I don’t deal well with scheduling. Any time I try to schedule myself, to block out what I’m going to be doing and when, days or weeks ahead of time, I get frustrated. I can’t help but rattle against the bars of the little time-prison I’ve made for myself, and each task getting squashed and cut apart to fit into neatly spaced blocks fills me with a deep sense of anxiety, each moment filled with dread of the next moment and the self-imposed obligations it must bring. I try to plan without scheduling now, to keep myself accountable to some task-list that I can tackle in whatever arbitrary order I care to, but this creates other problems, everything sliding around haphazardly, evicting space reserved for sleep and meals or sliding off of the list completely, falling between the cracks to be forgotten.
I know this particular problem is one many people aren’t lucky enough to have. Being able to construct a life in a blank schedule, largely unalloyed by obligations, is a tremendous privilege, and one I jealously and instinctively guard. A blank schedule is, in logistical terms, an incredibly powerful thing – but in emotional and logical terms it is every bit as unwieldy and intimidating as a blank canvas, demanding blindly, eagerly, and relentlessly to be defined. Jobs, appointments, errands, interpersonal obligations, these all create a framework which obstructs and consumes time, but also gives it structure, landmarks: Without them, it’s all too easy to drift aimlessly in an undifferentiated temporal sea.
Most of us create our lives, inasmuch as we’re able to, on canvases stained with everything that has transpired around us. When we seek to clear everything off our schedule, to start from blank canvas, to open ourselves up to be who we are as much as possible, a unique challenge is created. Maybe some of you out there could, given a huge empty block of time, figure out exactly how to put it to use in a way which feels satisfying and fulfilling to you. Me, either I spend my time doing a bunch of random little tasks – which I end up resenting afterwards for their consumption of time that seemingly could be used for more important and interesting things – or the big tasks I actually want to do end up blobbing up haphazardly like oily paint in water and running all over the place, leaking over into spaces meant for each other, mixing carelessly, staining the walls and tile. The choice is between being busy, harried, and having no time – or of living in a void where time has little meaning.
One of the things I’m hoping to do, and something which has been thoroughly derailed by the pandemic, is expanding my life beyond the scope of one room. Right now, almost every hour is spent in the same four walls, each wall packed close to the other, where I eat and sleep, work and play. Time is undifferentiated because space is undifferentiated, a unifying space for all activities, no hard boundaries separating them. There is an important ritual to the restaurant, the theater, the school, and so forth: Though the function of these spaces could be performed anywhere, could be done in any undifferentiated space, these spaces are designated as separate, designated as dedicated to a particular function or pastime.
This specificity causes a magical transformation. Food becomes A Meal, acting becomes A Show, reading becomes Studying– and each is elevated and isolated by the understanding that this is the place for what is happening right now, a promise that you needn’t worry about anything outside of the moment because this at least is correct: What is happening now is entirely what is supposed to be happening, the final realization of the architect’s ambition. Your schedule is dictated by your presence, and for a few moments in time at least you know exactly where you are.