Sinking into the Pit

I seemed to be squeezing every drop of juice out of the day. I had risen at 6am, gone for a run, made a super healthy smoothy, done an hour long meditation, and finished my morning routine by 8 o’clock! My mind felt as sharp as a Samurai's blade as I proceeded with 4 straight hours of piano practice, and then another 4 hours of writing. I could feel my skills improving, my mind enhancing my… dream… fading. I could feel…what could I feel? The illusion, shattering? No .. It was blackness, returning. 

— — — 

The dimness of ‘the Pit’ never so much as suggested that morning had come. Our flat was in a sunken recess of the building, down 3 flights of slowly-rotting wooden stairs, just out of the suns reach. The gaping hole right outside our front door, dropping to the depths of the building - and sealed only by a chicken wire cage - wasn’t the only reason we had named our flat ‘The Pit’.

In other places I have lived, the sunshine would often try to burst through the curtains when the morning came. But any sliver of sunlight that dared creep into the Pit was swallowed. I was still fast asleep at 8am. And 9am. And 10am. I would have never known that day had come - until I finally woke up at 11am, for the 6th day in a row. I gaped at my phone with my sleep-clunky eyes. “11 o’clock already!” I croaked, dragging myself out from the covers and shuffling to the bathroom. I needed to get up at do things dammit! I couldn’t keep sleeping in like this… 

Grumpy is not a good way to start the day. But I couldn’t help but feel miffed for sleeping in for the 6th day in a row, wasting the precious daytime hours in slumber when I should have been doing the things I vowed to do this year, like focussing on fulfilling my Quest, practicing piano, writing, or building my platform as an artist… That was my job, my work. I had finally made my passions into full time occupation. Wasn’t I meant to be excited to work on the creative pursuits I finally had time for? I should have been jumping out of bed with glee to hone my craft as an Artist! But no. There was no excitement, no jubilation. Just grumpiness. The time it took for the shower to go warm didn’t help either; my hand was going limp hanging in the icy water. I used to have cold showers every morning. What ever happened to that discipline? 

The water wasn’t getting warmer. Nor was my mood. “Ah screw it!” I said, throwing myself in without a chance to think about it. Cold crashed against my body like glass shattering. Shock rushed through my bones and I gasped. My feet stamped and arms twitched in the icy blast. Insanity. Brilliant insanity. Just before the water became warm, I felt all the lethargy that clogged my system cleared out and washed away. And the grumpiness with it. My mind was clear. Thoughts crisp. After washing, I slammed the shower tap off, and went to face the mirror.

“Six days! What the F***!”

— — —

The minute I dressed, I pulled out my journal and began scrawling before the tea was even ready. Six days had passed. Six foggy days! I tried to recall what I did in that time, but I honestly couldn’t remember. It was as if I was in a waking daze, a zombie in my own skin. I think I went to a few parties, walked around town a few times, made some cafe visits. Surely I did a few hours of piano practice, right? I poured the tea. Took a few sips. It was 6 days ago that I came back from my first busking mission. My first mission to earn my income as a busker in Queenstown, which turned out to be a monstrous failure, whereby I returned to Dunedin with less money than I started with. My plan crumbled to dust before I even had a chance to gather the pieces. That was definitely the reason I had lost all motivation in these past 6 days. My plan was doomed to fail. Busking in Queenstown to earn my money was a dream made of plastic. Attractive, sure. But reliable? No. No way. Winter was coming. I had not considered questions like: what if it rains? Or what if my fingers become ice-cubes in the cold?  What if my car breaks down? What if nobody gives me money??

I slumped in my chair. The busking endeavour wasn’t the only failure. Judging by the last 6 days, I had also failed at everything else I was trying to do. I thought that without a job, I would be unhinged to do the things I needed to do to fulfil my Quest; that I would have the freedom to focus on my Life Purpose. But with all the time in the world, laziness found a place in my life. Routine was destroyed. Discipline dwindled. Motivation sagged. And despite the warmth of my creative space, even my desire to improve my crafts was deteriorating. My life wasn’t organised; it was a mess. What happened? 

Abruptly, I rose from my desk and went outside for fresh air. But the air seemed far from ‘fresh’ down in the Pit. Two rubbish bags were clumped against the wired cage in the corner, and a draft wafted up from the depths of the gaping hole. I went close to peer down the hole. It was a bottomless chasm - perhaps my routine, my discipline, and my motivation were all down there, sinking further into the Pit. Somehow, I needed to get them back, lest I sink into the Pit… I could still salvage my Quest lifestyle. It meant that I needed to re-organise my life. Desperately. 

I went back inside, hoping to start the re-construction of my lifestyle with a healthy salad. But the kitchen was a portrait in chaos. Dirty dishes jumbled in the sink, pans half-filled with slop, crumbs forming the beginnings of a crumb-carpet on the floor. Cluttered and messy; an illustration of my mind in the past 6 days. With a huge sigh, I went up and began cleaning it. Perhaps that was my first step to re-organising my lifestyle. After a few minutes, I felt a lot better. Such a simple action as cleaning the kitchen was proving to the most invigorating. A salad on top of that just about rekindled my motivation, and then when I returned to my room, I had a whole new plan ready to initiate: a plan to take back control over my Quest lifestyle.

I was only 1 month into the Quest lifestyle - I couldn’t give up this soon. And I wasn’t going to. If busking wasn’t going to pull an income, perhaps I could turn to my online resources. Build my Youtube channel, re-release my first original piano album, market it properly… It could work. If I was productive enough. 

Productive. “Of course! I need to be productive! I need to hurry up and make these music videos already!” I wrote a list of all my original piano songs. One by one, I would go out and make a video for them. One by one, I would tick them off. But which one first?