About Letting Go

Post 48:

            There’s always something to do. Maybe it needs doing or doesn’t, but that’s not really my point here. Basically, there’s only three phases of doing stuff. You’re either planning, acting, or stopping.

            Planning is often the most intellectually taxing phase in the game. One has to envision, be creative, use nooks and crannies of the brain otherwise left unemployed for most of the day. Doing is actually the most mindless part, at least I find. You get going and inertia serves as a driver for whatever the endeavor might be. Then there’s stopping.

            Stopping isn’t as physically demanding as doing, not as intellectually demanding as planning, but maybe it’s the most spiritually demanding of the three phases. Stopping something can be either a decision made or a decision made for you. Either way, it can be tough. Stopping often involves a concession, an admittance that it’s as good as it’s going to get—or maybe, it’s just no good at all, time to go back to planning.

            I’ve noted that endings usually suck. This is kind of an offshoot of that thread. There’s something of a funereal mood that goes with stopping. It’s the death of a race, the death of a project. Pretty upbeat, right? Think of the guys that went to moon. There was this huge influx of money and mind and materials to make it happen, an entire country’s hopes and dreams behind it. When they were doing it, inertia (literally) was projecting them through. After the walk and the return and splashdown, when it was time to stop with the whole moon thing, I bet those three boys had an inkling of sadness.

            Letting go whilst not forgetting or trivializing. Another fine line. You know how partial I am to those.

            See you after.