LETTING (YOURSELF) GO

August 21st, 2019

The real drive of any action is often the relief or satisfaction that comes at the end of such an activity.  Whether this be the satisfaction of a goal, or the rest after a workout, we are often pushing ourselves towards or luring ourselves forward in some way.

Even this constant organized business of doing all sorts of things can itself call for it’s own relief.  A vacation of sorts.  A time when we can really let go.

Perhaps the most visceral example of this is just before falling asleep after a horrendously active day, when sleep feels as though it’s clawing at the mind.  In that moment, letting go becomes a sort of default state.  We fall into it without effort or thought.  It really is a loss of the prior condition. 

Without such an active day, we tend to approach sleep as another activity to initiate, and a restless mind can make it seem as though we masochistically procrastinate, when really we have simply failed to let go of the day’s thoughts.

This sort of phrasing pops up in another sense, as in: letting yourself go.

Here we let baser instincts run the show: see donut, eat donut?  Watch T.V. instead of going for a run.  Snap at a loved on instead of pausing to think the situation through.

Nearly all the things that make us human in the way we seek to be more humane have some easier, baser counterpart of action.  The automatic reflex that often fails to be in our best interest.

With this in mind, what does the opposite mean?

What does it mean to get a grip?