By Neil Gorman in Newsletters — Apr 2, 2022

◉ Newsletter v.4.7 | Before You Talk to Me About "Being in the Moment"

Hello from the American Midwest.

Having little kids changes the way time works. One of the effects of having two little kids is that I spend far more time "in the moment," paying close attention to what my kids are doing. This is radically different than my life before kids when I could drift in and out of focusing on what was happening in front of me.

I'm "in the moment" mentally and physically when I'm with my kids. My mind is fixed on what the kids are doing, and I have to keep my body at the right level of proximity to the kids.

The proximity thing is challenging. It is constantly changing! One moment the kid is climbing something and getting too high. I have to get closer! The next moment the kid is exploring in a way that I don't want to interrupt, so I move back. It's this constant sort of ODOA loop. I make lots of minor physical adjustments, which you don't think would be that taxing, but it is.

Being very focused and "in the moment" a lot of the time is hard. It often leaves me physically tired and mentally spent.

In addition to this, like everyone else, I've been living in the Covid world for the past few years. Time does not work the same in the Covid world as it did in the before Covid world, which I lived in for 42 years.

All this is to say, time used to be something I could orient myself with, and now time is far less orienting than it was.

How are you?

-◉-

Working:

This is the last month of the Spring 2022 semester, and it is jam-packed-totally-full. I have so much grading to do and so many meetings to go to before the end of this month. All of that along the usual amount of teaching, seeing patients/analysands, and (as I wrote about above) caring for kids.

I fear that by the end of the month, I'll be like one of those instance people who looked into the eyes of the elder gods in an H.P. Lovecraft story.

So... Into the month of madness. Wish me luck!

Podcast:

I recorded an episode of InForm: Podcast with psychoanalyst Michael McAndrews this week. The interview is about Michael's formation as an analyst and his unique psychoanalytic work.

The internet connection was laggy, and I'm going to need to do more work in post-production to clean the interview up as much as possible. I'll get this done as soon as I can. The trick will be not to get too obsessed with making things perfect.

(Note to self: This is a podcast, and while I want it to sound good, it does not need to be NPR quality level!)

I'm working with Jason & Chris to set up the next installment of the Psychoanalytic Politics. I hope to get it nailed down ASAP.

I'm also talking to two potential guests, but I don't know if scheduling will work... If it does work out, the recording won't happen until mid-May. If I can land these two people, I'll be thrilled!

Writing:

I've been posting to [S][J][P] every day, and the result is nine short posts between my last newsletter and this one. The posts are short, and they are all focused on either writing, teaching, psychoanalysis, or some combination of these things.

When I was describing the style of the [S][J][P] site to a friend, I said, "Imagine a Daring Fireball style blog about psychoanalytic stuff. There are occasional bits about writing, teaching, academic life as well. But mostly it's about psychoanalysis."

Writing these short posts is fun. It does not take much time, and it is a good way to keep a notebook of quotes and ideas that I might use in other long-form writing at some point.

For those of you who use the wonderful thing that is RSS: Here is the RSS feed for [S][J][P].

Become a SUPPORTING Member of [S][J][P]!

It would help me offset the cost of hosting the podcasts, newsletters, and main [S][J][P] site.

Upgrade to a SUPPORTING Membership

Fin:

That's it for this week. Till next week, please, make glorious mistakes!

-N