Work At A Different Speed

How using 'Oblique Strategies' has informed my daily practices and made my work and life better

The tension was building, and quickly. The trickle of pressure began piping down my neck and emptied like a delta into my the center of my chest. I knew that this river of pressure would soon give way to a full blown waterfall of anxiety and terror. It was 6:45 in the morning. It happened while I was hanging up a few of my flannel shirts.

Dropping the hanger a second time was the first clue that things were headed in the wrong direction. It was a black hanger, one of those with that faux velvet texture meant to impart an air of luxury, but does little more than to bathe the garment it holds in a glow of TJ Maxx level fashion. This particular black, faux velvet hanger had caught numerous times on neighboring pants as I tried to pull it from the closet rod. It was pissing me off to a ridiculous degree.

The removal of the hanger would surely have been easier if I had bothered to stop and use two hands. This would however, require patience, slowing down. I had not the time for that.

Or did I? No, stop thinking about that, we have . . . getting done to get done.

Finally, as I brought the hanger free from its perch in the closet, I dropped it on my toe. In frustrated tones, but with a deep breath of manufactured calm, I bent over to pick up the hanger yet again. I arose again, and with my right hand, I tucked the hangar into the left sleeve of my flann . . . . and the damned thing clunked to the floor again.

The patience was gone. The false calm and measured approach were cast aside. Violently, I thrashed down to pick up the hanger, then hastily tossed one shoulder of the flannel onto the hangar and in one sweeping motion swung my body over to pick up a small tuft of dryer lint from the floor, grab my recently used towel, my dirty socks and stomped three steps towards the laundry basket.

I was headed straight for a panic attack.

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That entire sequence took the sum total of maybe three seconds. It happens to me at varying degrees several or even dozens of times a day. It’s unlikely that one of these monetary flashes of anxiety will manifest to panic for me, but they have a cumulative effect. If I don’t pay attention and deal with it in time.

In the midst of what can only now be referred to as The Flannel Incident, I was able to regain my calm relatively quickly by identifying what was happening and to some degree, why it was happening. That might seem like a rudimentary skill for a fifty year old man, but we all have our own learning curve at each different skillset.

Not long ago, these sensations would have been imperceptible at this early stage. I would have noticed the minor pangs of anxiety, but only after they had begun to morph into the mild, but undeniable physical symptoms to which I have become accustomed. The reality of the moment would have been lost upon me until I was riddled with the tension, the tingling extremities, and the tunnel vision that I have come to see as the tangible relics of a lifetime condition.

In the last year I have become much more aware of how my anxiety and my ADHD are intertwined. They are inextricably linked in a million little moments, moments like moving too fast to hang up a shirt. As I began to process the direct relationship between these parts of myself, I saw patterns of behavior that were both enlightening, and terrifying.

Over the last three months I have begun a series of daily practices that are designed to help me build more of a daily routine and in a larger life that I want to lead. These rituals are a way for me to control my day and my future. They’re also a way for me to remember that small, slow, consistent work leads to massive results. I will write more in-depth about my specific practices and how I try to implement them in a future post.

Tasks as simple as making the bed, washing my face, or reading for 20 minutes, done with an almost monk-like devotion, have led to an increase in my self-esteem, my health and my productivity. These practices have also helped me greatly in recognizing and reducing my anxiety and the ADHD tendencies that accompany it.

These tasks alone however, are not a solution unto themselves.

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I first became aware of ‘Oblique Strategies’ in the 1990s when I was spending a ton of time around art school kids and playing in a college rock band named after a Brian Eno song. I know, it scans pretty hard.

Despite the fact that I was in the art-poseur phase of my early twenties, I thought - and still think - the concept behind ‘Oblique Strategies’ was remarkable.

Simply put, it’s a philosophical approach to creativity in the form of cards printed with prompts for ways of working or formulating ideas. In the set that I own, there are 55 cards each with a different phrase on them to spark a new way of looking at a problem or creative conundrum. The “thought behind the thought” as artist, and co-creator of the set, Peter Schmidt called it.

It’s a studio hipster’s favorite set of fortune cookies.

The introduction to the 2001 edition of the cards describes it better than I can.

These cards evolved from separate observations of the principles underlying what we were doing. Sometimes they were recognised in retrospect (intellect catching up with intuition), sometimes they were identified as they were happening, sometimes they were formulated. They can be used as a pack, or by drawing a single card from the shuffled pack when a dilemma occurs in a working situation. In this case the card is trusted even if its appropriateness is quite unclear...

Later in the same day as the aforementioned FLANNEL INCIDENT, I happened to see my set of ‘Oblique Strategies’ on the shelf and thought it might be time to crack it open. I was feeling some serious self-doubt in my work and my vision. I was stuck working on a song and I was discouraged.

A bit desperately I decided to shuffle the deck, pluck out a card and it might change my attitude. What the hell, I wasn’t making any progress wallowing knee deep in self pity and staring into the middle distance.

I pulled out a card, and it read “Work at a different pace”.

Was this a joke? My whole life people had been telling me to slow down. Oddly though, they had been prodding me with impatient reminders to “stay on task” and “apply myself” for my whole life as well. We’ll need to save mixed messages for our youth and how it makes us all crazy for a separate installment.

I have been working incredibly hard to slow my life down and take control of it again in a way that feels fresh and exciting. Each day I am taking the time to care for myself, my relationships and my happiness. I still need to be reminded to slow down. We all do.

Last week, we had an ice storm here in Michigan and I was outside of our house and listening to the quiet. Cars were off of the streets. The ground and the trees were covered in makeshift glass and the world seemed as though it had slowed down for just a minute. It was beautiful. That beauty was intensified further when I took just 60 seconds to stand there in the February chill and take it in.

I knew what the truth was before I pulled out the card. SLOW DOWN. Sometimes, you just need to be reminded.

Cheers,
Matty C