I like to joke that I-94 and
I-80 are my second homes.
I’ve spent thousands of miles
on them, miles that trade
scenery for ease — hop on
and drive, no directions
needed. The “check engine”
light on the dashboard of my
old car kept me company, a
constant presence lingering
in the corner of my vision.
It was accompanied by a
symphony of other warning
lights who came and went
as they pleased. My brain
felt a lot like that dashboard:
internal problems and topics
I didn’t understand sim-
mering away under layers of
metal and avoidance.
“It’s when the lights aren’t
flashing that something’s
actually wrong,” I’d profess
to nervous passengers with a
laugh. “She runs just fine.”
Of course, she didn’t. My car,
referred to by friends as “the
Deathbox,” eventually ended
up in the shop, a mechanic
instructing my parents to
never let me drive it again.
“The frame’s rusted out,” the
mechanic told them. “If she
gets hit, the car will basically
disintegrate.”
Turns out, an inadvertent
car crash is what happens
when you bushwack through
life on someone else’s rules.
I’d had warning lights sim-
mering in my body for years,
finally coming into them-
selves during my first years
of college. My warning lights
looked like nervous shots of
Svedka in my dark kitchen
while my boyfriend drove
to my house, my first time
looming, unspoken, between
us. It’s easier when you’re
drunk, obviously. And more
fun. Or, later, anxiety attacks
on the cold concrete floor
of my workplace, my body
pulled to the ground by guilt
and shame after hooking up
with a longtime male friend.
Or a journal page, folded
away from even my closest
friends, where I’d written, “I
feel as if sex is something I
owe to my partner — I’m not
doing it against my will, but
I don’t understand how it’s
supposed to make me feel.”
Or finishing a movie next
to a boyfriend, wondering
how long I could watch the
screensaver camera pan over
the Sahara before we’d have
to go to bed. I felt defective.
I shook during every physi-
cal interaction, a small but
noticeable tremble, and I
told partners to ignore it.
And ignore it, we did. Fol-
lowing my friend’s exam-
ples, I tried everything to fix
this part of me. I pined after
a friend for two years, went
on an almost-blind date that
turned into a six-month
relationship, even initiated
a friends with benefits situ-
ation during my semester
abroad (trying everything
doesn’t quite lend itself to
originality). Each was man-
ageable — which isn’t the
same as enjoyable.
I thought casual hookups
would be empowering —
in a society that profits
off women’s sexualization
through advertising but
punishes them for taking
ownership of their bodies
through sex work, casual
dating and hookup culture
makes more sense. Women
don’t need a relationship,
which deems sex appropri-
ate and private, to enjoy
themselves. I’ll shout from
the rooftops about sex
positivity, and actually have,
but it wasn’t helping me get
anywhere.
***
I never had a successful
relationship in high school,
and I find it perplexing that
some people start college
with zero relationship expe-
rience and others come con-
vinced they’d already found
their life partner. What an
odd world to enter: By age
and education level college
students are mostly on the
same page, but emotionally,
we’re all over the map.
way, where I don’t start to
enjoy them until they are
about to end. Yet unfortu-
nately, this cycle continually
repeats itself. It’s a sad truth
that applies to more than just
books: In life, people tend to
not enjoy things until they
are over.
The problem is that people
are constantly projecting into
the future and ruminating
in the past. We have all be-
come victims of the attention
economy, one where so much
available information and
stimuli has created a huge at-
tention deficit. Hustle porn,
or the fetishization of over-
working oneself, is another
force driving people away
from focusing on the process.
And of course, our capitalis-
tic attitudes don’t help us de-
ter our attention away from
results. Even mindfulness,
the antithesis of capitalism,
has been exploited for profit.
In her book “How to Do
Nothing: Resisting the Atten-
tion Economy,” Jenny Odell
discusses how the very es-
sence of what makes us hu-
man has become threatened
the piano. Spontaneous sing-
alongs. The salty taste of
tears.
We lose a lot when we are not
in the present.
Before her tragic accident
in 2012, in her essay “Op-
posite of Loneliness,” Ma-
rina Keegan wrote, “The best
years of our lives are not be-
hind us. They’re part of us
and they are set for repeti-
tion as we grow up and move
to New York and away from
New York and wish we did
or didn’t live in New York …
of course there are things we
wish we’d done: our read-
ings, that boy across the hall.
We’re our own hardest crit-
ics and it’s easy to let our-
selves down.”
A tweet I recently read said,
“I feel like I’m constantly
worrying about the next part
of my life without realizing
that I’m right in the middle
of what I used to look for-
ward to.” By obsessing over
everything but the reality in
front of us, we are depriving
ourselves of life. Life should
not (only) be a past experi-
ence or a future plan — it
should be the now.
Take a deep breath right now.
Where are you? Who are you
with? How do you feel? Why
are you reading this?
The practice of being pro-
cess-oriented rather than
results-oriented
takes
in-
tentionality. Resisting forces
such as the attention econo-
my and the pressure to work
hard means not only seeing
the problem but developing
the strength to fight power-
ful tendencies: Don’t con-
stantly check your phone in
the car, gaze out the window;
Don’t fill your weeks with too
many tasks, welcome what
each day brings. To focus on
the process means to find
success in everything (F you
capitalism!) — learning from
failure, accepting an unpro-
ductive day, appreciating the
little things (as demonstrat-
ed by Big Mouth’s Gratitoad).
