough and boundlessly full of potential, I have tools to outsource my productivity and abuse my fragile brain just the way I want to. My apple watch will tell me if I haven’t walked enough today; my calendar knocks on my rusty doors of peace with notifications; my gua sha, my tiny unthreatening object -the effectiveness of which is questionable at best- I’ve befriended to offset the impact of time and gravity on my skin will be staring at me from the bathroom counter, pleading to postpone bedtime for a 7-10 minute ritual. Et tu, Brute? My body is constricted by something manmade, a beast impossible to pin down. Could be chrysalis of a butterfly about to shed, could be chemical imbalance, could be relentless fear of failure, could be capitalism. At least I get to choose the wallpaper on the phone I’ve stared at for most of the year, which coffee place to get my dopamine kick from, which person to swipe right on, and which tech mogul I want to make richer next — customization is a masterful illusion of free will, isn’t it?

And nothing’s ever enough. Not enough time in a nocturnal mental future mapping session to make up for my writer’s block because I’m well aware if I stop publishing even for a week, I risk falling both out of skill and relevance. Kicked from the content conveyor belt even when I’m still in love with it, holding on for dear life, but now, unfortunately, behind my fellow thinkers. What can I say? It freaks me out a little that I’d spent my life attempting to be better, run faster, never look back, to orchestrate some sort of arcane vision. I should be smarter than this, stay present, be in the moment, et cetera. People much wiser and older have talked about this so many times — I’m just not sure I was present in those lectures. I also failed the common sense finals. What is the ‘moment’ if not rushing somewhere to the sound of your blood vessels narrowing and expanding rhythmically? Inaction and indecision are not my Achilles heel —perhaps why I struggle to empathize with our prophet Sylvia Plath and the fig tree— I’m drawn toward the opposite. Too much action, do it now or die later. My drive is a steaming cup of instant coffee: brewed on impulse and bitter as death, designed for convenience, impossible to enjoy, but not a dealbreaker for my this-will-do attitude.

Only 6-8 weeks left, I pacify myself, knowing a better life is closer. Until what? I don’t know. An alien invasion? Catching my hair on fire, jogging off the edge of the earth, a book deal, overnight fame and fortune? It’s just not adding up to the anticipation I’m constantly living with, stuck in a sterile waiting room with elevator music playing. This only suggests anticipation is another means of distraction from the phantom pain of it all. Weeks turn to months, months turn to decades, schematically then all at once, and I’m still here, out of breath but accustomed, maybe with a little more competence, a busier calendar, some titles to my name, and fewer pauses between my comebacks.

Capitalism contributes to my endless quest for optimization, sure, but it didn’t make me this way. I was a highly autonomous, neurotic child — today, I’m a highly autonomous, neurotic child in an adult’s body. When the broken systems of the world you’re brought into collide with your innate type A uptightness, terrible things happen, but everything feels eerily aligned. Proving myself to the world is the only hill I’m willing to die on, incrementally rewarded by society. I run on shame and self-vitriol, I say jokingly, but I’m only half-joking, of course. It’s my bread and butter; my gasoline, too. Why do you think I’m so everpresently productive, can get anything done in a day, Modus Operandi of a woman not yet broken but walking a very thin line? It hasn’t been an all-misery marathon, not asking for pity — I get high on working for it. It’s what I’ve known and what I’ve gotten good at, with or without rewards to reap. Because I have it together, and you’re all invited to my show.

What is there to enjoy if I’m not digging my nails in the dirt for something to grow out of it in the future? I must be productive, must be sexier, must be nice and gentle, must update my resume, must be hardworking, must have a night out every week, must socialize, must read more books, must keep up with the zeitgeist, must be employed, must be thinner, must have savings, must go on vacation, must be athletic, must floss, I must. So much pressure to crumble under and not enough wellness content to feel nauseous from. If there was a prize at the end of it all, something awaiting to be placed on the dusty shelf of my childhood bedroom, an obnoxious piece of metal with “the woman who did it all & hated all of it” engraved into the charred steel, then I’d appreciate it wasn’t all for nothing. But something’s telling me the prize in question is looking back and weeping over the whirlwind years that had passed me by while I was on my phone, crying over my weight, updating another spreadsheet, or adding things to my portfolio; and failed to find joy in any of those experiences because I’d been so preoccupied with making sure I’m doing life right. That is scary. That’s terrifying, actually.

