On stress and dissonance
Stress is just another word for fatigue. Mechanical fatigue offers an easier, more tangible image: Things crack under pressure or resist to develop a dominant trait that allows them to endure. Physical stress is associated with failure, not what led to it, the actual stress. This spiel is hammered by countless TED talks and health influencers. I get it - stress is an evolutionary advantage. Everything after that acknowledgment is the gold many of us are sifting for.
Having kids has been taxing in all sorts of new ways. Everything is new to them and to their parents. Mechanically, kids (at least mine) are brutal. Pure (adorable) entropy. In an already entropic reality, a lot of energy is spent finding homeostasis. My mood dips a lot faster. Sleep is inconsistent. I'm rarely "primed" physically, thus mentally.
Kids have "safety objects"as a soothing mechanism. My oldest son consistently shows a more stable mood when holding a toothbrush or tubes of lip balm. I have my own superstitions I hold on to in the same fashion.
Not so metaphorically the mind eats last. Alan Watts's joke was spot on: the stomach is the mother organ. It gives to whoever needs the most. It also plays well with sleep, the stomach needs its downtime to do all of the things - there are few things I look forward to as much as my morning poop.
Speaking of output, staying creative has been a struggle, due to time and neuron availability. I like to think my kids are the squeeze that only gets the best out of me. My impostor syndrome is now coupled with performance anxiety. I'm operating at half of my previous creative capacity. I only have two kids and the luxury of a good home setup and a really nice job, and yet, the struggle is real. Two hours of focus time is a rare luxury. Breakthroughs are rare when you hear the word "tractor" repeated 1000 times per day. I go days without an interesting thought of my own.
Life is incredibly messy not because of negligence, laziness, malice, or stupidity, but by essence. Yet another truth parenthood brings into sharp relief. Working from home is added to it. Am I part of a social experiment? Alone and immobile is a terrible combo. It gets worse when the feeling of not actually being with your family adds on top of that. Every time I hear them in the room next door, I feel like I'm not there for them. I thought it would ease but no progress to report in a year.
Until recently I assumed that reducing the burn and working on myself were the most viable strategies. They are valuable, but considering the increased amplitude of the ups/downs I can confidently say that whenever I feel like I am about to break, I'm probably closer to 30% of the way there — not on the brink of it like my feelings would make me believe. The possibility of solving the root cause of my anxiety in the current system is close to zero, thus irrelevant.
That observation makes the reality of incremental betterment bearable. It put the intensity of the moment in perspective allowing a shift away from my usual (stoic) 100% brute-force approach.
Zen, stoic, nihilist, or whatever, the more one talks and thinks about stress, the deeper it goes. That’s basic. One is assumed to be able to discard some stress by establishing priorities, and matching compartments. Like if we had ballasts we could fill and empty depending on how deep want wanted to sink in our neurosis. And if we did, anyone would want to use it with reasonable reason as a captain. I believe few are willing and able to trigger stress therapeutically. Exercise is mild compared to being chased by an actual predator. There’s no deadly predator anymore yet our buttons are still there, being pushed.
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I started to write the above about 2 years ago, probably on a tough day. It sat on my draft for a while. I had a few more meltdowns and long days since then. I returned to work after my second parental leave a few weeks ago. Today the known 5pm crash happened. Just like my 2 babies, except that I didn’t burst out screaming (barely). I desperately ran, after I bolted away from the screen. The day was not even that hard, 3h of meetings, one of which I just had to sit through. What is even “work stress”? Screen time, performance anxiety, corporate culture...? It’s a death-by-a-thousand-cut story. Is 6 hours of screen time too much or is it the bogus 9-month project timeline with no brief?
The hardest thing as a working-from-home parent is dealing with the compartmentalization of time, brain, and space. My heart breaks when my kid catches me on my phone and asks that I play or read with him. Sometimes it is unreasonable but my anxiety around not being a good, engaged dad and worker creates a vicious push and pull. Trying to rationalize the inner turmoil has been madness. I know I can reply to that Slack message later or read this book at bedtime. Ultimately it’s the amount of tiny decisions that wears me down, not the bigness of the dilemma. There are many new tech dads around me. Although we rarely talk about it, seeing them, and knowing them around is therapeutic. The way fatigue and existential stewing manifest is fantastic to catch in the faintest idiosyncrasies.
That all reminded me of my earlier theories on stress. While enjoying my luxurious, 20 weeks-long, paid, leave, I regularly contemplated how it would be hard to be a stay-at-home dad. Nothing is easy, or simple. This time with my family allowed the significance of this fact to reverberate in a clear room. The significance of my struggle with my hyperactive kids is in sharp contrast with the insignificance of my work. I believe it is not humanly possible to live a life without significance and remain healthy. Stress is dissonance. Struggle is the process.
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