A year ago I had lists of to-do lists. I had a list for issues concerning the writing of my thesis, a list for things regarding my students (organizing recitals, copying music, making arrangements, etc), a list of repertoire on which I was working, a list of upcoming recitals and auditions, a list of things to do for Classical Revolution (which was often subdivided into lists concerning grants, organizing groups for the next performance, organizing concerts, contacting media about concerts, making flyers, setting up rehearsals etc), a list for my classwork obligations, a general nuts and bolts list (do taxes, pay bills, return library books, etc), and usually and delightfully a grocery store list, which didn't change much from one week to the next, but once you're in the habit of such a thing, why not make one more. A good friend of mine, equally occupied, was an advocate of "clouds," an organizational tool that transcended the list by grouping things into little bubbles connected to one another. My brain was always too linear, or at least my paper was too vertical, for such a modern concoction of busyness.
And now I don't really have a single list. Sometimes when I'm really tired I make a list for the pleasure of the habitual tick to cross something off of it. "Eat dinner." Check. "Go to bed." Check. A good day. Although usually there is at least one more weighty bit of agenda. "Answer email." "Study Japanese." "Order airplane ticket home." But still, it doesn't come close to the small book of scratches that I carried with me everywhere. I understand why I kept my apartment pure of internet for months while I lived in Madison.
It's a different way of living. People in American often ask me, "So apart from rehearsals, practice, Japanese, and Tae Kwon Do, what do you do?" It's a funny question. And one that seems even more strange now that I'm starting to get acclimated more to this way of life. In the middle of the year I started to take some courses through Coursera, but didn't maintain it through different travel stints that I had. I think I'm reading a bit more, meditating, sleeping, blogging, cooking dinner at home. I have no affinity for watching movies alone, even youtube videos. Perhaps I should try harder. But what am I "doing?" Doing, doing. This act of doing. I wonder if I will ever understand it. What needs to be done?
The list seems to organize free time. Time that is unstructured. Time that is free. In this life I live, I have no right to organize my free time in such an airtight manner. I cannot teach lessons, I cannot organize concerts, I have no classwork obligations, or outside playing obligations to organize and maintain. I don't even have a library to which to return books. But oddly enough, it is entirely possible to create a list of things to do, to create things to do for which a list needs to be constructed. Organizing recitals for my return to America (organizing recitals that require a return to America), going to the Japanese library to check out books for language practice, pursuing the creation of more chamber music opportunities at HPAC, creating bibliographies pertaining to my doctoral studies, researching journals for publication.
And I have some of these lists. I pursue them at times. But I think that I have something else to learn from this place beyond the self-inflicted pocketing of free time. It is a hard lesson for me to learn. I enjoy being productive and engaged, creating things, learning things, doing things. And I tend to want to plan out my day so as to ensure that a certain productivity quotient will have been met by the day's conclusion. I still don't have the grasp of it. I still make mental lists of internal obligations.
What would life be like if we only acted as the need and desire arose? What is the source of motivation for "doing" things? How little can possibly be done? And what is received in exchange for that space?
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