Have you taken a break?

The practice of half-assing things :

WHY DON’T I HAVE ANY HOBBIES is a newsletter I write whenever I’m not too busy drawing buildings. It helps me get out of my head, and I hope it will help you get out of yours (if you happen to find yourself there).

If you like my writing, feel free to share it with someone you think might also enjoy it. Thank you for being here, whoever you are.

Lately, I enjoy getting to work early :

I don’t speed to work, I cruise. I pick up my lunch that I order online. I eat in my car, in the school parking lot. While I wait for class time to near, I listen to a friend’s voice note or finish a chapter I didn’t get to finish in bed. I walk into class a little early, sometimes a lot early, and set up the chairs in a semi circle, or just wait for my students to pile in - sometimes they are there before I am. 

I wasnt always like this, though : 

I’m a procrastinator, I’ve realized. Well - I’m a procrastinator when I’m left to my own devices. I’m fear driven, it seems. Once I feel safe and somewhat in control, there is little that motivates me - not even my own craft. 

burnt out :

I have found that I naturally tend to wait to do things till the last minute so that my stress turns into the very adrenaline I need to get everything done in an impossibly short amount of time - this after doing nothing for an excessively long break that is not quite rest, but more like nothingness. More like guilt. More like shame. More like I can’t do anything because I’m so exhausted. More like I want to keep resting without really resting because who knows when I will ever rest again. 

And it’s a careful balance - allowing myself to wallow while gently urging myself to do something - anything. I let myself wallow because obviously it’s what some part of me wants to do. Even so, I will simultaneously try to ease myself ever so gently into doing some thing because I know that’s the only way out of my vicious procrastination cycle.

So these days, I find myself practicing the act of half-assing things. Historically, I tend not to do things unless I know I’ll do them in the best possible way, but often the pressure to do things and do them well keeps me in my wallow state : Because it’s too hard to meet the standard I’ve set for myself.

how did i get here ?

For instance, I’ve tried for this newsletter to become a practice I “half-ass”, a thing I do without knowing how to do it, an act of mere doing instead of an act of getting it right : A practice - not a performance. If you only knew the idea I had in mind when I started this newsletter - this is not it, not even close.

But I don’t want to be motivated to do some thing merely because I am good at it. Instead of severely limiting the options I have to self-express, I want to be comfortable doing things badly, a thing that used to scare me into doing nothing. I want to be allowed to get it wrong. I want to be wrong. Sometimes I just want to make ugly things that don’t mean anything because I miss using my hands so much.

I was starting to think I hated architecture, but in the last six months since changing states and changing jobs, I’ve realized I just hated my job. I know. I’ve said this time and time again, but if you know me, you know - or if you don’t, you will soon come to realize - that I’m the kind of person who needs to talk about the same things over and over again.

Here, I can’t help but picture discussing the same story over and over again with Elifmina - every iteration of a retelling retold with a slight shift in nuance, in perspective, with an added detail that was previously forgotten - in one of our many rooms back at Wellesley, listening to Beyoncé in my smelly, dirty Jeep, or laying on the floor of her red room in Istanbul that one summer in 2013. The memories are quite vivid in my mind : 

mina laying on the floor of her red room :

Our minds working together to understand the symbolic meaning of words paired  with gestures, or texts that imply tones, analyzing potential solutions and likely outcomes based on our shared knowledge of past histories. I’m mostly talking about our endless rehashing of shit my ex did or said to me, which is totally and completely irrelevant - but the precise methodology of deconstructing a thing’s every angle, its butterfly effect on every single mundane aspect of life has stuck with me. 

In other words, I have been known to have a deep need to understand a thing’s multiplicity, and I have been continuously reflecting on the damage my previous job did as I continue to pick up the pieces : How it affected me, but also how it affected everything else. How it affected my relationships - my relationship with my husband, my relationship with my mom, my relationships with my closest friends. How it affected my relationship to my work, or my relationship to not working - my ability to sit outside and read a book, or my desire to walk my dog. How it affected my need to be creative, or my total apathy for that all too essential part of me.

I’ve thought a lot about diversifying my life on a larger scale. In the recent past I’ve written a lot about how I’ve realized I can’t just practice architecture - I need to teach it, where reaching this conclusion somewhat by accident has changed so much for me :

brad, look ! my students tried to emulate your studio’s iconic site model :

Because it feels good not to put all my eggs in one basket, to feel like I get something from teaching architecture that I can’t by merely practicing it, and vice versa. It feels good to recognize that my life contains boundaries it previously didn’t -  in the form of scheduled class times I plan around every week and flexible meetings with really wonderful clients who understand and respect I’m a practicing architect and an educator, but, more importantly, that I’m a human not a robot. 

The other day, I sat on a bench on the Presidio County Courthouse lawn with Xochi and read the chapter of a book - a thing I had never done before in my life, a thing I wouldn’t have ever had time for before because it’s a non-essential thing. But non-essential acts somehow end up feeling quite essential: If we were to devoid our life of them, I wonder what really is left.

I guess I’m realizing there’s a smaller scale of this diversification of self I am equally interested in investigating : In other words, I understand now that my life as a whole can’t be about just one thing, but my every day can’t either. 

It’s funny but this smaller scaled diversification of self kind of looks like taking a lot of breaks. It looks like not doing one thing for an entire day. In other words - I try not to grind - a thing I’ve become quite good at. 

I’m excellent at getting shit done when it needs to get done. I’m an expert at ignoring everyone including myself and my needs when I have a deadline to follow. But I’ve realized this prioritization of production is what’s ultimately fucked my sense of self. My motivation is shot, and I’m trying to bring it back to life. Or rather, I’m trying to reinvent it, to re-conceive of it because I think it’s always been somewhat misguided by the need to please others.

I’m not sure how one decides what will suddenly begin to motivate one after being motivated by fear for so long. I’m not even sure one can simply “decide” to suddenly pivot when it comes to what motivates the things that we do, the lives that we lead. It feels like it’s less of a decision and more of a practice. 

So lately, I’m trying to practice regulary asking myself : How am I doing? What do I need? Have I taken a break? Am I feeling tired? 

And if I am tired, I rest. I do not push through. I do not grind until it’s done. I do not deprive myself of sleep. I do not prioritize my work. I take a break. And then I take another.

I half-ass it because I’m a human, not a robot. 

That’s all for now,
M

SIDE NOTE :

I can’t help but feel like I’ve tricked a lot of you into being here with my sneaky IG story inviting more people to subscribe. Mostly because that ephemeral content was highly produced in a way I actively try to avoid approaching this newsletter (because it’s just too much work!!!).

Having said that - I really enjoyed the format, and it’s something I find myself wanting to keep exploring, though I’m not sure at what frequency. I might try to include it here from time to time, but then again, maybe I won’t. I just don’t know!

In the meantime feel free to follow along here :