Life is never exactly linear when we try to comprehend it all at once; nor, if we are honest with ourselves, does it work well with strict definitions and clearly-labelled boxes for everything we think, say, do, and dream.
That is one reason why I love the open-endedness of the concept of centers outlined in the previous post: there is no right or wrong way to apply the “rules of play,” though the goal remains the same – create a life worth living, one that is beautiful, alive, orderly, a poem in itself.
Our previous dry analysis of centers in a poem isn’t enough to make the concept useful, however. Thus I now introduce…
Centers in Life Design
“Life centers” mean different things at different layers of introspection (much like how Gabriel notes the different levels of scale to centers in a poem) – beliefs, values, principles, and actions all fit under the broader idea of “things that hold your life together, help it make sense, and form it into something worth investing in.”
(For the purpose of this post, I’d take actions as the focus of the analyses below – I’ve written about beliefs and principles elsewhere.)
The things you do create and become poetic centers of your life – especially the activities that fall into either or both of two categories:
- They form part of your life mission or “personal legend” (the key thing(s) you invest your best into)
- They are what you spend most of your waking hours on (including daily habits)
As such, they fall under similar descriptions and guidelines as what’s listed above. To reduce redundancy, the below is how I would summarize a few key points in ensuring that the life I live has living, breathing centers that do their job well.
The things I do must draw me to invest myself and my resources in it to the point of excellence, as well as be useful and engaging enough to share with others. Such value doesn’t have to be in-my-face or over-emphasized all the time, but it must be there, like a steady, deep, strong heartbeat. The more such a skill/creative act can be repeated, adapted, and applied in different fields and contexts, the more valuable and stronger of a center such an activity becomes.
Juxtaposing such an idealistic thought are the concepts of “positive spaces” and “good shapes,” where each activity should be life-giving instead of life-sucking, and make the work more beautiful while also being beautiful on its own. Such actions in a life resonates with the person doing the living, and also with each other (more on this below). The differences between which effect similar activities have can be subtle – for example, an hour-and-a-half of YouTube scrolling drains me, while watching a thought-provoking, well-crafted movie of the same length often improves my life in some way. Both are screen-based, generally passive, and (too often) sedentary; however, what I feel and do after either pursuit could be drastically different. Of course, the definitions of “positive,” “life-giving,” and even “good” is largely subjective and personal, (also – your current mood, health, and mindset greatly affects the impact any given action or choice has on you), adding to the trickiness of it all. But while it might be true that a life is more than the sum of its parts, it would be valuable to take another thoughtful look and see whether some parts have outlived their welcome in your life, and whether it might be good to add some new parts in.
Boundaries of action centers might be defined as the tools and places an activity belongs in – the contexts in which it is relevant and can be used to its full potential. They can also be thought patterns, a certain perspective or mindset one holds towards a given activity that delineates between this activity and the next, between what fits in this situation and what doesn’t. Awareness of such boundaries is key to harnessing one’s focus when one needs it, and also the setting loose of one’s creativity (as when such limitations are consciously lowered or removed to allow at least a temporary disturbance of understood order). Of course, here the aspect of ambiguity in centers enters the scene, forcing you to see not only where one thing stops and another begins, but how they flow into each other or attract your attention away from the other.
Symbiosis between the actions and habits making up one’s life creates resonance and positive space within the day-to-day. Connections that are mutually beneficial to two (or more) activities inspire and strengthen each other over time – architectural design as a day job inspires one to create artistic, everyday pieces from cement or clay; longboard dancing leads to better balance and a stronger sense of rhythm/timing, which feeds into martial arts training and other musical pursuits. More often than not, such connections come from one’s values and priorities – thus, there may be relationships present that are not always obvious, but are nonetheless clear and understood by one’s self. When this deep interlock is present in most (if not all ) of what I do in my waking hours, a satisfying sense of cohesion and significance – of progress, even – is palpable. When these symbiotic relationships don’t exist, it becomes quite easy to feel lost, like time and effort (if not money and interpersonal connections) has been wasted.
However, even as you aim to build such symmetries and echoes between the things you do, contrast is also key. (This is where I could go into “work/life balance” if I so choose – but I shall not, as this sort of contrast is more nuanced and complex than that.) Contrast means lots of different things in a life – mentally-taxing work versus physical, things you do that you must do versus the ones you want to, the activities that calm you down versus those that fill you with excitement. “Healthy” ones versus “unhealthy” ones. Habitual or regular things versus a one-off experiment. Things you’ve done before versus things you’ve never tried. Without such contrasts, life feels dead, limp, lifeless. The tricky bit is to maintain a good mix of contrast – however that looks to you in your life – without straying so far from the centers you lose your way, and the poetry of your day-to-day shatters into senseless lines of random words.
Roughness, the last characteristic of a strong poetic center explored in the previous post, can be phrased simply: Do what matters, even if it does not turn out perfectly. It is more worthwhile to fail at the things you love than to succeed at the things that drain you of what it means to be human. What this means is, your life poem will look like a mess at times; sometimes all you have to show to the world are failures after failures at things no one else seems to value; at other times you crouch in the shadows, peering at the inch of progress you’ve managed to make towards something and wonder if you should have joined “them” climbing someone else’s mountain. And then you remind yourself: being comfortable making a mistake is a powerful skill – but more important than that is to know what sorts of mistakes are worth making.
Also, remember – time compounds all that you build. Choose wisely.
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