Over time I have discovered
habits and hobbies that keep
me grounded, thoughtful and
intentional.
crease in “time” we now have
to find new hobbies or to re-
lax has been taken advantage
of by educators and CEOS
alike,
over-assigning
and
over-expecting from their
students and employees. The
faux luxury of time that the
pandemic has brought on has
led to intense burnout and
dangerously busy schedules.
But it is possible to take back
the time that has been stolen
away from us by back-to-
back Zoom meetings and the
pressure to master crochet-
ing with all the freedom we
have. Instead of asking what-
ifs, we can focus on what we
do know — what is right in
front of us. We can strive to
be what my therapist calls
process-oriented,
rather
than results-oriented.
I first noticed this distinction
as I reflected on my reading
habits. I always have a par-
ticularly difficult time start-
ing a new book. My selection
process is unnecessarily long
and usually leads to option
paralysis, where there are
so many choices that I ulti-
mately end up with nothing.
There are simply too many
books in the world and so
little time. This may explain
why walking into Barnes &
Noble is simultaneously ex-
citing and sickening. Same
with The Salvation Army. I
digress.
But if I do decide to embark
on an intimate endeavor
with literature, my new and
carefully selected read of-
ten sits on my bedside table,
lonely, waiting to be touched.
Sometimes I tease the book
by picking it up, but this is
usually just to show a friend
what I am “currently read-
ing.” And all-too-often, I’ll
emit the familiar line: “Yeah
I’m really only on page four
— haha. So I have nothing to
report about it yet.”
And I likely won’t for several
months. Right now, this book
is the New York Times best-
seller “Where The Crawdad
Sings” by Delia Owens. Its
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Statement
Thursday, August 5, 2021 — 17
Book seduction, meditation
and other processes
SAMANTHA COLE
Statement Correspondent
This morning I woke up with
big plans: Go for a long walk,
catch up on “The Daily” pod-
cast episodes from The New
York Times, fold my sweat-
shirt pile, call my dad, finish
a finance problem set, write
an essay, draft this piece. At
the crack of dawn (10 a.m.),
I stepped into my Ugg slip-
pers, stumbled down two
flights of stairs in an over-
sized grey T-shirt and Mon-
sters Inc. fluffy pants and
landed in the kitchen. I was
compelled to walk outside
and check the weather im-
mediately after being blind-
ed by the sunlight shining
through the window. To my
surprise, I was greeted with
a gentle warm-ish breeze,
one that felt unfamiliar after
a chilling Ann Arbor winter.
I inhaled the welcoming air
with a deep breath. And then
I did it again. And again.
I closed my eyes. I felt calm. I
felt peaceful. The sun melted
away my exhaustion.
After what felt like a moment
of tranquility, my long list
of morning plans suddenly
came flooding back into my
mind. I pivoted my feet to-
wards the door, but some-
thing kept me in place as I
tried to reenter the kitchen.
I fed the urge to turn back to
the sun, close my eyes and be-
gin to breathe slowly again. I
couldn’t help but smile. I was
resisting the urge to move, to
do, to achieve. I was stand-
ing alone in a t-shirt on my
Joe’s Pizza box-covered back
porch, and I felt more alive
than I had in weeks.
If 2020 has shown us any-
thing, it is that we never truly
know what to expect in life.
And while this uncertainty
naturally leads to feelings
of stress and anxiety, it also
gives us space to practice
being comfortable with the
unknown.
This
so-called
“space” that I am referring to
has been a contentious topic
throughout the pandemic.
For example, the alleged in-
cover art happens to match
my cute little purple lamp.
When I am finally compelled
to pick the book up, it takes
a significant amount of time
for me to focus on the first
few pages. I often have to
read them over twice. Five
or six pages in, I flip forward
to see when the chapter will
end. 10 more pages! I can
do this, I think to cheer my-
self on. I continue reading
with the goal of finishing a
chapter. I read with a results
mindset.
Flash forward a few weeks
and I am sitting upright in
my bed at 3 a.m., my book
propped
up
against
my
knees. Now, I turn the pag-
es with less haste and more
hesitation. I am attached to
the characters and lost in
the words on the page. I read
with a process mindset.
I try not to read books this
by the urge towards constant
productivity.
“What I’m suggesting is that
we take a protective stance
toward ourselves, each other,
and whatever is left of what
makes us human,” Odell
writes. “I’m suggesting that
we protect our spaces and our
time for non-instrumental,
noncommercial activity and
thought, for maintenance, for
care, for conviviality. And I’m
suggesting that we fiercely
protect our human animality
against all technologies that
actively ignore and disdain
the body, the bodies of other
beings, and the body of the
landscape that we inhabit.”
Odell preaches something
that is essential, especially
during a pandemic: We must
do everything in our power
to focus on our humanity
and appreciate what comes
with it rather than fighting
for what we cannot always
control. I live for an extra
hour of laughter at the din-
ner table. The sweet sound
and serenity of Jimi Hendrix
on the highway. The passion
with which my sister plays
Becoming Alice
ANNIE KLUSENDORF
Statement Correspondent
Maggie Wiebe/Daily
STATEMENT