Sometime you get absorbed by your job. This is not necessarily bad: jobs are reality, too. But the pressures of working in an office often distract me from their reality: I solve a problem, I answer email, I got to a meeting, and the doing of things seems more important than their being. When I was in sales, alternating boredom and adrenalin-rush distracted me. When I worked for a sculptor, delusions of the importance of art distracted me. When I worked as a carpenter, fatigue or pain or cold distracted me. Maybe it’s not getting distracted, maybe it’s that there are more realities than one but we can usually only pay attention to one.
Today in the office I was absorbed by work. Even when I stopped a meeting so I could show the person I was meeting with the baby hummingbirds in their nest, I was still absorbed by work. Then I walked over to the other building to get water for tea, and the day crashed in on me. You live for moments like that, and you also avoid them like the plague because they are so disruptive.
Dan, your post reminded me of a line in a book (which was a quote from another writer) that I read just last night: “You know . . . my whole life I have been complaining that my work was constantly interrupted, until I discovered that my interruptions were my work.”
Liz @ 1 — That’s a good way of putting it.
So, I’m confused. You write “You live for moments like that, and you also avoid them like the plague because they are so disruptive.” What moments do you live for? The hummingbird ones? Or the “I’m absorbed by my work” ones? Or the “day crashed in on me” ones?
And, okay, I’m being super dense. What does “the day crashed in on me” mean? I’m sorry. Maybe I’m reading too many student papers lately. My mind is fudgy.
Jean @ 3 — In answer to all your questions: Yes.
(That’s the kind of answer you get when you try to pin down a Transcendentalist.)
Daaaaaaaaaaannnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn….you can’t answer “yes” to the question “What does ‘the day crashed in on me’ mean?” c’mon, fess up. what does that mean?