That split second it takes your brain to catch up with reality between looking for a lost item around the house and realizing you've found it, continuing to pace with the misplaced thing in your hand now searching aimlessly for its ghost, is how the limbo between acknowledging that no one will reward my ambition merely for its existence and my inability to stop chasing it feels. I’m still rummaging through my purse. I’m still late to the party. And we all know it’s a coping mechanism, right? Doesn’t take a genius to trace back the overdoing, the optimization, to the sheer inadequacy of not feeling enough. But this faulty thinking is being actively fueled by all the noise. Fuel to fire. We weren’t meant for this much information, consumption, ambition, this much living, I know — I can feel it in my body, from my stomach to my lymph nodes. But oh how amazing it feels when society’s feedback loop makes the perfect sailor’s knot with your own.

We’re just tired, I think, collectively and individually, and I’m not convinced it’s something to be fixed over Christmas break or with adaptogenic supplements. “Taking a break” implies a temporary measure that ultimately gets you back on track. I don’t want to be back on track — I don’t even wish to know there is a track, however hypothetical. There just aren’t enough naps in the world to salvage the exhaustion.

And maybe it’s the lack of sunlight or the pre-holiday rush talking, and I tend to pamper my dramatics, but the urge to strip it all down to the basics is strong. Radically so. I think this is going to be my one and only resolution next year. Simplicity, appreciating the emptiness, the boredom. I want a clean house. I want to own a maximum of 20 objects. I want to wear the clothes I already own. I don’t want to see more ads. I want to listen to just one album at a time. I want to eat boring food and have boring opinions I almost never feel inclined to share except in written form and with enough distance between emotion and reaction. I want to meet random people in random places. I don’t want new apps on my phone. I want to move my body to have fun with it, not to exercise apologetic turmoil. I don’t want to make a to-do list and I don’t need any more acquaintances. I want prose, not content. I don’t want my head to feel like the clearance aisle of TJ Maxx anymore. And so, maybe I’ll wake up fresh and glowy tomorrow, or maybe this is a commitment to simplifying things, stripping Vivaldi’s Spring Allegro down to the first violin solo. I need to remind myself that the only time I’ve ever truly felt pride for something I’d done or achieved is looking back on accumulated moments of quiet consistency, not grandiose extremes. It felt boring, lifeless in the moment — I wasn’t proud and I thought I was living a lame life. In hindsight, it was a strong foundation of something made to last, not wither away. And the “big things” I’d desperately wanted turned out to be very complicated things I still, you guessed it, wasn’t satisfied with, offput by the exhausting complexity underneath the glossy exterior, as though deceived.

Surrendering to the agony and bliss of both not doing and not knowing is what I want to master. Small gestures, fewer rules. It’s going to be awkward and guilty at first, boring on the brink of deadly. Many will call my apparatus lazy — but I’ve so long spent on the wrong end of thinking that I don’t recognize myself when the devices are off, lights are out, and the static noise isn’t there to distract me. I hope to discover who I am outside of paradigms like success and failure, love and hate, online and offline. I don’t want to channel my inner child — I am the child. Ambition as a consequence of creation, not as proof I’m desirable or deserving. This shall start with the radical acceptance that yes, I may never be successful enough, good enough, or together enough, no matter how much I optimize my life -not to my standards anyway- and I don’t get to gatekeep the passage of time in between trying. I’ve said this to myself before, each time resisting the knowledge, pushing back and revolting even harder. This time, I’ll turn to the mirror and say so what? Get over yourself.